UCL URBAN LABORATORY

We're no longer updating this account. For news, events and study opportunities at UCL Urban Laboratory, please follow our LinkedIn channel (https://www.linkedin.com/company/ucl-urban-laboratory) and through The Bartlett Faculty (https://www.linkedin.com/company/thebartlettucl/).

Professor Clare Melhuish is co-convening a Special Session titled 'Coastal Planning – Beyond Protection' at the 6th World Planning Schools Congress, taking place from 29 June to 3 July 2026 in Espoo & Helsinki.

This session explores how coastal heritage, climate risk and community resilience can reshape planning practice beyond defence-led approaches.

Submissions close on 11 November 2025. Find out more: https://app.eventos.fi/wpsc2026/website/tracks

There's still time to visit the In Practice III: Student Showcase at the UCL Urban Room!

Featuring innovative student work that rethinks the relationship between design and practice, the exhibition offers fresh perspectives for the future of the built environment.

📅 Open until 31 October 2025
🔗 Plan your visit: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/events/2025/aug/practice-iii-student-showcase

Call for papers: Submit an abstract for Session 84 – 'Spatialising Popular Music: urban networks of creativity in Europe and Beyond, c. 1930–2000' – at the European Association of Urban Historians Conference in Barcelona, September 2026.

This session explores how musical innovation has been shaped by the social, spatial and political dynamics of cities – from garages and record shops to dancehalls and clubs.

🗓️ Submissions close 22 October 2025
Find out more: https://www.eauhbarcelona2026.eu/sessions/

New Urban Imperatives Symposium: Reparative and Decolonial Praxis
🗓️ 14:00 – 17:30, 15 October
📍 Online and UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health

A new two-part gathering will bring together scholars from Palestine, Colombia, South Africa, Lebanon, Guatemala, and the United States whose work is grounded in place-based harm and healing. Exploring reparative and decolonial urban praxis, this event examines harm, memory, and territorial healing across global contexts.

Session 1 will take place on Zoom and Session 2 will take place in-person at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health.

Both sessions will be chaired by Catalina Ortiz (Director, UCL Urban Laboratory) and
Natalia Villamizar Duarte (Newcastle University). The event is part of UCL Urban Laboratory's 20th anniversary celebrations.

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/events/2025/oct/new-urban-imperatives-symposium-reparative-and-decolonial-praxis

As the start of term approaches, we look forward to welcoming our new students!

Join us during the first week of term for Bartlett Together: a series of inspiring, in-person and interactive sessions on climate action, wellbeing, people and communities, hosted by leading academics from across the faculty.

Bartlett Together will be opened by Professor Jacqui Glass, Dean of The Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment.

Explore our events and sign up here:
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/study/bartlett-together-2025

Launching tomorrow: In Practice III

The annual 'In Practice' exhibition showcases Global Urbanism MASc and Public History MA student work exploring urban change, colonial legacies and belonging through site-based, creative research.

Visit the show at UCL Urban Room until Friday 31 October –
and book tickets for the exhibition launch on Thursday 28 August.

And if you're a home student applying to study Global Urbanism MASc or another Master's programme, make sure you submit your application by the deadline, Friday 29 August.

More info and launch tickets:
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/events/2025/aug/practice-iii-student-showcase

Launching on 28 August: In Practice III

The annual 'In Practice' exhibition showcases Global Urbanism MASc and Public History MA student work exploring urban change, colonial legacies and belonging through site-based, creative research.

Visit the show at UCL Urban Room until Friday 31 October –
and book tickets for the exhibition launch on Thursday 28 August.

More info and launch tickets:
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/events/2025/aug/practice-iii-student-showcase

The Library of Things We Forgot to Remember closes on Saturday August 16th.

Don't miss your final chance to visit UCL Urban Room's archival exhibition, curated by Dr Kara Blackmore, reveals a rich archive created by Zimbabwean artist Kudzanai Chiurai.

Through vinyl records, posters, paintings and more, explore liberation zones, connecting different forms of a radical education happening across Southern Africa, the Caribbean and London from 1964–1985.

See the show before it closes:
📍 UCL Urban Room, One Pool Street
🗓️ Until Saturday 16 August

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/events/2025/jul/urban-room-exhibition-library-things-we-forgot-remember

In Practice III launches this month!

Our annual postgraduate exhibition, in collaboration with UCL History, showcases Global Urbanism MASc and Public History MA student work exploring urban change, colonial legacies and belonging through site-based, creative research.

Explore the research themes of belonging in London and urban change through creative outputs like zines, interpretative installations, photography and film.

Join us for the opening event on 28 August – book tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/in-practice-iii-student-showcase-tickets-1460910264929?aff=oddtdtcreator

The show is open to the public from Friday 29 August – Friday 31 October, Monday – Saturday, 10:00 – 18:00.

Find out more about the show:
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/events/2025/aug/practice-iii-student-showcase