Hope interviews Rachel Armstrong, Professor of Experimental Architecture at Newcastle University, at the Barbican Gardens, London.

What if you could paint your bedroom with a color that could "eat" the carbon dioxide you breathe out every night? What if instead of using gas or oil heat to make your mother's tea, you could "fire up" a device that used living things to boil the water? Dr. Rachel Armstrong, a medical doctor who has a PhD in architecture, is working on these sorts of "what-if" technologies. "Our homes are not just part of our well-being, but a resource," she told the Toronto Star newspaper. "Imagine [that] your house could feed you and clean your water." If we could create tiny organisms that can grow, create heat, and trap sunlight, we could use them in our homes and buildings. Today she's developing protocells, chemical agents that act like living cells and that could be used to build new structures and restore old ones we want to save. Her Future Venice project proposes using protocells to rescue the Italian coastal city, built centuries ago on wooden beams, anchored deep in the lagoon. Many of those ancient supports are rotting away— her proposal is to cover the underwater supports with limestone and grow an artificial reef. And save Venice from sinking into the Adriatic Sea forever. But Dr. Armstrong is also looking way, way ahead. Working with the Icarus Interstellar, she is devising a new kind of environmental design for a starship research platform, to be put in orbit around the Earth within 100 years! What does she think is most important for kids who want to design starships and decide what the world will be like 100 years from now? Don't worry about the right or wrong way to learn or to do things, she stresses. Our imaginations are the most valuable tool we have for designing the future. "Nurture your creativity," she says, "and find something that matters!"

Mira interview Economist Editor-in-Chief Zanny Minton Beddoes at the London offices of The Economist Last year, a 172-year-old tradition ended. There weren't fireworks or parades or any days off from school. But it was a memorable occasion. In February, 2015, Zanny Minton Beddoes became Editor-in-Chief of The Economist, a weekly publication that covers economics, world trade, immigration, and other major international issues. Zanny Minton Beddoes is The Economist's first female editor-in-chief, the first since the magazine began publishing in 1843. And while many famous newspapers and magazines have women reporters and editors, very few have a woman in charge of the whole publication. Ms. Minton Beddoes is an expert on financial issues. She has degrees from Oxford and Harvard universities, and has written many articles about the world economy and global finance. She's been working for The Economist since 1994, and has been a frequent television and radio guest on several United States networks. Before she became Editor-in-Chief, she was Business Affairs editor, in charge of covering business, finance, and science stories. She plans to guide her newspaper (even though it's printed as a magazine, The Economist has always called itself a newspaper) and its 1.6 million subscribers through today's many publishing challenges—print editions, digital editions, mobile apps, social media, and whatever will be new and important five years from now. And yes, you can follow her on Twitter!

Jaydon interviews Craig Allen, video game developer, in Los Angeles, California Craig Allen loved to play video games as a kid. But he had to go to an arcade, an area in a mall or a special store where visitors could play all sorts of console games, including pinball and air hockey. That arcade experience turned out to be useful because after graduating from college, he was hired by the Walt Disney Company to develop video games based on Disney characters and movies. He worked on games that came out when the movies Aladdin, Toy Story, and Hercules were in theaters. He also helped create original games for Disney like Nightmare Ned and Mickey Mania. Then he moved from Mickey to the Muppets. He went to work for Jim Henson Interactive, where he developed games based on "Sesame Street," "The Muppets," and "Bear in the Big Blue House." He and his team designed a program for puppeteers to make animated digital puppets in real time. This computer program won several important prizes! By 2002, Mr. Allen was ready to start creating his own video games. He and his partners founded Spark Unlimited. Their games include Call of Duty, Turning Point: Fall of Liberty, Lost Planet 3, and Legendary. He is now working as a consultant to show companies how to use game design in their businesses, to help both employers and their employees to communicate, give and receive feedback, and reward achievements. Today, gamers don't have to go to video arcades. Instead the arcade is in our pockets, on our phones. But video games still provide a safe place to play, Mr. Allen said during a You Tube discussion, where players can experiment, solve puzzles, and learn to make choices they will see again, out in the real world. Jaydon interviews Craig Allen, video game developer, in Los Angeles, California

Olivia interviews Ellie Laks, founder of the Gentle Barn, at the Gentle Barn, Santa Clarita, California Do you have a pet at home or maybe a favorite animal in your neighborhood? What if your house or apartment was home to over 170 animals, including cows, horses, pigs, sheep, chickens, llamas, emus, cats, dogs, and birds? Ellie Laks and her family have a six-acre farm in California where they take care of abused or injured animals, including cows Sage and Oliver, Hero the horse, and several turkeys who will never become Thanksgiving dinner! She started the Gentle Barn in 1999, so she could care for the animals herself. The Gentle Barn moved to Santa Clarita, California, in 2003 and where she, her husband Jay, and their three children live. They now have a second Gentle Barn, in Knoxville, Tennessee. The Gentle Barn staff also works with many inner-city, at-risk, and special needs children each year. Being able to touch and interact with animals can help children who have been abused or have special needs. Buddha, their first rescued cow, is often used for therapy sessions with quadriplegic children — the kids learn that big animals can be very gentle! "Whether animal or human," Ms. Laks says, "at The Gentle Barn anyone can leave their painful pasts behind and enjoy being alive."

Do you spend lots and lots of hours texting on your phone or playing video games? Sitting for long periods of time may be as bad for your body as smoking cigarettes, says Dr. David Agus. Dr. Agus has a lot to share about health and wellness and how our bodies work. He's an oncologist, a doctor who treats people with cancer. Dr. Agus is also a professor of medicine and engineering at the University of Southern California and has helped develop new drugs and diagnostic tools. As an oncologist, he studies how the environment and the way we live — like eating junk food and getting very little exercise — can contribute to the growth of different cancers. Collecting data on how our bodies act and react will give him and other researchers important information needed for new treatments, and practical ways for us to live healthy, cancer-free lives.

