The University of Houston is buying an island on Second Life! It’ll be used for the school’s Department of Health and Human Performance and the Texas Obesity Research Center.

Plans call for an interactive campus where students and professors adopt avatars to walk (or fly) around campus or teleport to any number of thousands of other islands.

Virtual doesn’t come cheap. UH paid $1,700 for the island and pays Linden Research another $300 a month in rent.

Not cheap?? You try renting an entire campus for $300 a month. You could hardly get a dorm room for that. But the best thing about UH’s new space is clearly its high quality design.

A virtual architect designed and built the campus as a very, very loose replica of the real thing “with better architecture,” says Associate Professor Brian McFarlin.

After the jump: More views of the beautiful UH-Virtual!

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Here’s the landing pad:

Where are the parking lots?

Among the apparent improvements to the campus: better materials, fewer design cliches, less flooding, no soil or foundation problems, plus . . . outdoor air conditioning!

Good thing that UH flag was flying when we landed. Otherwise, you might confuse this place with some other school.

Here’s a Texas Obesity Research Center meeting room:

Gravity free!

• UH acquires virtual ‘island’ to give campus Second Life [Houston Business Journal]
• HHP in Second Life [UH College of Education]
• Second Life a First For UH Department of Health and Human Performance [University of Houston]
• Grounds Tour [University of Virginia]