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Dr Tuba Kocaturk, a leader in digital architectural design, explored the future of design within the built environment; the ‘digital zeitgeist’ or ‘tabula rasa’.  She presented a vision of design beyond that currently constrained by the replicable realities of construction products, to one developed through the construction of the relationships between component elements through Digital Architectural Design, which are themselves linked to digital fabrication processes.  Yet Tuba advised that these future approaches to design will require a shift in the construction practices that follow; these new technologies cannot be implemented in the traditional ways on sites.  Melissa Sterry, a futurologist, introduced us to ‘Building the Bionic City: Future Sci-Fact or Sci-Fiction?’  She presented a design of the future bionic city based on the lessons of biology, drawing on nature and its resilient strategies for survival to inform our new design and construction practices.  In the new globally linked village, cities will need to mimic nature to survive a changing global environment, and encourage symbiotic relationships with their surrounding ecosystems to ensure sustainability and success.