Stephen Bayley - Design guru, broadcaster and consultant; Founding Director of the Design Museum

A circular saw, a Gauloise and a little red wine

We need to reinvent Britain as a workshop. Cultures which manufacture are more socially cohesive, respectful and they acknowledge hierarchies. Most important of all, manufacturing teaches, at a fundamental level, the relationship between effort and reward - a moral connection that has been lost in the financial industry. More...

Patrick Blanc - Botanist and landscape designer

The vertical garden, from nature to cities

In any city, anywhere, a naked wall can be turned into a garden and be a valuable shelter for biodiversity. Patrick Blanc, inventor of the 'Vertical Garden', tells the story of his creation: from initial inspiration in the Sub-Tropics, to the vertical garden's growing popularity in cities across the world. More...

Christopher Choa - Principal at AECOM Design + Planning

The New Silk Road; Camels, Air Routes, and the Rise of Aerotropolis

In this century the most successful cities will grow up around airports rather than vice-versa. Living in an "aerotropolis", we will relate to neighbours thousands of miles away. There will be winners and losers – cities that will thrive and some (like London) that could fail. More...

Sarah Harper - Professor of Gerontology at the University of Oxford

Extreme longevity

Do we really want enter a world where we are going to be living for 200 years? Maybe we do, maybe we don't, but it is certainly something we should be discussing, because it is looking like being scientifically possible within a couple of generations. More...

Jeremy Myerson - Director and Chair of the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, Royal College of Art

Yo-yos, see-saws and other dynamic design challenges of ageing

What are the emerging design implications of our rapidly ageing society? Catering for YoYos and accommodating See Saws are just two challenges. Getting old is as disruptive as adolescence: moving home, changes in health, confusion over new technology and sexual diseases - all require design solutions. More...

Greg Offer - Research Fellow at Imperial College

Battery electric vehicles, hydrogen fuel cells and biofuels. Which will be the winner?

The internal combustion engine has powered vehicles for a century, but for how much longer? As the trend towards electrification picks up speed, what could happen, and how quickly will the transition happen? The rewards for the winner are huge. More...

Mark Post - Professor of Vascular Physiology at Maastricht University who now works on "lab meat"

Meet the new meat

'A vegetarian in a hummer is much less damaging for the environment than a meat-eater on a bicycle'. Today's techniques for rearing livestock are unsustainable, particularly if global meat consumption doubles - as it's predicted to do - by 2050. Artificial meat, grown in petri dishes, could be the answer. More...

Amanda Renshaw - Editorial Director and Deputy Publisher, Phaidon Press

The Art Museum. A resource unparalleled in any medium

This is the Art Museum: 10 years of curating; open 365 days a year, 7 days a week and 24 hours a day; it houses 3,000 exhibitions, 650 collections from 60 countries; and is 992 pages long... Take a tour through Phaidon's latest creation. More...

Chris Sanderson - Co-founder of The Future Laboratory

Living & Designing in the DIY Age

We're moving towards an 'Anarchonomy'. The internet has created a generation used to sharing ideas, exploring their own creativity, and who want increasing control over how products are made. Technologies like 3D printers are already key tools in the this new age of DIY. More...

Iain Sinclair - Author

Ghost Milk - Calling time on the Grand Project

We live in the age of the Grand Project, when political and economic elites decide that big visions are required to improve districts and cities. The London 2012 Olympics encapsulate this trend towards retro-futurism and they will be extremely damaging to East London. More...

Jane Withers - Design Curator

How much water do you eat?

That's not a typo. Water is increasingly scarce and knowledge about how we should value and use it sustainably is almost as rare. Through books, writing, exhibitions and workshops, the Wonderwater project aims to surprise people about water's role in their everyday lives. More...

Rachel Armstrong - Former physician who now creates biological 'living' architecture

Will the buildings of the future be alive?

Organic building design goes beyond green living and sustainability – New, living technologies such as 'proto-cells' can eat carbon dioxide and protect not only the buildings, but the wider environment. "Living" paint on the wall of your house sounds futuristic, but it's not far away. More...

Michael Birnhack - Law professor at Tel Aviv University

Privacy@Home

The lines between the private and the public continue to blur due to emerging technologies. We like our homes; we feel safe in our homes – they are a special place, but for how much longer will they really be "ours"? More...

Martín Blinder - Founder and CEO, Tictrac

Am I Normal? Lifestyle design through numbers

New technologies enable us to monitor our performance with the goal of improving ourselves: calories in and out; steps per day; sleep monitors, heart monitors, automatic health monitors ... Is this the ultimate narcissism, or could it instead liberate us and lead us to a more fearless life? More...

Hugh Broughton - Contributor to Vitamin Green and Founder of Hugh Broughton Architects

Extreme Challenge – creating sustainable architecture in Antarctica

Halley VI, the new research station for the British Antarctic Survey, is a unique building – built to survive extremes in temperature, long winters, raised up on hydraulic legs attached to skis – but the technologies and ideas it uses will filter down into the construction industry and upwards into the space industry. More...

Ricky Burdett - Co-Editor of Living in the Endless City and Professor of Urban Studies at LSE

Living in the Endless Cities of Mumbai, São Paulo and Istanbul

These are three of the most vibrant and fastest-growing mega-cities in the world. Has the model for the western city become redundant in the face of globalisation? And how can cities in the 21st century avoid social division and environmental destruction? More...

Tom Chatfield - Freelance author, consultant, game writer and theorist

Play and immersion in virtual worlds

Through increasingly sophisticated digital play we are interacting with technology more intimately than ever before: smart phones are only the beginning. Technology that knows who we are and what we're like is imminent, and will transform everything from the classroom to the high street. More...

