MRes IdUD: A decade of research excellence

A Decade of Research Excellence

Master of Research in Interdisciplinary Urban Design 2013-2023

The Bartlett School of Planning, UCL

Foreword

Welcome to MRes IdUD: A Decade of Research Excellence. As the Programme Director of the MRes Interdisciplinary Urban Design at the Bartlett School of Planning, UCL, I am honored to guide you through the journey of discovery and innovation that has marked the last ten years. In this brochure, we celebrate not just the milestones we’ve achieved but also the relentless pursuit of knowledge that drives us forward.

Dr. Filipa Wunderlich, Programme Director

IdUD 2023

As editors of this student publication, we are thrilled to introduce a compelling exploration into the dynamic realm of interdisciplinary urban design. This program represents a convergence of diverse academic disciplines, uniting students from architecture, urban planning, environmental studies, sociology, and beyond. Our shared vision is to transcend traditional boundaries, fostering collaboration that mirrors the complexities of the urban landscape.

We extend our gratitude to the passionate contributors who have made this publication possible, and we hope that this compilation serves as an inspiration for future generations of interdisciplinary thinkers, reminding us all of the transformative potential when diverse disciplines converge in the pursuit of a more sustainable and inclusive urban future.

Editors,

Adonai Boamah-Nyamekye, Zhejun Wang, Mariam Alzaabi, Shani Pearlman

Introduction

Welcome to MRes IdUD: A Decade of Research Excellence. As the Programme Director of the MRes Interdisciplinary Urban Design at the Bartlett School of Planning, UCL, I am honored to guide you through the journey of discovery and innovation that has marked the last ten years. In this brochure, we celebrate not just the milestones we’ve achieved but also the relentless pursuit of knowledge that drives us forward.

We are all very proud to present you this publication celebrating ten years of research excellence of the research and nurturing experiences, giving voice to our community and sharing with you what we have been up to and thinking about.

Here, we frst capture our spirit of togetherness, and how we are engaging as a community and with communities, at the Bartlett and beyond, at UCL, the UK and internationally. Second, we celebrate our journey, looking back at the ways we engage with research, such as through international research exchanges, annual conferences, research days, academic retreats, feld trips, and social days away. Thirdly, we look at how the MRes IdDU has been shaping futures, i.e. the pathways our alumni career have shaped over the years, opportunities and achievements. We share our alumni remarkable research and their success stories. Fourth, the best part is our catalogue of fnal seminal research projects from our alumni during the program and beyond. Last, the book closes with a reminder of the MRes IdUD community mission, and its shared interdisciplinary ethos, research ambitions, and values, and also with a brief refection on its future goals and aspirations. This publication is the celebration of a decade of seminal contributions to research, the Bartlett and UCL community, and beyond.

The UCL Change Makers Project:

MRes InterConnect: Bridging Interdisciplinary Communities and Frontline Research

This project is part of a larger initiative MRes InterConnect: Bridging Interdisciplinary Communities and Frontline Research funded by UCL Change Makers, and lead by us, Programme Director Filipa Wunderlich, current students Adonai Boamah-Nyamekye and Zhejun Wang and alumni, Mariam Alzaabi and Shani Pearlman. This wider initiative focuses on enhancing connections, instilling and amplifying the sense of MRes Interdisciplinary community and encouraging involvement with cutting-edge research produced over the period of the last ten years. It brings together current MRes IdUD students, alumni based in multiple international research institutions around the world, and Bartlett Faculty staff under this collective digital and hard copy brochure publication project, and a follow up celebratory exhibition event and seminar series.

Overall, this celebratory MRes IdUD publication showcases diversity and interdisciplinarity, disseminating ten years’ worth of research from alumni, and reporting on students and staff experiences during and following the MRes IdUD program.

The MRes Interdisciplinary Urban Design Programme

The MRes Interdisciplinary Urban Design is one-year master of research degree. A unique and in-depth research programme offering the experience of the academic research world in a short period of time. It trains you professionally as well as academically, offering insights of what the experience of doing a PhD may be like, and that of being an academic researcher.

