Speculative architect Liam Young, the co-founder of think tank Tomorrow's Thoughts Today and a nomadic research studio Unknown Fields Division, will be WAC's new guest architect in WAC's Live Interview Series. 

Australian born film director and architect Liam Young, who calls himself as a "speculative architect", will discuss new game changers that create a paradigm shift in today's architecture and urbanism. 

Liam Young will be in conversation with WAC editor-in-chief Berrin Chatzi Chousein on Monday, February 15th in WAC's Instagram. 

Liam Young. Image courtesy of Liam Young

In WAC's live talk, themed as Toward Game Changers In Architecture And Urbanism, Young will discuss the role of advanced technologies in narrating 21st-century architecture and urbanism such as video games, applications, drones, toys and movies.

In addition, Young's new project Planet City will be at the heart of the discussion, Planet City is the latest work of the speculative architect and was commissioned by the National Gallery of Victoria for the NGV Triennial, which can be visited until 18 April 2021 at NGV in Melbourne Australia.

With Planet City, Young proposed an imaginary city that houses the 10 billion people, which is the entire population of earth in a single metropolis. 

According to Young, the film provokes questions on how the entire population of the earth could live in a hyper-dense and mountainous-like city with zero-waste and avoid of environmental harm.

Proposed as a new urban-city model to tackle with climate change and sustainable living, the movie is imagined as a film set based on a typical closed-circuit system and becomes an example of circular living.

Liam Young proposed an imaginary Planet City housing the 10 billion people, which is the entire population of earth in a single metropolis. Image © Liam Young

WAC's new live talk will mainly address two questions. First, how do other media tools expand the ways we design in architectural production?. 

And secondly, in addition to trial and error, or being a rapid test environment, how effective do these tools make for real-world applicability?

Liam Young is the co-founder of think tank Tomorrow's Thoughts Today, exploring the local and global implications of new technologies, and a nomadic research studio Unknown Fields Division. 

Based in Los Angeles, Young leads Sci Arc's Fiction and Entertainment Masters Post-Graduate Masters Program, developing the role of architects as a visual storyteller about the new realities of the 21st century by engaging new techniques of film, gaming, animation which are visualized in alternative worlds.

Young was described by the BBC as "the man designing our futures", his visionary films and speculative worlds are both extraordinary images of tomorrow and urgent examinations of the environmental questions facing us today.

As a worldbuilder and production designer, he visualizes the cities, spaces and props of our imaginary futures for film and TV and for his own film productions he is a BAFTA nominated producer and has premiered with platforms ranging from Channel 4, SxSW, the New York Metropolitan Museum, Tribeca Film Festival, the BBC and the Guardian. 

Young's work has been collected internationally by museums such as MOMA, the Met, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Gallery of Victoria and M Plus Hong Kong. 

Young's works operate in the spaces between design, fiction and futures, he previously created a film, titled Seoul City Machine, for the 2019 Shenzhen Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture and In the Robot Skies, which is the world’s first narrative shot entirely through autonomous drones. 

WAC Instagram Live Interview

Theme: Toward Game Changers In Architecture And Urbanism

Host: WAC editor-in-chief Berrin Chatzi Chousein

Date: Monday, February 15/ 09:00am (PST) / 18:00pm (CET) / 17:00pm (GMT)

Venue: WAC Instagram