Through emerging media, Ball State's College of Architecture and Planning (CAP) has given Indiana a viable economic driver—one that's revolutionizing design and manufacturing.

Operating within the online virtual world of Second Life, CAP students are working with their counterparts in Central and South America to design a real downtown Indianapolis hotel that could be quickly transformed into a medical facility.

Through the Las Americas Network, a collaborative exchange involving a number of Latin American architecture programs and coordinated by Ball State, the participants are designing a surge hospital via their Second Life avatars. The Las Americas Virtual Design Studio is believed to be the first university studio of its kind, and certainly of this scale, according to Guillermo Vasquez de Velasco, dean of CAP.

"The building's primary role will be a hotel, which downtown Indianapolis needs to help fulfill its role as a host city for events like the Super Bowl," he says. "And in the event of major medical emergency, the building will be able to supplement hospital functions by taking noncritical patients from neighboring facilities, which would free up more bed space in trauma hospitals."

Along with solving bed-space problems, Ball State is using emerging media to help a bedrock Indiana industry. Kevin Klinger, director of Ball State's Institute for Digital Fabrication, worked with a group of students to develop SmartScrap, a system that recycles limestone scraps from Indiana Limestone Fabricators into usable limestone that can be sold for profit.

The scrap is cataloged by scanning the pieces and creating a digital inventory. Then a computer uses parametric design software to figure out how the shapes can be combined. SmartScrap is not limited to limestone, either; it can be applied to many different forms of manufacturing waste.

These projects provide a mere sampling of the potential of emerging media for Indiana's economy. It's much more than simply a medium to advance video and gaming technology; it's a viable way to boost the future of our state's economy today.