The programme is designed to allow students to tailor their learning both to their own background, and how they wish to specialise in the future within the built environment feld. Our course offers home and international graduates of any undergraduate discipline, as well as mature professionals who wish to specialise in urban design, planning and cities. And in-depth, academically informed training to the professional and academic practice of urbanism, design and planning.

This Masters of Research (MRes) equips you with the critical research skills and creative specialist knowledge to become a success urbanist, leading and collaborating to understand and tackle the most contemporary challenges of our cities.

The programme is a perfect entry point for a research career, the ideal opportunity for a one-year career break, or the professional urban design and planning market, making you as a specialised needed training to become a highly critical and knowledgeable urban design professional.

The Highlights

This MRes IdUD is a unique, highly flexible and bespoke programme designed to support your research vision and professional focus and ambitions, and where you can harvest from elective offers across the Bartlett Faculty, and its multiple urbanism and design schools of thought. Also, it benefits from UCL’s world-leading reputation in urbanism across disciplines and professions, and its extensive research experience from across the urban world. Students have access to world-known researchers, and learn from the latest cutting-edge research from across the Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment and beyond.

The MRes IdUD programme is an interdisciplinary space for tackling the thorniest challenges of cities today, including aspects of equity, equality, and justice, physical and mental health and well-being, urban temporality and experience, and debating the role of growthled versus restorative post-growth development approaches, in a world challenged by climate change.

During this program, first, you will build critical understandings and capitalise from interdisciplinary debates on cities, leading onto the highly innovative and creative personal research projects. Second, enjoy a collaborative, immersive, in the ethos of interdisciplinary approaches to cities design and planning and where learning intersects the arts, humanities, social sciences and science and technology. Third, proactively shape your own research project, where you bringing in your own skills and experiences, and apply critical and advanced knowledge of urbanism theory and critiques as well as advance research methodologies, to deliver an innovative project through a choice of forms of research inquiry and multiple media. Fourth, gain rigorous training for careers and advanced professional development in urban design, planning and other urban built environment fields, building specialist transferrable skills in urbanism practice (such as design, development, governance, heritage, community participation, planning, policy). Fifth, gain rigorous training in research, developing the necessary knowledge, skills and research project experience, launching towards the success of your PhD studies and academic career.

- Dr. Filipa Wunderlich

The Origin Story

I joined The Bartlett in 1998 and in the decade that followed witnessed the emergence of a range of programmes across the Faculty that were either centrally concerned with teaching urban design or strongly interfaced with the subject. In 2011 the opportunity arose to bring together a coalition of colleagues from across those different parts of the Faculty to discuss our different approaches to the subject and whether, or not, they were complimentary.

Universities are notoriously siloed places and UCL is no exception, but the advantage which that offers is that when you are large enough and diverse enough to be able to tackle a discipline such as urban design in several different places at the same time, some very distinct cultures are able to emerge.

In our case that included urban design programmes in the architecture school, the planning school, the development planning unit, and the space syntax group, even before we began looking at all the allied modules taught elsewhere, in architectural history, urban studies, engineering, and so on. Each had, and still has, their own perspectives, methods and of course, amazing students.

So the MRes was a very simple idea. Could we put together a programme that would allow students to carve out their own route though this cornucopia of choices, allowing the students to make connections between these different cultures, and in so doing, allow them to each map out their own unique path and individually tailored programme.

Fortunately, at the time, there was a move by the then Dean – Prof Alan Penn – to introduce MRes programmes across the Faculty (an MRes being a one year research degree). These offered exactly the fexible structure that we needed, together with the sort of high level research training that would make such a programme viable.

The result was the MRes Inter-disciplinary Urban Design and from day one it has attracted exactly the sort of curious, independently-minded and highly capable students that such a programme requires and that have made it such a success.

