On 16th March 9.30am Tomorrows Thoughts Today’s Liam Young will be speaking on Dystopias, ideal communities gone wrong and the end of the world at the SxSW ‘Design for the Dark Side’ panel. Other panelists are Jason Nunes screenwriter, author, interaction designer and a guy partly responsible for some of the best straight to video horror films to come out of the 1990s and Rachel Abrams- designer of technologically mediated experiences, writer, academic. The gig will be chaired by IDEO’s Ben Fullerton.

And so the blurb…

“Design usually focuses on making the world around us better - optimism often rules the roost in our industry. But what might happen if we forced ourselves to design for a catastrophic or dystopian future? Can we learn something by designing for a darker side of human experience?”

Darryl Chen and Liam Young will be moderating a panel session at this year’s upcoming Festival of Urbanism, organized by the crew at This Is Not A Gateway. TTT will be joined by a cast of emerging and seasoned urbanists to discuss Productive Dystopia, or An Architecture of Unintended Consequences. Also on the panel will be Austin Williams (Future Cities Project); Karl Sharro (ManTowNHuman); Tomas Klassnik (Klassnik Corporation); Elena Pascolo and Alex Warnock-Smith (Urban Projects Bureau, Architectural Association); Finn Williams (Common Office); and Amin Taha (Amin Taha Architects). The night promises to be a lively one as we consider alternate ways of conceiving of the urban project beyond the blindly optimistic and optimistically futile. Spaces are free but with limited places on the night. 19.30 Friday Oct 23 Hanbury Hall, Spitalfields E1 6QR.

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