Month: September 2020

Lotus Mastroianni and Fred Hamilton (frecoi) are back with another region design that will likely be around for a month(ish) for people to enjoy. Their most recent builds have tended to have an urban design rooted in the physical world, starting with their take on a Brazilian favela back in May of 2020 (see:  Visiting A Favela in Second Life), and this latest design continues this theme, appearing to be inspired by a part of a place that lies very close to my heart.

With A Thousand Windows, Fred and Lotus seems to take as their inspiration the tight-knit tenement blocks located in the Mong Kok district of Hong Kong’s Kowloon peninsula. Mong Kok is a place I’ve visited on numerous occasions in my life (notably as a result of once living in Hong Kong many, many, years ago). I say this because, while there is no outright pointer to Mong Kok within the build, parts of it appear to pay clear homage to the district.

Take the 737 airliner passing overhead, for example; to me, it sits as a reminder that the district once lay beneath one of the approaches airliners had to make in order to touch-down at Hong Kong’s former airport at Kai Tak, a short distance away.  An approach that had aircraft practically scraping the roofs of the tenements, as made famous in many a photograph.

Elsewhere, in fairness, the region could have been inspired by any number of densely-packed housing units in the orient, but for me, Mong Kok is the place it brings to mind, even if Kai Tak did cease operations more than 20 years ago, having been replaced by a much larger, purpose-built facility built (much like Kai Tak) on reclaimed land, but out at Chek Lap Kok island, sitting off the north coast of Lantau. However, the focus of the build isn’t airlines or airports, but rather the densely-packed nature of the old tenements and the lives that go on within them.

There is a huge world out there, but what happens behind all those windows? what lives and worlds are hiding there? How many eyes peer into the fleeting reflections of so many lights?

– About Land, A Thousand Windows

This is actually a question I can remember asking myself, both as a youngster living in Kong Kong, and as an adult tourist who has made many return visits. With their shoebox sized (by western standards) living spaces, stacked one atop the next in grey, slab-like concrete towers cut through with narrow roads and alleys set back from the broader through routes of places like Yua Ma Tei occupying the main thrust of the Kowloon peninsula, parts of Mong Kok always struck me with a sense of mystery as to what was going on behind the blinds-shouded windows and narrow verandahs strung with laundry that so often formed the face of the squat tor blocks as they looks at the world.

All this is marvellously captured with Lotus and Fred’s design, which has been ideally set within a twilight environment to emphasise the volume of windows representative of people packed into so tight a space.

Set within four façades representative of five floors of apartment blocks, the region presents a number of tower blocks of similar height with narrow streets and alleys running between them. Neon signs hang from the sides of buildings and laundry hangs from verandahs – again a common sight I remember from Mong Kok. Most of the buildings within the setting are shells, although one or two contain interiors, making exploration worthwhile.

As well as the narrow streets sitting within their concrete canyons, the region offers elevated walkways from which the view can be appreciated, as well as offering the way to some outdoor spaces. And if you look hard enough, you might find an elevator leading up to the rooftops of one gathering of blocks, a couple of seats located just a across the roof from the elevator top from which to admire the view of the 737 passing overhead – and the visitors passing below.

Opportunities for photography, either by day or night, can be found throughout – as can be seen in the Flickr stream Lotus and Fred use for their builds. I admit to finding the sound scape accompanying the build a little odd – particularly the loud buzzing of flies (although that could perhaps be hornets of wasps, both of which could be a summertime nuisance in Hong Kong when I was little) but this can easily be ignored, leaving one to remain fully immersed in the setting.

All told, another enticing, attractive build. And just in case you haven’t seen photos of airliners over the actual Mong Kok district, I’ll leave you with the following.

SLurl Details

• A Thousand Windows (You and Me, rated Adult)

In February 2020, we visited The Muse, a Homestead region designed by the superbly named “United Nerds of Building” (see: Finding The Muse in Second Life). Earlier this month, I received a note from Liss Beattie, that The Muse’s owner, Tribish Tammas, has both relocated and redesigned The Muse, so we took the opportunity to hop over and take a look.

Still occupying a Homestead region, The Muse retains some elements from the design we saw back in February, whilst also offering an entirely new look. As with the previous design, The Muse remains split between a core ground-level build and a sky platform, with the stated aim of the region being to offer a “space for couples, lovers, and friends to relax and spend time together”.

The main landing point is located in the the ground-level setting, on the south side of the region. Backed by a flat-topped bluff with grassy slopes to its seaward side, the landing point sits within the ruins of an ancient building – perhaps an aged temple – with a westward view towards the surrounding mountains. These sit beyond a small island that appears to have been formed by the local water cutting a channel to separate what had once been a headland.

Reached via a stone bridge that arches between two weather-beaten and somewhat decrepit gates, this little island is home to one of the elements seen within the previous design: an open-air Elven Ballroom.

The bluff behind the landing point runs east and then north, forming a low-lying table of land, its landward faces formed by rocky cliffs over which a waterfall tumbles to feed a stream that winds its way across the region. In doing so, it neatly cuts the lowlands into two unequal parts. On one of these sits a single barn, converted to an adult play area, surrounded by a sea of flowers. On the other, close to the rocky plateau, is a more expansive ruin that sits close to a place that winds up to the top of plateau.

Two bridges span the stream,providing easy passage between the two parts of the lowlands, while a third bridge reaches across a further channel of water to reach a north-eastern island.

The north-eastern island has a backbone of cliffs against which the intriguing bulk of The Retreat from The Looking Glass sit.. In the last iteration of The Muse we visited, this formed a mystical library. Now it fulfils more of the role of being a home, its westward aspect commanding a view across the region’s lowlands, ruins, barn and Elven Ballroom all visible among the trees sprinkled across the landscape. Also visible from this vantage point is a large garden bar sitting at the north end of the main island, a comfortable walk from both this house and the barn.

The sky platform is reached via teleport from the landing point (you’ll need to accept the region’s experience when asked). As  per the previous iteration of the design, it offers a large dance floor with and animated finish and now bracketed by a pair of floating islands  – one the teleport point, the other offering space for Tai chi exercise. It is watched over by a blue whale that swims through the air above it, and the eye of a large moon that slowly orbits the dance floor along with the stars and nebula of skybox surrounding the platform.

Throughout both settings, ground and sky, are numerous opportunities for dancing and / or sitting and relaxing, whilst on the ground, the islands are nicely rounded-off by a natural sound-scape.

One of the charms of The Muse when we last visited was the manner in which it comprised a series of individual vignettes loosely woven together by the setting in which they sat, rather than presenting a truly contiguous whole. It was both eclectic and yet complete, the various areas offering their own individuality but nevertheless flowing together as a whole.

This new iteration presents farm more a feeling of being a contiguous whole at ground level, a single environments with multiple points of interest. On the one hand, this means the current Muse perhaps lacks the eclectic mix of the old, but on the other, it means it offers its own unique look and feel – that of a temperate island that has seen the passage of time and human habitation, and is now a retreat from the pains and pressures of the world, ready to greet and comfort all who visit it.

SLurl Details

• The Muse (Consensual Kinks, rated Adult)