ABOUT THIS EVENT

Before the screening, architect Raffaella Bortoluzzi, founder of Raffaella Bortoluzzi Architecture, will explore how emerging technologies—from 3D printing to algorithmic design—are reshaping our built environment. 

A singular masterwork of prescient imagination, Things to Come foresaw an architectural revolution that’s finally arriving through 3D-printed housing, where robotic arms challenge designers to generate original homes with construction costs under $99K. Through groundbreaking set designs, the film charts humanity’s path from destruction to utopia. This triumph of technical audacity—the most ambitious production from London Films—reveals how yesterday’s cinematic dreams are becoming today’s reality

Bortoluzzi—whose design philosophy merges earthen elements with artificial materials, creating dynamic spaces where traditional vernacular meets contemporary innovation—fulfills this cinematic prophecy through her project for Initiative 99, a global competition drawing architects from sixty nations to reimagine affordable housing in El Paso. Proposing a meeting of ancient wisdom and algorithmic precision, the design features 3D-printed concrete volumes crowned with a roof that transforms into a canopy; an unexpected vertical element becomes a garden space for vegetation that doubles as a water-harvesting system, while the walls deform to create integrated planting pockets. Her design merges technology with nature, creating dynamic spaces where printed concrete volumes transform into living edens and water-harvesting systems, turning Wells’s futuristic vision into tangible architecture.

The technology behind this architectural alchemy comes from ICON, where Jason Ballard, a Texan of 41, has transformed the construction site into something resembling a vast pastry kitchen. His robotic arm, extruding concrete like an industrial-scale confectioner, layers a house into existence with metronomic patience—one “bead” every half hour, steel reinforcement every tenth layer, the entire 160-layer composition orchestrated via iPad with an almost unsettling serenity. 

Bortoluzzi’s vision, shared with colleague Mark Fiedler of Fiedler Marciano Architecture, draws from an expanding palette of technological possibilities. The resulting spaces reject stasis—rooms pivot and transform, interiors become exteriors, and the very notion of “American home” acquires a kinetic energy previously reserved for cinema. 

To capture Bortoluzzi Architecture’s design process in action, journalist Filippo Brunamonti served as the executive producer of a short film, realized by his production company, Wonderwil, which currently serves as the editorial arm for internal research and tech projects curated by Google’s Visual Lab.

ABOUT THE FILM

It’s Christmas 1940, and Everytown resident John Cabal (Raymond Massey) fears that war is imminent. When it breaks out, the war lasts 30 years, destroying the city and ushering in a new dark age of plagues and petty despots. But there is hope in the form of Wings Over the World, a group of pacifist scientists and thinkers lead by Cabal. Their dream is to build a utopian society on the ruins of the old. But first they’ll have to unseat the latest ruling tyrant (Ralph Richardson). Written by H.G. Wells and based on his 1933 novel The Shape of Things to Come.