- Professor Matthew Carmona

MRes Staff

Programme Director

Dr Filipa Wunderlich

Staff associated to the MRes IdUD programmes

Prof Matthew Carmona (BSP)

Dr Pablo Sendra (BSP)

Dr Michael Short (BSP)

Prof Stephen Marshall (BSP)

Prof Sam Griffths (BSA Space Syntax)

Prof Camillo Boano (DPU/ UCL Urban Lab)

Prof Iain Borden (BSA)

Prof Peter Bishop (BSA)

Dr Pushpa Arabindoo (Geog. Dept / UCL Urban Lab)

Prof Alan Latham (Geog. Dept)

Dr Catalina Ortiz (DPU)

Dr Kayvan Karimi (BSA Space Syntax)

Dr Roberto Botazzi (BSA)

Dr Duncan Smith (CASA)

Prof Ben Campkin (BSA / UCL Urban Lab)

Prof Jane Rendell (BSA)

Prof Norha Vera San Juan (Dept Target Intervention)

Dr Andrew Harris (Geog. Dept / UCL Urban Lab)

Prof Murray Fraser (BSA)

Prof Alan Penn (BSA Space Syntax)

Dr Jan Kendst (CASA)

Prof Laura Vaughan (BSA Space Syntax)

Prof Edward Denison (BSA)

Dr Juliana Martins (BSP)

Richard Sobey (CASA)

Paula Morais (BSP)

External staff associated with the MRes IdUD

Dr Hooman Araabi, Architecture and the Built Environment, Bristol University

Dr Gunther Gaessner, School of Geography and Planning, Cardiff University

Prof Ombretta Romice, Department of Architecture, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow

Prof Marion Roberts, Westminster University

Prof Assem Inam, Cardiff University

Programme administrators

Vicky Howard (BSP) Programme administrator 2013/2014 – 2018/2019

Yvonne Sibblies (BSP) Programme adminstrator 2020/2021

Nina Jasilek (BSP) Programme administrator 2021/2022 – present

MRes Alumni & Students

2013-2014

Athina Vlachou

Katy Hawkins

Biyue Wang

Samar Al Swaylif

Ioanna Kolovou

Yicong Yang

2014-2015

Leonardo Ailings

Jospeh Chambers

Ziyu Chen

Blazej Czuba

Terspsithea Laopoulou

Omar Sherif

Jiawen Tu

2015-2016

Abir Mahmoud Eltayeb

Christoph Kollert

Ju Hyun Lee

Renelle Sarjeant

2016-2017

Elisa Avellini

Alessandra Farina

Gala Von Nettelbladt

Marius Gantert

Huiying Jiang

Xiaoxuan Lan

Wenlin Liu

Jeffrey Roberts

Benedikt Stoll

Julia Sticker

Yigong Zhang

2017-2018

Maria Delia Bermeo

Steven Bee

Luwen He

Irene Manzini

Andrea Pandolfo

Simon Wokey

Haibo Xu

Lea Zeitoun

2018-2019

Richard Sobey

Jose Senra

2019-2020

Qiling Chen

Yudi Liu

Fengliang Tang

Phuong Pham

Shadan Elgalaly

Megawati

James Delaney

Samantha Leger

2020-2021

Uma Humelnicu

Sarah Goldweiz

Pooja Boddupalli

Aleksandra Brzozka

Fangchen Liu

Zhijiang Ge

2021-2022

Chloe MacFarlane

David Dawson

2022-2023

Alex Wilcox

Shani Pearl Nachman

Mariam Alzaabi

Erica Mizukami

Fanzhangyang Jin

Yuehao Liu

Aditya Lathar

Weiyi Yang

2023-2024

Sinan Yu

Adonai Boamah-Nyamekye

Lily Tillinghast

Daisy Coe

Qianyuan Chen

Zisheng Tan

Zhejun Wang

Ling Wu

Lucy Moore

Patrick Quinn

Nurturing Community and Experiences

This section is dedicated the nurturing experiences and both community and research engagements offered by the MRes IdUD programme. Here w e give voice to our MRes IdUD community of Alumni and capture the spirit of togetherness in multiple community engagements, international research exchanges, annual conferences, research days, academic retreats, feldtrips, and social days away.

Voices from the IdUD Community

This program is what I was looking for in my master’s degree, diverse, fexible, and enriching. I find the variety of lecturers from different backgrounds and research topics fascinating and challenging to my thinking. The core courses deepened my understanding of research in urban design, helping me develop my own research path.

Across all the modules I have taken, there has been a great emphasis on developing my critical thinking, and all the tutors I have encountered have been very welcoming. The support given by the course coordinator is an essential part of the experience. Knowing that there is someone to consult with academically or personally has been very helpful, making this course even more costume made and unique.

