An interactive simulation environment visualizes technological approaches that city planners and architects of the future will be working with. This installation is an expanded spin-off of “Gulliver’s World,” the Ars Electronica Center’s mixed reality environment, and uses a simple urban planning model as an example illustrating concrete application possibilities. Visitors can manipulate the various scenarios with haptic tools.

The installation’s central table makes several different worlds available. With Magic Boxes, a city can be created out of various urban architectural elements (buildings of different types and for different uses). The individually laid-out city blocks react to one another, so it doesn’t take long for ill-conceived ensembles—areas that are too densely developed, for instance—to make their presence felt. A network of streets takes shape among the city blocks; the flow of traffic reacts to the architectural facts and circumstances, and simulates the way modern, real-time traffic management systems function.

A specially designed Wind Tool lets users determine wind speed and direction. Pound on the table to trigger a virtual earthquake and then observe its aftermath.