An interactive simulation environment visualized technological approaches that city planners and architects of the future would be working with. This installation was an expanded spin-off of “Gulliver’s World,” the Ars Electronica Center’s mixed reality environment, and used a simple urban planning model as an example illustrating concrete application possibilities. Visitors could manipulate the various scenarios with haptic tools.
City Puzzle Credit: Ars Electronica Futurelab
FL City Puzzle. Children design a city with Magic Boxes. Credit: Pilo
The installation’s central table made several different worlds available. With Magic Boxes, a city could be created out of various urban architectural elements (buildings of different types and for different uses). The individually laid-out city blocks reacted to one another, so it didn’t take long for ill-conceived ensembles—areas that were too densely developed, for instance—to make their presence felt. A network of streets took shape among the city blocks; the flow of traffic reacted to the architectural facts and circumstances, and simulated the way modern, real-time traffic management systems function.
Credits
Research & Development: Manuel Bauer, Robert Bogner, Daniel Fellsner, Roland Haring, Horst Hörtner, Andreas Jalsovec, Michael Lankes, Christopher Lindinger, Pascal Maresch, Jürgen Nussbaummüller