Second Life‘s Dreams is a place for people to let their imaginations play freely and learn new building skills in a supportive, friendly environment. In addition to providing building tutorials and a sandbox for members, it offers one-on-one support for Second Life members with challenges that prevent them from easily taking an active part in Second Life.

A popular Dreams event is its monthly building competition, "Building on the 512". in which competitors can build whatever they want, as long they use no more than 117 prims on a plot of 512 square meters. Prims (short for primitives) are the basic building blocks of Second Life Virtually everything is made from prims. Prims can be shaped, textured, and combined to form an object such as a house, a piece of furniture, a vehicle, or a tree.

In the current Building on the 512 contest, competitors began building on July 30, 2009 and must complete by August 9. Awards will be announced August 15. The first picture shows Hig Bing’s entry. The second picture is Tiger Duesenburg’s entry, and the third picture shows from left to right entries by Franja Russell, Thor Effingham, and Dahlia Jinx.
 

Dreams was founded by The Sojourner, a stroke survivor and one of Second Life’s early members, who also founded the group Shockproof, a support group for stroke survivors. A widely loved and respected Second Life member, her death in 2008 of cardiac arrest triggered a massive outpouring of grief. You can read more about The Sojourner and her memorial at New World Notes.

Today, Dreams offers tutorials, support, and encouragement to anyone who wants to develop building skills, regardless of what personal challenges a person may (or may not) possess. Second Life members can visit the Dreams store at slurl.com/secondlife/Dreams/161/71/27 and can visit the current competition at slurl.com/secondlife/Dreams/131/142/26. If you are interested in learning more or becoming part of Dreams, contact either Golda Stein or Dorie Bernstein in Second Life.

Here are more pictures from the competition:

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Architecture is one of the fields where professionals are finding Second Life to be a very productive tool. One residential construction company using it for designing real life houses is Madison, Wisconsin‘s Crescendo Design, whose founder Jon Brouchoud (Keystone Bouchard in Second Life) has collaborated on the design and construction of several high profile projects such as the virtual U.S. House of Representatives and writes an architecture blog.

This machinima shows an example of Crescendo Design using Second Life to construct a model house in Second Life based on real life architectural plans, accompanied by the inspiring music of Beethoven‘s Ninth Symphony.