Shani

Pearlman (MRes alumni)

(2022-2023)

I thoroughly enjoyed the MRes! You can choose a diverse range of electives, from the School of Geography to DPU, really enriching your perspectives of urban regeneration and what constitutes a “good city”. This niche course provides a level playing feld for everyone – endless and energising debates with artists, flm makers and environmental psychologists to space syntax specialists and urban planners about innovative ways of tackling complex urban challenges.

Chloe McFarlane (MRes alumni) (2020-2021)

I attended the MRes Interdisciplinary programme in 2017-2018. It was a fundamental step to ground deep awareness of urban design and then help me construct my fgure as a professional. Firstly, as a foreign student with no experience in research, the MRes provided me with an overall knowledge of urban studies research at the UK level. Second, it was the perfect link between my previous architectural studies and my will to pursue a PhD career.

The core modules helped me to develop research skills and to reinforce my existing knowledge and experiences. While choosing among different modules across different departments allowed me to expand my interests and experiment with new topics.

The MRes fulfilled my expectations regarding the knowledge acquired and the network of colleagues and researchers built. In the long run, I can certainly say that it paved the way to the next stage of my career; When I graduated, I worked as an urban design consultant for AR Urbanism in east London for a couple of years.

Then, I am now a PhD student in my last year at the Bartlett School of Architecture. Moreover, I am also coordinating the Graphic Skills module at the Bartlett School of Planning – A no-credit-based module meant to support master students without a graphic skill background.

Irene Manzini (MRes Alumni) (2017-18)

I love my life in the MRes family. I enjoy the rich elective modules, close interaction between tutors and classmates, and cutting-edge urban design research. Best of all, I could focus on my own research interests while getting help from all aspects of MRes

Weiyi Yang, (MRes alumni) (2022-2023)

Programme Students Over the Years

Programme Staff Over the Years

Dr Juliana Martins (BSP) Coordinator Urban Design Research Project (BPLN0023) 2014/2018

Paula Morais (BSP) Coordinator and Tutor Urban Investigations (BPLN0022) 2014/18

Dr Michael Short (BSP) Programme Director 2015/2016

Prof Matthew Carmona (BSP) Founder and Programme Director 2013/2015

Dr Filipa Wunderlich (BSP) Programme Director 2016present, Coordinator Urban Investigations (BPLN0022) 2016 - present, and Urban Design Research Methodologies 2022present.

Yvonne Sibblies (BSP) Programme adminstrator 2020/2021

Vicky Howard (BSP) Programme administrator 2013/2014 – 2018/2020

Nina Jasilek (BSP) Programme administrator 2021 – present

Richard Sobey (BSP/CASA), Tutor of Urban Investigations (BPLN0022) 2020/2023

Capturing the Spirit of Togetherness

The MRes IdUD has over the years learned from and engaged with remarkable communities during their academic retreats and feldstrips, such as Het Wijk Paleis/ The District Palace community house, Rotterdam (June 2018 and 2023), “Associação Renovar a Mouraria” Mouraria Community House, Lisbon (June 2017), Guindalense Futebol Clube, at Muralha Fernandina, Porto (June 2018). Also, it has extended its academic collaborations and research links and networks at the Bartlett, UCL and beyond, in the UK and abroad.

Het Wijk Paleis/ The District Palace community kitchen, Middlandstraat, Rotterdam (June 2018)

Het Wijk Paleis/ Associação Renovar a Mouraria, Mouraria Community House, Lisbon (June 2017)

Het Wijk Paleis community house (June 2023)

The MRes IdUD at the Bartlett and Beyond

MRes IdUD Bartlett and UCL wider links and networks

MRes IdUD UK links and networks

International networks

A Flexible and Bespoke Research Programme

Course Structure and the Electives Suite

The MRes Interdisciplinary Urban Design (IdUD) amounts for a total of 180 credits and has a modular structure comprising three compulsory core modules, BPLN0022 Urban Investigations, providing in-depth knowledge in the areas of urban design theory, urban critiques and activism in planning and design, BPLN0110 Urban Design Methodologies, exploring the multitude of urbanism research methodologies, and BPLN0023 Urban Design Research Project, dedicated to the design and practice of fnal research projects.

