Little City Builder Interactive at the Please Touch Museum

West Fairmount Park is an area with incredible amenities born of a rich history. In 1876, the area of the park just north of Parkside Avenue was home to the Centennial Exposition, which celebrated the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia 100 years earlier. The Exposition was the first World’s Fair to be held in the United States and attracted nearly 10 million visitors.

Summer 2017 promises to be an exciting time of year in West Fairmount Park, with the ongoing construction of the Parkside Edge project as part of the Centennial Commons and crowds coming for events at the Mann Center, visiting Kelly Pool, and other weekend events.  The Please Touch Museum is a popular destination for families year round.  Adding to the summer programming is a one-of-a-kind pop-up exhibit designed by five PennDesign students working with PennPraxis—the consulting and community engagement arm of the University of Pennsylvania School of Design.

Access to the exhibit—called the Little City Builder Interactive—will be included with Please Touch Museum admission, and will invite both children and adults to construct a cityscape using over-sized foam blocks that will respond to users’ actions and promote the development of a “sustainable city.”  The exhibit introduces basic principles of smart growth, such as compact development and access to open space, creating harmonious living with one another’s neighbors, and realizing agency in shaping the world.

The project was organized by PennDesign alumni Darcy Anders (MCP 2017); Liz Colletti (MCP 2017), Lyndon DeSalvo (MCP 2017), Nate Hammitt (HSPV, MArch 2016), and Stephanie Margolis (MCP 2017), in conjunction with the Please Touch Museum and Hive76. Little City Builder Interactive is the result of the PennDesign team’s interest in sustainable urban development, Hive76’s creative problem-solving and engineering, and the Please Touch Museum’s expertise in “purposeful play” for children.

Additional educational materials and programming will supplement the interactive exhibit, with the goal of testing new mechanisms of programming and partnerships at the Museum, and expanding its engagement outside its walls.

Little City Builder Interactive will be on view for a limited time beginning August 18, 2017.