Imagine, if you will, a virtual city in four dimensions existing on a world that resembles a convoluted mobius strip. Go on, then. What do you mean your brain doesn't quite stretch that far?

A quick trip to New York's Museum of Modern Art might put your mind at rest. There you can visit New City, an architecturally considered virtual world projected onto a wraparound cavern of 12 screens. Visitors can immerse themselves in the environment as the surround-vision film unfurls.

At its very simplest, New City is an online space, a virtual world in the vein of Second Life. But where it differs is that it has been created with design in mind and with a desire to push boundaries. Peter Frankfurt, co-founder of production and design studio Imaginary Forces, created the project in collaboration with his friends, architectural designer Greg Lynn and feature film production designer Alex McDowell. "Second Life is like going to a bunch of strip malls - it's so uninspiring. There's so much more it could be," he explains. "All this stuff is happening but no one's thinking about how it will look or feel."

Frankfurt had already worked with Lynn on several architectural pre-visualisations - the films architects show clients to give an idea how a building will feel. The pre-vis approach inspired the style of New City. It's a city which also happens to hold the entire world - Europe, Asia, Africa are all represented there - but instead of fitting onto a sphere, it sits on a manifold, a series of donuts with similar properties to a mobius strip. And the decision to present it in the 12-screen structure makes it the most immersive virtual world.

On a practical level, New City is a space where architects and designers can experiment with structures that would not be possible in reality. But, says Frankfurt, that's only the beginning. They're looking at different possible ways to use and develop it - Frankfurt sees enormous potential, both commercial and artistic. He also hopes the project will continue to develop as they bring on board more diverse collaborators. He is currently, for example, looking for a novelist who could create an immersive narrative for New City.

The viewing pod is currently part of MoMA's Design and the Elastic Mind exhibition, which seeks to bring together technological advances and creative disciplines. Potentially, New City could be accessed via such pods spread across the world just as easily as through PDAs and computer screens. Certainly the immersive screening structure has captured the imaginations of its audience. "It was really fun at the exhibition's opening," says Frankfurt. "It was really, really stone-y. Really trippy. Heaps of people were just standing there, staring, going 'wow'."