This, plus four elective modules (an open choice from modules offered by the School of Planning (BSP), School of Architecture (BSA), Development Planning Unit (DPU), the Centre for Applied Spatial Analysis (CASA), School of Environment, Energy and Resources (BSEER), the Institute for Global Prosperity (IGP), the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP), the UCL Urban Laboratory, the Geography Department, the Anthropology Department, and other allied department and institutes both within the UCL and the Faculty of the Built Environment). There is huge fexibility on elective choices.

Specialisms on cities, design, or planning from an interdisciplinary lens

These are key topics and focus-areas of learning explored in the programme to date: Power and Politics of Urban Space, Critique and Activism in Urban Design and Spatial Planning, Representations in Cities, Culture and Politics, Urban design for Sociability and Inclusion, Gender and Urban Design, Queering the city and queer research methodologies, Post-growth Cities, Climate change and urban justice, equality and diversity, Urban place-shaping processes, Urban Colonialism, Thinking Cultural Infrastructure, Infrastructure as urban design, Temporal Urban Design and urban place-rhythmanalysis, Sensorial urbanism, Temporal infrastructures of the everyday, Temporal ordinary heritages of the urban everyday, Data urbanism: new processes and new languages for architecture, planning and urban design, Co-design and collaborative urban design research methodologies, equality and diversity and Sustainable Design and Development themes.

With the support of your core and elective modules, you can choose to specialise in a subject area of your choice offered at different schools of the Bartlett. This is a selection of recently chosen research areas of study and fnal urban research projects: Public Art, Power and Equality, Sustainable Urban Regeneration, Power, Participation and Representation in Neighbourhood Planning, Climate change and Cities in the Global South, Social equity and Green Infrastructure, Video-gaming and urban participation and design, Neurodiversity and cities planning and design, Restorative environments towards better physical and mental health, Sustainability and health in the city through local planning policy, Sustainability of urban foodscapes, Planning and Design of Post-communist countries, Sociable walking and the urban place-design, Commoning: adaptative infrastructures, formal and informal settlements, Disruptive Citizenship and Smart city participation processes, Eco-cities successes and failures, Spatial agency and conviviality in Cities, Race and legal violence and Spatial Planning, Spatial Justice in Development Planning Policy, Politics and Semiotics in High-Streets Environments, Heritage design and development processes and publicness in the city, The value of urban co-working, other.

Please see section 4.0 for a full spread of the MRes IdUD Urban Design Project since 2014 to date.

MRes IdUD Suite of Electives across the Schools of Bartlett and Beyond

60 credits of your degree will be dedicated to a suite of elective* modules from across the Bartlett and UCL, each of which explores the broad territory of urban design from a different perspective.

These are chosen by you according to your own academic background and professional experience, in order to understand the academic/ disciplinary lens through which the material of the module is taught, and as a means to gain an in-depth understanding of methods and approaches to the study of urban design.

*Disclaimer: Please note that the availability of specifc electives and modules may vary each term due and are subject to availability.

Celebrating our Journey

In this section we celebrate our journey, looking back at the ways we engage with research, such as through International Research Exchanges, Annual Conferences, Research Days, and the way we come together under Academic Retreats and Fieldtrips, and Social Days Away.

Celebrating Achievements

2015-2023

2015-2016

2016 - Present

MRes IduD International Research Exchanges

As part of overseas academic retreats, the MRes IdUD programme is regularly hosted at local Universities’ research centres of excellence. In collaboration with local academic researchers, we organise international research seminars, where our staff and students present their work, and both receive and offer feedback. These are productive and insightful ways of engaging in conversation with different research cultures and school of thought, no doubt helping to both develop and disseminate our perspectives.

International Research Exchange with Architects Without Borders in Lisbon, OA - Portuguese Association of Architects, June 2017

International Research Exchanges Seminar at FAUP, Faculty of Architecture, University of Porto, June 2018

International Research Exchanges Seminar at Faculty of Engineering / CITTA at Unversity of Porto, June 2017

MRes IduD International Engagements

During fieldtrips, the MRes visits and engages in conversations with multiple public institutions and private consultancies, learning about different cultures of planning and design.

Visit to Porto City Council Seminar presentation, Q&As and discussions, June 2018

Visit to Collective Architecture, Glasgow, June 2021

Het

Het

Seminar

Visit to the Environmental Planning, Institutions and Politics Department at the University of Amsterdam, Research Seminar by Dr Federico Savini, June 2023

Visit to Metabolic, b.v. Seminar p projects presentation, Amsterdam, June 2023

Wijk Paleis visit - Seminar presentation by chair Marieke Hillen, Rotterdam, June 2023

Wijk Paleis visit -

presentation by chair Marieke Hillen, Rotterdam, June 2019

The Bartlett MRes Annual Conferences

The MRes IdUD is part of a group of seven MRes programmes at the Bartlett Faculty of the Built of Environment. In this context, and every year at the end of the academic year, and from 2017 until 2019, the Bartlett hosted an MRes dedicated conference, where our programme got to display some of their most insightful research works.

Bartlett MRes Conference, Poster presentations, September 2018

Bartlett MRes Conference MRes IdUD presentations, September 2017

Bartlett MRes Conference programme, September 2017

From 2019, the MRes IdUD programme decide to organise their own dedicated annual conference. This is a celebratory event, where all MRes IdUD students get to present their complete Urban Design Research Projects to the new incoming MRes students, and the Bartlett School of Planning community as well as

Bartlett MRes IdUD Conference programme, October 2019

MRes IdUD Research Days

In the summer term of the academic year, and to assist the students research projects’ development, the MRes IdUD programme runs a public open Research Day, where all get to present their work in progress to the MRes team of supervisors, and other staff and students of the Bartlett involved in the programme. Every year, this public event greatly propels students research forward with a plethora of constructive formative feedback.

MRes IdUD Research Day, June 2018

MRes IdUD Researh Day, June 2023

MRes IdUD Research Day, June 2019

MRes IdUD Academic Retreats and Fieldtrips

Every academic year, typically Autumn mid-November, and Spring early June, the MRes IdUD coordinates Social Days Away, Academic Retreats and Fieldtrips. Since 2013, we have so far been in Paris, Lisbon, Porto, Rotterdam, Newcastle, Rotterdam and Amsterdam, liaising with local Universities and their research centres, and visiting and engaging with a multitude of public, private and community organisations, and enriching our knowledge and debate and disseminating our research perspectives, as well, simply bonding and having lots of fun.

2013-2014 Academic retreat - Paris

2014-2015 Academic retreat - Paris

2015-2016 Fieldtrip, Lisbon

2015-2016 Social Day Away

2016-2017 Fieldtrip, Lisbon

2017-2018 Fieldtrip, Porto

2017-2018 Fieldtrip, Folkestone

2017-2018 Social Day Away, Orbit Tower, Stratford

2018-2019 Social Day Away, London

2018-2019 Fieldtrip Newcastle

2018-2019 Fieldtrip, Rotterdam

2019-2020 - Fieldtrip, London

"As a student of the MRes program, its such a great experience to be part of the enriching feld trips that will provide hands-on experiences and real-world insights directly relevant to understanding cities and urban design with my cohort and the network of people we meet on the trips"

- Mariam Alzaabi

2020-2021 Social Day Away, Hampstead Heath

2021-2022 Fieldtrip Glasgow & Edinburgh

2022-2023 Fieldtrip Amsterdam

2022-2023 Newcastle

2023-2024 Fieldtrip, London

Fieldtrips & Dérive

A dérive (French, meaning ‘drifting’) is an unplanned journey through a landscape, usually urban, on which the subtle aesthetic contours of the surrounding architecture and geography subconsciously direct the traveller, with the ultimate goal of encountering an entirely new and authentic experience, and is a way to explore the city in depth. According to Guy Débord (one of the situationist and the inventor of dérive), the technique ‘involves playful constructive behaviour and awareness of psychogeographical effects, and are thus quite different from the classic notions of journey or stroll.'

During our MRes IdUD feldtrips, students, split into groups, performed dérives and have produced insightful collages of text and images as outcomes. They explored the use of ideas, words, interests, intrigues to help you understand unique traits of the cities and neighbourhoods they visited, who inhabits them, what is their character.

