UCL URBAN LABORATORY

Join UCL Urban Lab on 22 July for Doing Otherwise: Tracing Feminist Urban Methodologies – a reflective roundtable of scholars working across feminist, decolonial and critical methodologies.

Jordana Ramalho (The Bartlett Development Planning Unit, UCL), Shannon Philip (University of Cambridge), Neem Talhouk (Northumbria University), Myfanwy Taylor (The Bartlett School of Planning UCL) and Tumpa Husna Yasmin Fellows (Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London) will discuss:

► Navigating power and positionality in the research process

► Working across institutional, community, and activist spaces

► Addressing care, accountability, and reciprocity in knowledge production

► Innovating feminist and critical praxis, including digital and co-creative methodologies

The roundtable will be chaired by Catalina Ortiz and Kate Maclean (UCL Institute for Global Prosperity). This event is part of a series celebrating 20 years of UCL Urban Lab.

Book tickets: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/events/2025/jul/doing-otherwise-tracing-feminist-urban-methodologies

UCL has been named the ninth best university in the 2026 QS World University Rankings, holding the position for the third year in a row.

This marks UCL’s 14th consecutive year in the global top 10, underscoring its exceptional reputation among both academics and employers. In both categories, UCL ranks within the top 5% of ranked global institutions.

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2025/jun/ucl-ranked-among-top-10-universities-two-major-global-rankings

On Thursday 26 June, UCL Postgrad Urbanists invite readers and walkers to a book walk. Starting at Hyde Park Corner at 18:00, the group will discuss Colm Toibin's 2009 novel Brooklyn along the walk.

All are welcome, especially if you're a UCL PhD interested in joining the Postgrad Urbanists Committee. Join the walk whether you have read a little, lot or all of the book. Comfortable shoes are recommended!

Register below for free tickets:

Walking Book Club A book walk with UCL Postgrad Urbanists through Hyde Park discussing the 2009 novel 'Brooklyn' by Colm Toibin.

APPLICATION DEADLINE: if you're an overseas student who will require a visa, applying to a Master's programme at UCL for 2025 entry, you must submit your application no later than 🚨 27 June 2025 🚨

Find out more about Urban Lab's Global Urbanism MASc and application process at our website:

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/urban-lab/study-ucl-urban-laboratory

Join us online on Monday 16 June for Urban Labs In Turbulent Times: Stories from Beirut and São Paulo.

Mona Fawaz (Professor of Urban Studies and Planning and co-founder/director of Beirut Urban Lab at the American University of Beirut) and Raquel Rolnik (Professor of Urban Planning, University of São Paulo) will explore how urban labs can function not only as sites of inquiry, but as catalysts for collective action, co-creation, and solidarity.

Mona will share how scholars and practitioners engage the material and political aftermaths of conflict and dispossession, reclaiming space and memory. And from São Paulo, Raquel will discuss how academic and community actors intervene in policy, law, and public debate to defend the right to the city in the face of authoritarian urbanism.

Urban Labs in Turbulent Times: Stories from Beirut and São Paulo is part of our series celebrating 20 years of UCL Urban Laboratory.

Register free to attend: https://lnkd.in/gDtEjjAD

Image: Beirut Urban Lab

A new exhibition, The Library of Things We Forgot to Remember, opens on Thursday 12 June at the UCL Urban Room — with a special opening event on Wednesday 11 June, 18:30–20:30.

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

The Library of Things We Forgot to Remember is an evocative archival exhibition curated by Zimbabwean artist Kudzanai Chiurai, who invites a guest librarian each time the archive is exhibited.

This edition's guest librarian is Dr Kara Blackmore, who has shaped it for the UCL Urban Room by focusing on liberation zones, connecting different forms of radical education movements across Southern Africa, the Caribbean, and London (1964–1985).

📍 1 Pool Street, Stratford, UCL East Campus
🕰️ Mon–Sat, 10am–6pm
🎟️ No booking needed (tickets required for select events)
📅 Opening: Wednesday 11 June, 18:30–20:30

🔊 In Chiurai’s own words: “A frequency that mobilised the struggle for liberation.”
Come tune in.

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

On 16 June, Mona Fawaz (Professor of Urban Studies and Planning, American University of Beirut) and Raquel Rolnik (Professor of Urban Planning, University of São Paulo) join us for an online event exploring how urban labs can function not only as sites of inquiry, but as catalysts for collective action, co-creation, and solidarity.

From Beirut, we will hear how scholars and practitioners engage the material and political aftermaths of conflict and dispossession, reclaiming space and memory. From São Paulo, we will learn how academic and community actors intervene in policy, law, and public debate to defend the right to the city in the face of authoritarian urbanism.

Urban Labs in Turbulent Times: Stories from Beirut and São Paulo is part of our series celebrating 20 years of UCL Urban Laboratory.

Register free to attend: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/events/2025/jun/urban-labs-turbulent-times-stories-beirut-and-sao-paulo

Only a few tickets remaining for our next book launch!

On Monday 09 June, join UCL Urban Laboratory and The Bartlett Development Planning Unit, UCL to launch: Reconstruction as Violence in Assad's Syria, a new book edited by Nasser Rabbat and Deen Sharp and published by The American University in Cairo Press and Bookstores.

With a presentation from Deen Sharp (The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)), Wendy Pullan (University of Cambridge) and Emma DiNapoli followed by a discussion between Deen Sharp, architect Sawsan Abou Zainedin and Ammar Azzouz (University of Oxford). Chaired by Prof Catalina Ortiz (Director of UCL Urban Lab) and Dr Azadeh Mashayekhi (The Bartlett DPU).

Refreshments and networking will follow the presentations and discussion.

This event is part of a series of activities celebrating 20 years of UCL Urban Lab.

🗓️ 17:00–19:00, Monday 09 June
📍Room 403, University of London, Senate House, WC1E 7HU

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/events/2025/jun/book-launch-reconstruction-violence-assads-syria

Final tickets available:
Itchy City: Film Practice as Urban Research

Join us on Wednesday 04 June for an immersive film screening and discussion with filmmaker Prof Jyoti Mistry, exploring how cities move like jazz - messy, unpredictable and full of improvisation.

The event includes the screening of 'When I Grow Up I Want to be a Black Man' and 'i mike what i like', followed by a Q&A with Jyoti Mistry, Prof Catalina Ortiz and Prof Tim Waterman (The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL).

🕒 16:30–18:30
📍 UCL East Cinema
Registration is essential: https://lnkd.in/ebcHXeKN

This event is part of UCL Urban Lab's 20th anniversary series.

This Friday 23 May: Summer Flowers | On Vinyl: Closing party and listening session

Urban Room and Wolff Architects's exhibition celebrating the work of South African author Bessie Head comes to a close on Saturday 31 May. To mark its closing, join us this Friday, 18:30–20:30, for a listening session to gather records and play the sounds that Bessie Head was listening to during her life in South Africa and Botswana (1937 –1986). Bring a vinyl record from the era of Bessie’s life with a connection to joy, gardening, writing and liberation. The records will be played on the Summer Flowers record player made by Dada Khanyisa.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/summer-flowers-on-vinyl-closing-party-and-listening-session-tickets-1259547694059?aff=oddtdtcreator

On 25 June, The Bartlett School of Planning UCL's ‘Critical Dialogues in Comparative Urbanism’ Research Cluster will host a round-table discussion for the launch of Lauren Andres’s new monograph, 'Adaptable Cities and Temporary Urbanism' (Columbia University Press).

Lauren will be joined by a panel of experts: Emily Berwyn (founder and Director of Meanwhile Spaces), Matt Lally (Director of International Planning, Design and Engineering Consultancy at Arup), Peter Bishop (The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL) and Mike Raco (BSP, UCL).

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/events/2025/jun/book-launch-round-table-discussion-adaptable-cities-and-temporary-urbanisms

CLOSING SOON: Summer Flowers

Urban Room and Wolff Architects's exhibition celebrating the work of South African author Bessie Head comes to a close on Saturday 31 May. Don't miss your last chance to explore the show, which combines sound, drawings, plant pressings and texts to explore themes of belonging between apartheid-era South Africa and Serowe, Botswana.

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/events/2025/jan/summer-flowers-wolff-architects-exhibition-ucl-urban-room