Future Perfect’s workshop

Liam Young, architect, film director and curator, settled in the Sinel de Cordes Palace, in two different moments of preparations for the Triennale 2013, on 18/19 May and between 29 July and 9 August, for the workshop Future Perfect. 

The aim is to develop a second phase of development of a large scale model (40m2) of a city of the future whose construction began in Eindhoven in 2012 as part of the think tank Under Tomorrow's Sky held at the MU Foundation, in partnership with the Lisbon Triennale. This intensive workshop, in which master's degree architecture students from Instituto Superior Técnico participated, result in one of the central elements of the central exhibition of the 3rd edition of the Triennale, Future Perfect. 

Curated by Liam Young, the homonymous exhibition consists of an immersive experience that recreates the city of the future, based on ongoing research in areas such as biosciences, robotics, multimedia and 3D design. Composed of five areas called districts, the exhibition offers an intense sensorial experience of the urban habitat of the future in which the visitor is invited to travel and explore. 

Made up of extraordinarily complex buildings produced in 3D printing, light systems, fiber optics and decorated with detailed paintings and graffiti, this model was held in a learning environment and disciplinary crossings which expanded the territories of traditional architectural models. This hyper-real urban landscape was anchored in a world of fiction and popular culture, combining Liam Young's background, with a long tradition in film production and fiction, in a unique opportunity to learn innovative techniques from experts in the field and join the Triennale's creative team. The participants of this workshop were awarded credits from the Order of Architects, thus enhancing the academic curriculum.

As part of Close, Closer, the third edition of the Lisbon Architecture Triennale, the exhibition opens on 12 September 2013 at Museu da Electricidade and remains open until 15 December. On 20 May, at 12:00, Liam Young, a professor at the Architectural Association and Princeton University, gave a lecture at the Instituto Superior Técnico (at the Amphitheater of the Interdisciplinary Complex).

Moving across the spectrum of design, fiction and the future, Liam is the founder of the ideas lab Tomorrows Thoughts Today, a group that explores the possibilities of fantastic, perverse and imaginary urbanism, and responsible for the nomadic workshop Unknown Fields Division, which goes on annual expeditions to the diverse places on earth to investigate unreal and forgotten landscapes, strange lands and industrial ecologies. You can learn more about his work here.