Bric k | Glass

The unique juxtaposition of old and new, with modern materials standing alongside historic buildings was one of the prominent characteristics of walking through Newcastle. Towering skyscrapers of steel and glass stand proudly beside grand Victorian and Georgian architecture, creating a blend of the old and the new. The aged brick and stone of the old buildings provide a charming contrast to the sleek, polished surfaces of the modern buildings, highlighting the history and character of the city. The skyline of Newcastle tells a story of progress and tradition, a story that continues to unfold wit h each passing day

Hidden Gardens

The city of London when unveiled reveal the hidden layers of history and narratives of the past. Through the cobbled stone alleyways lie raised gardens and courts that were once busy and full of life. The raised gardens in around the skyscrappers of London create peaceful hidden enclourses as opposed to the layers of concrete and glass that conceal the past and its unpolished stone.

Weiyi Yang, Aditya Varma, Alexandra Willcox, Shani Pearl Nachman

Bridging Research to Careers

In this section, we look at how the MRes IdUD is shaping futures, by exploring the pathways of our alumni career, other opportunities and achievements. We share our alumni remarkable research and their success stories.

Alumni & Career Pathways

Career Pathways Following the Completion of the MRes in IdUD Program

Over 50% of our alumni have gone on to do a PhD or to work directly in a research position (research associates, lecturers, socio-economics researchers, urban data analysts, and other) at the BSP, the Bartlett and elsewhere, multiple reknown universities around the world.

From the remaining %, a sizeable proportion are now working in high-level / leading positions in the built environment feld in the private sector, with 7% in NGOs or other national or global institutions such as UN office, UN-habitat Human Settlements Programme, or government offces.

Areas of Work and Research Endeavours

Distribution of Alumni Employment

Alumni Success Stories

Through a series of insightful interviews in this section, valuable insights is shared from our alumni on how to leverage their education to make a lasting impact. From architects shaping skylines to urban planners leading sustainable initiatives, each story highlights the real-world applications of our program. These alumni spotlights serve as a source of inspiration for current and future students, demonstrating the immense potential that awaits those who embark on the interdisciplinary journey of urban design and research.

Graduating year: 2017-2018

MRes Thesis Topic: Habits around Co-working space: Making Place in Spitalfelds, London

Currently: MPhil/PhD student at the Bartlett School of Architecture, with interests in the relationship between precariousness cultures, work patterns and urban space

What inspired you to pursue the MRes Program, and how did it align with your career goals at the time?

I think the main reason why I chose to study in the MRes program was that I saw the possibility to tailor ft my postgraduate studies to the topics that I was interested in at that which was to see the relationship between urban design and behavioral change. The possibility to combine both topics and take modules in both areas aligned well with my goals at the time.

Refecting on your time in the MRes Program, could you share a memorable experience or project that signifcantly impacted your academic or professional development?

I think the most memorable moment was defnitely the lecture that we had with Hasok Chang on scientifc pluralism and looking at urban design from a more pluralistic perspective. The second most memorable moment was defnitely the very intense and lively debate on the module called “Design as a Knowledge-Based Process” at the architecture department.

Now that you have completed the program, can you tell us a bit about your current role or work in your feld?

After the MRes program, I frst started working at an urban planning offce in Berlin for two years then I moved on to teach at the university where I completed my bachelor degrees and that was lots of fun. Right now I’m leading a living lab research project on promoting cycling and smaller medium sized municipalities. My role is to coordinate the

Christoph Kollert

whole project like coordinate the two universities that we work with and I’m employed by the public sector, where I work closely with the mayor of the town, and we also have lots of citizens and private companies.

What advice do you have for current MRes students or individuals considering enrolling in the program to make the most of their experience and set themselves up for success?

I recommend to make use of the professors and their time and knowledge as well as the multitude of resources provided to you by UCL and the Bartlett. Also make use of having your fellow colleagues there as well and engaging with them and their interests.

I still have a very good connection with some of them and we still help each other now, on specifc questions or queries.

Irene Manzini

What inspired you to pursue the MRes Program, and how did it align with your career goals at the time?

