CityWorks: A Dazzling Journey Through Urban Infrastructure
CityWorks reveals the engineering and decision making that allows cities of all sizes, including New York City, to function. Woven through displays that explain how the infrastructure functions are interactive experiences that encourage visitors to explore how natural and built systems are integrated, how people impact the landscape, and how we can rethink cities to address the challenges of climate change in the future.
What to Expect
CityWorks will focus on five different aspects of city infrastructure. Each section of the exhibit includes an explanation on how each system has traditionally functioned and evolved over time, as well as what will be potential future challenges each could face as cities continue to adapt.
Transportation
Explore how it works, from subways, buses, sidewalks, and roads to engineering, management, and design. Consider future challenges including growing populations, transportation of goods, transit efficiency, and environmental impact.
Water & Wastewater
Explore how it works: NYC watershed and distribution systems, combined sewers, and treatment plant processes. Consider future challenges: system maintenance and repairs, and updates to plan for sewage overflow events with changing climate.
Sanitation
Explore how it works: garbage landfill, recycling, compost, e-waste, construction debris, etc. Consider future challenges: explore the implications of our waste streams, and investigate some ways to reconsider our waste management for the future.
Construction & Urban Development
Explore how it works: how the iconic NYC skyline is built - materials, engineering, and processes. Consider future challenges: updating, maintaining, retrofitting, and demolition, to make buildings more resilient, efficient, and adaptable for our changing needs.
Integrated Systems
The final section looks at three simulated city neighborhoods – one residential, one central business hub, and one industrial, coastal area – to reveal how changes in one type of infrastructure have effects on other systems and on the quality of life in the neighborhood as a whole. The interactive exhibit utilizes digital twin technology and real NYC data drawn from open data sources to allow visitors to see how their decisions impact the urban landscape.
City Residents & Workers as the Heart of Cities
Because residents and workers are a city’s most powerful levers for driving change and building a sustainable and more livable future, CityWorks focuses on the workers who design, build and maintain cities, from engineers and scientists to sandhogs, sanitation and park workers. The exhibit highlights the roles of people as stewards of a city’s systems and includes audio and written text in each section that allows you to hear directly from workers. We hope you leave the exhibition with urban planning ideas of your own.
Interactive & Hands On
As befitting a science and technology museum that asks visitors to touch the world around them, CityWorks will be a tactile experience, allowing guests to simulate driving a bus, observe the city from the perspective of a pigeon, load a garbage truck, build a skyscraper, design a park and even see what lies beneath a city’s manhole cover. The exhibition and a range of related programming will use NYSCI's “Design, Make, Play” to integrate CityWorks and science learning.
A Unique, Multi-Sector Collaboration
NYSCI thanks the following collaborators for their critical contributions to CityWorks: Science Museum of Minnesota, BetaNYC, Trivium Interactive, Moey Inc., and ShowFab. We also thank broader collaborators including State and City agencies, academic experts, and city residents for their input.
Funding for CityWorks was provided by The Freedom Together Foundation, The State of New York, Ravenel B. Curry III, Sara Lee Schupf and the Lubin Family Foundation, The Lily Auchincloss Foundation, and General Motors.
Funding for CityWorks was provided by The Freedom Together Foundation, The State of New York, Ravenel B. Curry III, Sara Lee Schupf and the Lubin Family Foundation, The Lily Auchincloss Foundation, and General Motors.
