About Box City

Box City is an annual event that takes place during the International Festival of Arts & Ideas in New Haven, CT, where children of all ages help create a visionary, temporary, recyclable model city of the future.

Box City has a long history at the Festival. In 2020, for the first time ever, Box City went Virtual and used this website to collect and showcase contributions from across our community.

A view of Box City in Minecraft at the end of June 2020

Upcoming Events

Box City will be back again during next year’s International Festival of Arts & Ideas. Check back here and follow our page on Facebook for updates.

News & Related Reading

Can Removing Highways Fix America’s Cities?

In recent years, more cities have started to seriously rethink some of their highways. The Congress for the New Urbanism, a group that tracks highway removals, counted 33 proposed projects in 28 American cities. And the idea is being discussed in many others. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/05/27/climate/us-cities-highway-removal.html

Get Involved

Volunteers for Box City play many vital roles for the duration of the event including welcoming new participants, distributing building permits, handing out materials, staffing paint and hot-glue stations, and offering advice and guidance.

2020 marked the first ever Virtual Box City, and we’ll do it again next year. If you would like to join us in planning next year’s Box City, sign up here: