All Things Must Pass

Thirza Ember: this week, it would have been the 73rd birthday of John Lennon, so I was looking for a beatles destination for us... the first destination today is the RL garden of George Harrison. It was designed and built by Mudpuddle Cleanslate, I hope you will enjoy it.

Star Ravenhurst: Sounds awesome Thirza

Thirza Ember: you may remember Mudpuddle's other build Pepperland and Pepperland 2... they are also here on Littlefield as is his build for Van Gogh, called Arles.

James atLLOUD: OH yes, very much.

Thirza Ember: he is very particular about the details

SIWAS S: (de:en)  I am excited 

Thirza Ember: welcome to Friar Park, this is a real house just outside London. Mudpuddle Cleanslate is a big Beatles fan - he built this; he is a professional at graphic art... as you can see

Star Ravenhurst: Nice entrance!

Forest Azure: some dog!

To the Manor Born

The best building is like the best writing - the rule 'write what you know' becomes 'build what you know'. That of course doesn't mean that people have to go to Jupiter before they can write a sci fi novel or make a Jovian EEP.  'Knowing' can be a flexible factor. Some people do lots of research, some look within themselves to find that magical harmony of design. Look at the builds on Outworldz, like Virunga, and their Alexandria build, blogged about here.  Or how about Tosha Tyran's Taj Mahal or Angkor Wat, or Dalaran, by Wendie Blackthorn over on Kinky Haven - thoroughly researched and thought through. The same goes for Nyx Breen and his Jazzland builds. Another great example is Star Ravenhurst's Land of Xzar - based on her own novel. You can think of a dozen more, no doubt. Add them in the comments section, if you'd like.

This is Serenity Manor on Serenity Grid, by Erwan Elan. If the grid name is familiar you may remember it from a post about a year ago about the Monet House. This region doesn't have the same aim at realistic precision as Monet's place, with its phenomenal attention to factual detail,  but it is a masterclass in authenticity of genre, instinctively right in tone and proportions. 

Amazing Mount Grace

Mount Grace is an ancient treasure in all realities. It was a Charterhouse, or Carthusian monastery. That's a religious order of Catholic monks, founded in 1084 just outside Grenoble, France. From that original monastery, the Grande Chartreuse - yes, where the liqueur comes from - other houses (branch offices, if you like) were founded by powerful pious men across Europe. They were built over the following centuries, often in quite harsh environments, which fitted in with the ethos of this particular form of worship. The wealthy and royally-connected Thomas de Holland financed Mount Grace in the one of the wildest parts of England, the North Yorkshire moors. 

The year was 1398, the era of  The Canterbury Tales, the Peasant's Revolt,  and the Hundred Years War - great for fiction, but less fun if you want political stability, or to grow old in peace. Within two years of founding Mount Grace, Thomas and most of his allies were dead. The monastery survived this early setback, however, and thrived for several centuries until - well, the answer to that is on the sim.

Not only the real Mount Grace has had to face setbacks and changes. This build by Christi Maeterlinck has had iterations as grids and hosts come and go. This build first appears in the HG Safari blog back in 2011   after a time on NWG, it moved to OSGrid, and more recently found a home on Science Circle grid, where it's on a 4x4 VAR giving plenty of space to convey the wooded uplands of North Yorkshire, and the large land holdings - fields, fish ponds, and woods - that provided wealth and sustenance for the religious house. The current HG Address is, of course, at the end of the post.

Christii Maeterlinck: It's good to have a home for Mount Grace after years of wandering in different servers and grids. strictly speaking, I'm here because the person who runs this grid, has made it available to the Science Circle members; and I happen to have joined Science Circle; I suppose it'll attract the sort of people who belong to the Science Grid... and they're a very varied bunch. 

Tosha's Towers

 For our second stop on this week's adventure around the hyperverse, we went over to see a build by Tosha Tyran on Craft Grid Tosha is famed for her reconstructions of real world places, including the Taj Mahal, India; a Hopi village, Arizona; the city of Timbuktu, Mali; and the Guggenheim Museum in Barcelona.

This one's in Cambodia - the famed Angkor Wat.

If the build looks familiar to you, there's an earlier Safari blog post about it here, but this was our first opportunity to explore as a group. If you go alone, you'll have plenty of company - there are about 25 NPCs around the build, adding atmosphere and context.  

The arrival point is sets the scene immediately - as jungle and architecture vie for supremacy.

Tosha Tyran: I would like to tell you a bit about Angkor wat, ok?

Wizardoz Chrome: yesss :)

Fallingwater Finale

 Camryn Darkstone is a gem of a builder, and this her version of Fallingwater is a triumph in every way. It's beautiful, it's harmonious, it's informative, and it's fun. 

Together with Littlefield grid owner Walter Balazic, she ported the sim from its original place of creation in SL to their grid almost ten years ago, when Littlefield opened.

Walter and Camryn 

The Fallingwater logo is not, as might seem, a Japanese ideogram. Instead it represents the shape of the house and its cascade, although perhaps you can see a F and a L in the pattern also.

The house is primarily a prim build, indeed, it was begun before Mesh was even a thing in SL. Yet the quality of the construction is so perfect that the house, as it does in RL, seems to float above the torrent.