One plus one equals three: the seventh barrier to innovation in MUVEs

'In design, one plus one equals three or sometimes more.'
Josef Albers (1969)

'Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones.'
Herbert Simon (1969)

We make design decisions all of the time and Second Life offers particular design challenges that demand us to address not only our teaching approaches but also space, architecture and aesthetics. The art of design is not a natural skill but one that is learned and developed – Simon called for a science of design. Albers captures the complexity of design in the quote above, one that acknowledges the multi-layered nature of design and the multiple interactions that occur between these design layers when they come together.

'When I’m working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.'
Richard Buckminster Fuller

My question is - are we as educators in virtual worlds equal to this challenge?