Aren't you describing behaviors? Like a journal would automatically zoom
in and present a new series of navigatory options while you're reading it
and would fold back up for storage when you exit that format? It seems
that it's not aspace issue so much as one of defning behavior hooks in our
objects. How bout opening the file cabinet in "office space" leads to a
hyperlinked subject retrieval mechanism that dominates the screen until you
quit that program. This allows for external program linking and this is
what the local server will be good for with its pre-established database
and methods of operation.
I would urge all the readers of the list to stop living in the real
world so much and start going virtual in the sense that one of the greatest
benefits of VR is that it allows us to re-conceptualize our interactions
with the space around us in the most efficient way (barring implementation
limitations). Why create another boring office when you can have the Grand
Canyon as your workspace with gesture-activated menuing? Who knows? I
think the key ideas of books like Benedikt's "Cyberspace" and Rheingold's
works are that the point is not to move 3d into cyberspace, but to create a
wholly new space in which we can redefine what it means to participate in a
"physical" (in quotes because of the situation) environment.
Always just my $.02, but why recreate the same crappy office
environment or even our homes when we can have the Garden of Eden?