Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Haemosu Park v.2 Phase Two - Done (for now)


We found a wonderful trampoline -- excuse me, Parabolic Trajectory Enhancer -- at Mr. Greggan's Land and put it on the opposite end of the park from the original playground location. But then we moved the playground equipment down there too.

We did a bit more over the next couple of weeks and now the project is essentially finished, for now (with just a few finishing touches yet to come). We will be planning a grand opening ceremony soon.

Although it's not located at the center, the real centerpiece of this project is a bandstand we created based on the idea of community parks in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in America. I built the bandstand and Morgana provided the texturing expertise. We plan to use it to host events and games, and also to open it for community use. Even though we don't live on this land anymore, we still consider our neighbors to be actual neighbors, and we are trying to do what we can to create a space that brings beauty and some sense of theme to our small piece of the Second Life mainland.

Too much of the mainland has been given over to tacky malls, casinos and sprawl without purpose or plan. We're glad that Haemosu, after some growing pains earlier, has settled into some measure of stability as a residential area. The park will hopefully provide an anchor to help keep it that way.

To that end, we've added picnic tables and a cooking fire with some scripted food items. Come have a burger and talk with your friends around the tables... that's what they're there for.

This overhead shot shows the layout from end to end, not that you need a map to find your way around. Come visit.

Monday, May 7, 2007

Haemosu Park v.2 Phase One


The first phase is a small playground. Come by and try the swings, bring a friend and ride the see-saw.

More to come, but this is a good start.

Sunday, May 6, 2007

Haemosu Park v 2.0 -- coming soon


As you may know, Morgana and I homesteaded for a short time on two plots of First Land in a region called Haemosu, and when we moved to our home in Winterfell, we kept them and turned them into a park.

For a long time, we just had the two plots, free of tier fees under the now-defunct First Land program. A couple of neighboring landowners liked the idea and joined us in the project, adding their land to the park and helping us landscape and equip it.



Since then, things have changed. One of the neighbors chose to sell his five 512-square-meter plots, and in the interest of keeping the park alive, we bought four of them.

We've decided the park as it was, developed haphazardly by multiple landscapers with no overall plan, had gotten to be too chaotic, so we've stripped our holdings down to bare grass rimmed in hedges and are beginning now to plan the rebirth.

We'll post pictures of our progress here.