Experiments with Level Streaming: the 1918 Gymnasium addition

My research in 2002 revealed that the school was originally built without an athletic wing. So, in creating a model of how the school looked when it opened in 1914 cannot include this portion of the building. However, it was the pool and main entrance from the gym addition that initially struck my interest in the entire project, and historic architecture in general: my Freshman biology class was located where the pool once was, and my teacher showed me the now-hidden door where the football team used to come in from practice. The changes in the building made me want to learn more, which led me to the Champaign County Historic Archives, and ultimately to create a slide presentation, website, and the UHS: 1914 project. So, the gym addition needed to be included, but how?

Additional research over the past few weeks confirmed that the school was built without a gym/pool, despite what the plans at the Historic Archives show. Only a handful of photographs show the building from this short period of it's history: 

"The New Urbana High School" from the 1915 Rosemary. The big empty space on the right of the photo is where the gym was to be built.

An additional photo, taken from a postcard. The slim line of white on the far right shows that the gym addition has not yet been built, and places this photo as sometime early 1915.

This dated photo shows that in late November of 1915, construction still had not started.

By fall 1916, construction had started, as shown by this photo of the football team from the 1917 Rosemary:

Numerous updates about the construction are included in the Echo (the school newspaper), and enough of the building was completed to warrant this cartoon:

However, an Echo from March 1918 mentions that the gym is not yet completed:

These is no subsequent mention of the building being completed, only mentions of the facilities not being used to their potential in April of 1918:

Presumably, meeting minutes from the Board of Education would clear up when the gym was first opened. I used to refer to the Gym addition as the "1916 addition" because that is when construction started, but this additional research puts the completion date as some time in the spring of 1918. There is also the added confusion that someone has written "1925" as the date in pencil on the plans for the gym addition, but that is only when the balcony was added (a subsequent blog entry for THAT!). 

So, the final decision will be to complete the UHS: 1914 project as-is, with the building appearing as it did in 1914, but with the option of adding the gym addition given to the player. The solution I have to this is Level Streaming. A very concise video from Mathew Wadstein gives a good explanation of how this works:

Essentially, I will have the building split into three levels. The first is the main 1914 building, but without the rear wall:

The second will be only the rear wall: 

Here are the two both displayed at the same time, as they will be when viewed by the player:

The third level will be the gym portion (yet to be constructed, so no screenshot). The player will have the ability to add the gym/pool addition, and when that happens, the rear wall will also disappear. I also plan to have a "future site of" sign displayed in the 1914 version so that it is apparent what is going on.