Luca interviews Piers Gough, architect, and Professor of Architecture at the Royal Academy Schools Piers Gough designs buildings, but not those very tall, all-glass rectangles you see in big cities like London and New York. One of his buildings is bigger at the top than it is at the bottom. Another is sprinkled with colored bricks, like bits of blue, green, red, and yellow candy pieces. Mr. Gough is an architect, a person who designs and supervises the construction of buildings — inside and outside — from a small house to a giant skyscraper. Mr. Gough and three friends-fellow students started their own architectural firm in 1975. Originally called Campbell Zogolovitch Wilkinson and Gough, today it's CZWG, and is based in London. Their many projects include the Canada Water Library (the building that's bigger at the top), the Fulham Island Tutti-Fruiti building (the one with the colored bricks), and Alfred Court (a triangular, wavy-shaped apartment building with a pale green roof). Creating a new building from start to finish is a long project, he says. Sometimes it can take five years before what began as a drawing is ready for the doors to open. Imagine spending five years on just one school project! Mr. Gough credits his teachers for supporting his interest in art and architecture. "I had a great art teacher who strongly encouraged me to be an architect," he said in an interview with the Royal Academy of Arts. "In my education art was a very important balance alongside the maths and science." Mr. Gough is now a CBE, Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, and a Professor of Architecture at the Royal Academy Schools, London. But he's still wearing his bold plaid suits and hasn't trimmed his halo of curly hair. And his firm will keep making colorful buildings whose shapes make the most of the spaces they're in. Luca interviews Piers Gough, architect, and Professor of Architecture at the Royal Academy Schools.

Have you ever wanted to bring home the tiny cat you saw hiding in a neighbor's bushes? Or a dog, all alone, on a busy street? Rescuing and caring for animals who have no one to help them is an important job, especially in a big city like London. Caroline Yates is the head of the Mayhew Animal Home, a rescue and rehoming shelter that's 130 years old. She and her team take care of about 125 cats and kittens, as well as 25-30 dogs. Once a cat or dog comes to live at Mayhew, it can stay until it's adopted. "The Mayhew is committed to giving every animal a second chance," Ms. Yates told politics.co.uk, "… in order to get every animal back on their feet, no matter how long it takes." Today, Ms. Yates and the Mayhew Animal Home are also helping lost and abandoned animals in Russia, Georgia, Afghanistan, Nepal, and India. Around the world, hundreds of thousands of animals are waiting for homes – so remember, if you are thinking about bringing a new pet home, check your local shelter or rescue. You may find your new best friend!

Would you be brave enough to cut into someone's head and work on their brain? Henry Marsh is a courageous doctor and skillful surgeon who has saved thousands of lives by doing this very difficult work. For years, he has taken out people's brain tumors and fixed life-threatening problems. He was one of the first surgeons to operate while the patient was awake and able to answer questions. That helps the doctor to do his or her best during the operation. The American public television network made The English Surgeon, a documentary about Mr. Marsh and his work. Last year, he wrote a best-selling book, Do No Harm, about his life's work as a brain surgeon.

Enda Walsh has been writing plays for over twenty years. He was born in Ireland, and grew up with a dad who liked to role-play and a mom who was an actor. He didn't want to write plays at first. He thought he might be in a band, or make movies. Instead he went to Cork in 1993 and started working with a theatre company. Since then, he's written seventeen theatre plays, two radio plays, three screenplays, the script for a musical and one for an opera! Most of his plays and scripts are adult stories, about very serious adult topics. But he's also written a theatre play of Roald Dahl's The Twits and has been working on a movie version of Island of the Aunts (also called Monster Mission), by Eva Ibbotson. For Mr. Walsh, storytelling is part of his nature. "Irish people tell stories," he said in an interview with the City University of New York television station. "That's it!"

Would you like a job where you got paid to eat? What if that job meant eating in Thai and Uzbek and Iranian and Salvadoran and Korean restaurants – all in one night? That's what Jonathan Gold does. He's a journalist who writes about food and restaurants for the Los Angeles Times newspaper. As the paper's food critic, Mr. Gold eats meals in restaurants and then tells readers what he thinks of the food and the restaurant itself. Often, he'll go to a restaurant three to five different times before he decides what he wants to say in his column. What he says about a restaurant and the meals he ate can be very important to that business and to his enthusiastic readers. It's not an easy job – he usually goes to six or seven places in one night and sometimes, he brings his two kids with him to taste-test. His "territory" is enormous because the greater Los Angeles area includes about 34,000 square miles or almost 88,000 square kilometers! That's room for a lot of restaurants, and because there are so many, he can review about 300 to 500 different eating places a year. Mr. Gold is really interested in the area's many immigrant communities and the different ways they prepare food. He's not just eating at the fancy posh places but also at the small diners, food stands, and tiny rooms where people are cooking their native dishes and creating new variations of traditional meals. "You want these guys to succeed," he says in City of Gold, a 2015 documentary about his work. He's happy to make readers as aware of the small one-family restaurants as those fancy and expensive ones. Lots of people across the United States read his food columns. In 2007, he was the first food critic to win the Pulitzer Prize, a prestigious American journalism award. And in City of Gold, people will get to see him as he "discovers the world, one meal at a time." Mason interviews Jonathan Gold, food critic for the Los Angeles Times, at Guelaguetza Restaurant in Los Angeles.