Continuing its «Futures» series of thought-provoking trend forecasts, the branding agency Dragon Rouge has conducted a study on urban space and the future of build environments in the UK. Together with Travis Perkins, a British builders’ merchant and home improvement retailer, they have identified six continuous forces that will shape digital and physical environment by 2030.

It’s no longer good enough to hunker down with sand bags, hoping to stem the tide. Or to deck the house out with a year’s worth of IKEA candles in preparation for power cuts. As the rain here in the UK begins to retreat for the first time in eight weeks, it’s time to put away our Canute-like pretentions and think seriously about finding smarter, more creative ways to protect our neighborhoods from the increasingly frequent dangers of climate change.

Commuting using public transport can now be virtually germproof thanks to the new prototype clothing and accessory line “Straphanger” developed by the innovation consulting firm Gravitytank. The items feature anti-bacterial elements that protect subway riders from the microbes and viruses that spread actively during the cold season. 

Cities are gradually evolving into more personalized spaces, allowing citizens to organize their life in the most sustainable way. Originally being areas for masses, cities are shifting towards focusing on individuals—their intellectual and physical needs, their passions, social and environmental views and aspirations.

Within the past year, there have been two major trends in re-arranging urban life: on the one hand, cities tend to be eco-friendly and more comfortable; on the other hand, the urban environment integrates technology for communal living, thus gets more tech-oriented and somewhat futuristic.

Find some most vibrant trends in urban living that will gain momentum in 2014, below.

The BMW Guggenheim Lab, the German automaker’s mobile laboratory that has moved across the biggest cities since 2011 to addresses the problems of urban living, is now exploring the theme of privacy in a big city through a new interactive experience “Public/Private.” The global audience is invited to measure the level of privacy they want and get in their metropolitan areas, build a visual graph based on their choices and then compare it with the results of other users.