Monday 28 January 2008

Insead Revisited

Earlier this month I clocked up the first year of this blog, and since then I have been pondering what to do and where to go next. I am getting more than a little bored with grinding through commercial sites, yet I seem to have little enthusiasm for inworld events and meetings. I am largely happy to leave all of the deep thinking stuff to folks who like to think deeply. It takes me long enough to write these posts - so the prospect of writing a learned thesis for every post frankly appals me. So where next? Well, one thought I have entertained is to revisit some of the places I have blogged in the past, to see how they have changed. While this thought was bouncing around inside my head I received a comment on an old post - from April last year - informing me that the site was now finished and open to visitors.

The site in question is Insead, an international business school that offers MBA courses and the like to aspiring business folk. Seemingly it has taken 8 months to get to the now-completed sim - though actually I suspect it was finished much longer ago, or there has been some sort of hiatus during the construction. Whatever the facts of the matter, I think it is a great place to visit. The architecture, which seemed interesting and unusual enough first time around, has been tweaked and adjusted to squeeze the most out of it. In fact, it reminded me of some of Scope Cleaver's more intriguing constructions - high praise indeed. As well as the buildings, the furniture is fun, funky and imaginative. Perhaps others may not like it, but it certainly appeals to my sense of aesthetics.

I did not get much time to have a thorough exploration of the island, but I did see that there is a lot to do here. From the "laboratory" a number of teleports will whisk you off to various test areas on the sim (or more accurately, above the sim). One I encountered, for example, invited me to choose and buy a pair of trainers, then try them out. This was supported by a number of forms, but I confess that I just rushed through this, and didn't stop to read and inwardly digest. But maybe you will! Here's some updated pictures:

As to where next for this blog... that will remain moot. For now, I reckon it will (continue to) be a combo of new builds, revisits and general ramblings. If I come up with a better idea - you will be the first to know. :-)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

That does look most attractive indeed! That calibre of design genuinely qualifies as virtual architecture, I'd say - that is, pushing the realms of design well beyond what would be practical, let alone possible, in RL. And why not? A beautiful building doesn't cost anything more (other than the fee charged by the designer, of course) than a dully utilitarian construct.

That said, there naturally are some architects with some rather unorthodox plans in mind, as with this tower planned for Dubai, where each floor can rotate around the concrete core. (The interfloor wind turbines seem as if they could be an excellent idea, too, generating enough power for itself, and neighboring buildings too)

Hopefully the rotation won't be quite as fast as that shown, though. =:)