An exhibit titled "Blockbuster: Imagining a Future Fabric for Northwest Arkansas" considers how Northwest Arkansas could look after 40 years of continued growth.

This exhibit will be on display at the Fayetteville Public Library, 401 W. Mountain St., through the end of October.

The population of the four major cities is expected to double or triple in size by 2050, with the region's population expected to reach 1 million by 2050, according to Visioning Rail Transit in Northwest Arkansas, a study done by the University of Arkansas Community Design Center.

To illustrate the expected growth, Carl Smith, assistant professor of landscape architecture in the Fay Jones School of Architecture, created an exhibit using 25,000 tiny, wooden blocks. The blocks represent the estimated 25,000 new homes for Bentonville in that time. Fayetteville could expect another 37,500 new homes.

The exhibit is on display on the library's second floor.

In the "Blockbuster" exhibit, previously on display at the sUgAR gallery in Bentonville, those homes are represented by wooden blocks, each about 1 inch long and a half-inch deep and tall. These tiny blocks stand in for roughly 2,000-square-foot houses.

Smith created this exhibit with Bethany Springer, assistant professor of art in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.

The exhibit is also a chance for Smith to collect data. A questionnaire, which asks questions about open spaces and lot sizes, is available at the library's public information desks and at the exhibit site. He will use the data collected to learn more about growth in the area.

Smith will be on hand at 1 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 16, to talk with the public about this exhibit and the questionnaires. He plans to be there again at 1 p.m. Oct. 30.

For more information, visit www.faylib.org or call 479-856-7000.