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This building might also use computer networks to monitor its community of local buildings to figure out when to gather solar energy and send it to the grid to share, as well as when to lower louvers to keep residents cool.

"I sometimes imagine urban landscapes that are integrated into their ecosystems with a combination of vegetation and constructed materials," Benjamin said. "They look almost like ruins in the jungle, but they're actually fully functional, occupied cities."

Benjamin's visions of the future end where his fellow synthetic biology designer Rachel Armstrong's begin. Armstrong, a designer based in London, is an outspoken advocate for what she calls "the living city," or urban structures that she told me we'd create in the same way we cook or garden.

We met in a cafe in the heart of London, overlooking a busy street near Tottenham Court Road, and almost immediately Armstrong was imagining how she'd rebuild the city around us.

"You'd have surfaces creeping down buildings like icing. Strange, colored panels would glow through windows at night, and you'd have bioluminescent streetlights. Bridges will light up when we step on them." She paused, but continued staring outside, deep in thought. "We'd keep the bones of buildings steel and concrete, but rewrap those spaces with increasingly more biological facades. Some will be porous and attract water; others will process human waste. Mold won't be something you clean off a surface but will be something you garden."

Armstrong's vision sounds like science fiction, but she's just describing what tomorrow's air and water filtration systems might look like. Instead of filling our walls with rusting pipes and ducts, we'd swathe our buildings in engineered bacteria and mold to process our waste, generate energy and even purify our water.

Armstrong is fascinated by bacteria and mold, which she and other synthetic biology designers view as the building blocks of future cities. "We are full of microbes," she asserted firmly. "Maybe instead of using environmental poisons to create healthier environments inside, we should be using probiotics."

Glowing bacteria could live in our ceilings, lighting up as the sun goes down. Other bacteria might purify the air, scrubbing out carbon. Every future urban home would be equipped with algae bioreactors for both fuel and food.

Such a future may be closer than you think. Recently, Armstrong worked with a group of biologists and designers who hope to use experimental protocells - basically, a few chemicals wrapped in a membrane - in a project that could prevent Venice from sinking into the water. The city was built on a marsh, and water periodically bubbles up, rotting the infrastructure over time.

Protocells are semibiological and can be designed to carry out very simple chemical processes. In Venice, engineers would release protocells into the water. Designed to prefer darkness, the protocells would head for the rotting pilings beneath the city's dwellings. Once attached to the wood, the protocells would slowly undergo a chemical transformation, turning their flexible membranes into calcium shells.

Over time, these shells would form the core of a new artificial reef. As wildlife discovered the calcium deposits, a natural reef would form, and the city's shaky foundations would become a stable ecosystem. Already, Armstrong and her group have had some success creating small-scale versions of the protocell reef in the lab, and they're moving on to experiments in controlled natural areas.

If our cities do evolve to be more like biological organisms and ecosystems, it could change the way communities form within their walls. "We might start to experience the city as something we have to take care of the way we take care of our bodies," Armstrong suggested.

In a biological city, using a toxic chemical in your kitchen might cause your algae lights to die. "We'll take more care of the city because we feel its injuries more deeply." It's possible this could generate a sense of collective responsibility for our buildings and avenues. Neighbors would tend their buildings together, trading recipes for making fuel the way people today trade recipes for holiday cakes.

Of course, it's impossible to predict what the consequences would be for people in cities whose buildings were half-alive. Armstrong is willing to admit her ideas are utopian, and that's the point. "You need something to aim at," she said with a smile.

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How to Death-Proof the Cities of the Future

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This building might also use computer networks to monitor its community of local buildings to figure out when to gather solar energy and send it to the grid to share, as well as when to lower louvers to keep residents cool.

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You must produce an info-graphic that is eye-catching and would be of interest to bio-engineers of your age.

The info-graphic must contain at least one QR code that takes you to further information about your idea.

Your info-graphic must be your own work

You are to use your knowledge of the importance of maintaining biodiversity for future generations by building "organic" cities.

Choose one aspect from the list to focus on - alternatively, come up with your own focus but put it past Sim before you continue

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List of foci - choose one from the list below to focus your info-graphic on

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List of foci - choose one from the list below to focus your info-graphic on

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1. How plants or other organisms can be used to "grow" buildings

2. How food sources could be part of our "organic" home of the future

3. How we can manage our own waste systems within our own homes

4. How we can rid our environment of monocultures

5. How we can continue to improve biodiversity in future cities to make them economically more viable

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Ramboll offers solutions to urban planning and urban projects including an often cost effective integration of nature which is native to the area. It is all about the right planning and design, and then leaving the area for natural succession and dynamics of the ecosystem with a minimum of maintenance.

In the urban ecosystem, man is a main contributor and it is our responsibility to not only create aesthetically pleasant green and blue areas but rather living urban nature with functions for human use as well as habitats for wild species.

Urban nature should be a focus in both the development of new urban areas, where existing nature should be considered in the planning and design, as well as in the development of existing urban areas, where habitats for locally native species and nature types can be restored.

Urban nature can be found and established in all green and blue areas of the city, but also as green roofs and walls as well as road verges, on brown fields etc. The potential is often large in business areas with huge lawn areas with very little biodiversity.

Benefits of urban nature

Nature in the city has a positive effect on people, society, wildlife, and the environment as:

Green areas in the city can hold large amounts of water as well as create cool areas with natural shade, and thereby work as a buffer against climate change.

Nature in the city can contribute to strengthening the local, national and global biodiversity.

Nature has a calming and healing effect on a number of illness symptoms and stress, and can thereby strengthen public health. This can ultimately lead to healthcare savings.

Urban nature can be used for educational purposes. Spending time in nature strengthen learning and the development of the brain and makes nature conservation and sustainable living more present in the consciousness of people.

Green corridors connecting the inner city with the less busy surroundings can contribute to increased air renewal and thereby a better air quality. More plants in the cities can also hold back emissions and contribute to cleaner air.

Contrary to traditional parks, urban nature is by definition living ecosystems in which organisms live and reproduce in a dynamic system, and they thereby demand less maintenance.

References on urban nature

Integrating biodiversity as natural ecosystems in urban development projects has not traditionally been done on purpose, especially not in the more wealthy parts of the world. But a new agenda is moving ahead, and in 2015 the municipality of Copenhagen as the first in Denmark agreed on a strategy for urban nature in the city. Other innovative cities in Europe and the US are already actively working with restoring natural habitats as e.g. Berlin and New York, but the concept is still developing.

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Holistic urban development includes biodiversity as creating value for people, society, wildlife, and the environment. Through strong collaboration between urban planners, biologists and engineers, Ramboll assists clients in integrating global goals for improving biodiversity in local plans and projects. Creating more urban nature as living ecosystems with native species and nature types adds an extra dimension to liveable cities.