George Chopping - Poet

Reading and writing on the river

George will (loosely) address the subjects of: Love, Supermarkets, Sustainability and Swans, by reciting and recalling his tales of being brought up in the seaside resort of Torquay before more recently moving onto a narrowboat. More...

Lewis Dartnell - Astrobiology researcher based at University College London

Humanity's future in space

Despite cutbacks at publicly funded space organisations, we will get closer to manned missions to Mars and the asteroids – colonising them for minerals or to further our understanding of the solar system. We will continue to be an exploratory species. More...

Walter De Brouwer - Futurist, Entrepreneur and Lab Founder

Our homes, cities and lives in the Deep Future

Walter has said: "People with common sense can't look 50 years ahead – if it's believable then it's probably not going to happen" and "Science fiction stories are in a way business models in disguise." Discover the Deep Future in 15 minutes More...

Geoff Dyer - Author and essayist

Street photography in the living room

Technology is changing the way we create and engage. Photographers are using Google Street View to create art. The digital photographs become interchangeable with seeing real things; making pictures is as valid as taking them, searching as artistic as creating - it all changes the view of the individual. More...

Susan Greenfield - Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Oxford

Living without boundaries in time and space

The neurological environment of the 21st century is unprecedented. Due to developments in nanotechnology, biotechnology and information technology, we are reaching the point when concepts of generational divide, individual bodies and reality itself, could no longer have a meaning. More...

Aldo Faisal - Lecturer in Neurotechnology at Imperial College London

The eye is the new mouse

Putting neuroscience into consumer technology, neurotechnology is an emerging field with some dramatic consequences. It's already possible to use ultra-low cost neurotechnology to give movement-impaired people the ability to interact dynamically with the world again. More...

Melinda Hughes - Kiss and Tell Cabaret

Salacious satirical cabaret (just in case people start taking themselves too seriously)

Elegant chanteuse Melinda Hughes accompanied by Jeremy Limb will sing original songs written by the Kiss and Tell Cabaret Team of Jeremy Limb, Lloyd Evans and Melinda Hughes: "The Architect of my heart" and "Carbon Footprints in my Jimmy Choos". More...

Matt Jones - Principal at BERG London

Living in the middle

What does it mean when software is an actor and a machine? When code is in the street, not in the screen? What will our homes, streets and daily lives feel like? Looking at games, science-fiction, BERG's own work in the area and a whole bunch of other weirdness — we'll attempt to find out. More...

Paul Kemp-Robertson - Co-founder and Editorial Director at Contagious Communications

Brands and the economics of free

The 'economics of free' is a booming idea – brands give services and products away for free in exchange for creating a relationship with their customers. This model is not going to disappear (the alternative is bad advertising), but a period of retrenchment and introspection is coming. More...

Adriana Lukas - Self-hacker, blogger and Internet enthusiast; Founder of the Big Blog Company

Self-hacking, personal data and a new kind of literacy

In the area of health especially, increasing amounts of data about ourselves are available. Self hacking is a coinage of the London Quantified Self group – which advocates a new type of data literacy, so that individuals, rather than corporations can take self-ownership. More...

Adam Newton - Manager, Global Strategy Team, Shell

Creating reliable energy, clean water and enough to eat for every city

The scale and complexity of changes in energy use are also happening with food and water management. Research alongside UC Berkeley links these changes with urban design. How can early planning and policy intervention help to manage this 'stress nexus' of resources? More...

Ian Pearson - Futurologist

1. The future of sleep and dreaming 2. The future of sex 3. The future of play

The themes that futurist Ian Pearson will be exploring will hugely affect individual lives as he attempts to predict a kind of trajectory of sleep and dreaming, sex and play from today's trends and behaviour. More...

Alan Penn - Professor of Architectural and Urban Computing at The Bartlett, UCL

Cities at the phase boundary

More than 50% of the world's population now lives in cities. Good city planners are needed more than ever in order to create long-lasting infrastructure, but do planners have any hope of keeping pace? What is the right sort of planning for a world marked by change and uncertainty? More...

Steve Rayner - James Martin Professor of Science and Civilization at the University of Oxford

The Urban Paradox: Cities as sites of innovation and inertia

Everyone knows that cities are where most innovation takes place, but there are surprising amounts of "lock-in" within them too. How often do the width of roads change or the height of train carriages? There are ways that cities can avoid being trapped by old decisions. More...

Richard Savage - Co-founder & Managing Partner at Retail in Action

Retailing and the end of scarcity

The high street's demise was forecast to accelerate with the boom in internet use, but it's still as vibrant as ever and only a small portion of retail sales happen online. Braving a prediction, in the future technology will help us to have better brand experiences in shops, but it isn't going to fundamentally overhaul our behaviour. More...

Molly Stevens - Professor of Biomedical Materials and Regenerative Medicine at Imperial College

Using materials to regenerate the body

We have developed artificial scaffold materials with specific cues to help the body's own cells repair diseased or damaged tissue. This enables the in vivo regeneration of large volumes of vascularised and hierarchically organised tissue. Bones, hearts and even brains are all potential targets for repair. More...

Rohit Talwar - CEO and Founder of Fast Future Research

1. Electronic highs and virtual lows 2. Virtual Experiential Travel

Once memory capture and interpretation can be used to recreate believable images, how will you be able to distinguish between real and downloadable travel experiences? Will computer games be able to make you high? Direct brain stimulation from immersive games is around the corner - will drug dealers be out of work? More...

Tony Travers - LSE academic and author of The Politics of London: Governing an Ungovernable City

The simple constants of good cities

To be successful cities need security, clean water, sewers, transport and a mixed population of people with aspiration and places to meet. Technological change will influence the way people live and interact, but it will not change the underpinning requirements of a good city. Decent government is the key. More...