Eric Sanderson, ecologist and creator of Mannahatta 1609 and the Welikia Project, is now leading a team to create a new version of Mannahatta: an interactive tool that will let visitors experiment with the design of the city of the future. On the following video, prepared by ArtsFwd.org for the Rockefeller Foundation, you can see the development of Mannahatta 2409 taking shape.
As described on the website for the project:
“Mannahatta 2409 will be a map-based web application meant to inspire, inform, and generate new ideas about sustainable urban forms from the many diverse people who love New York City, Manhattan in particular. We want to engage everyone, from city officials to schoolchildren, in the search for ecologically informed sustainability, as measured by ecological performance indicators related to of carbon, water, biodiversity, and population.”
The project is planned to launch in the Spring of 2013. Progress can be followed on:
welikia.org/email/newsletter-signup/
Mannahatta 2409 is a project of Dr. Eric Sanderson and the Wildlife Conservation Society in partnership with the City of New York Office of City Planning, Terrapin Bright Green, and Human Nature Projects, and is a recipient of a 2011 Rockefeller Foundation Cultural Innovation Fund award.