I mean when I decided to do the Mr Yes, it was a the time of my life. I realized I wanted to do my PhD, but for that specifc time I probably was not ready for a PhD and I was fnding some diffculties in fnding the funding and also the place for a PhD. So I fnished the MRes and then it became a great base of my PhD especially since topic was very similar to the my MRes thesis project.

In what ways has the MRes Program contributed to your career advancement?

I think the MRes was actually the base of everything I know about research, because I haven’t done research before the MRes, so it really helped me understand what is actually research.

Especially like for my PhD, and understanding the methodology aspect of research.

Graduating year: 2015-2016

MRes Thesis Topic: The Role of Urban Design in Promoting Cycling: A Behaviour Change Perspective

Currently: Worked at an urban planning offce then teaching at university and now working in a living lab.

Can you tell us more about your current research project and your PhD?

In the MRes, I started working on coworking spaces and especially the initial idea was about the impact on the physical space on the urban space of those new ways of working. I pursed that further in my PhD looking at coworking spaces, but using an indepth case study and develop further the personal perspective and perception of users of a coworking spaces, and focused further on spatial attachment. So right now my thesis is about the social infrastructure of coworking spaces are social infrastructure for the neighborhood and how coworking spaces could kind support and have different impacts on the urban space.

Are there any specifc resources or opportunities within the MRes Program that you found particularly benefcial, and would recommend to current or prospective students?

Absolutely! Beyond the things available within the MRes program, you can work as a PGTA, network and build contacts within the department and beyond, as it helps you embrace students inside the department and within UCL. Also in terms of working opportunities and making contacts and exchange knowledge with other colleagues is something that I received from the MRes and continues to provide great opportunities. Personally, it’s been something very useful because then now I’m still working with my supervisor who was my professor because they’re working on similar topics, but also because she was my professor in the at the MRes.

Graduating year: 2017-2018

MRes Thesis Topic: The Publicness of Public Space: The changing agency of the public realm from the Modern to Post-modern era

Currently: Runs and owns his practice – Steven Bee Urban Council which was established 13 years ago after working for 40 years, working in the public and private sectors mainly in the UK and mainly in the southeast of England.

What inspired you to pursue the MRes Program, and how did it align with your career goals at the time?

My reasons for taking on the MRes were probably rather different from most of the other alumni. I was very keen to strengthen the theoretical foundations of the professional work that I do. I think strengthening my credibility and my self-confdence was part of one of the reasons for doing it.

Refecting on your time in the MRes Program, could you share a memorable experience or project that signifcantly impacted your academic or professional development?

I think the opportunity to revisit work, theories and thinking that I’d done many years ago as an undergraduate, was one of the great things. There’s an awful lot that’s been studied, thought and written about since I got my frst degree in 1977. There’s a lot to catch up on and I had concentrated on practice rather than reading.

It forced me not only to read what’s been written since, but to reread some of the things that I had studied at that time, and indeed to actually read some of the things that I should have read at the time, but probably never got around to. So that’s probably, I mean it’s not particularly specifc, but it’s one of the things that I found most remarkable about the project. The other aspect was working with my colleagues on the course in 2017/18 who were not surprisingly a lot younger than me, but more importantly, they came from an international background.

Steven Bee

Now that you have completed the program, can you tell us a bit about your current work?

I’ve been running my practice for the last 13/14 years, having been a director of a local authority and subsequently of what was English Heritage is now historic England, so I’ve done all of my senior management work and I’m now working as a as an expert mainly in the relationship between historic places and everywhere else. I’m currently advising a family who have a listed house, which has been rather unsympathetically extended in the past and they want to do something more sensitive. And I’m trying to help them shape something that will be acceptable to the local authority. I’m also working on a World Heritage site in the Caribbean, helping them to identify ways in which this area of a city, which is now less important than it was historically and neglected and badly in need of investment, how can we bring new investment back into this area while protecting what it is protecting its universal values as defned by UNESCO.

Renelle Sarjeant

What inspired you to pursue the MRes Program, and how did it align with your career goals at the time? When I applied for the program I was actively working as an urban planner in Trinidad and Tobago, where I was doing lots of different things. But for me, there was a lot of talk about urban design in the country and I always felt as if we needed to do more about the quality of the built environment. So that’s why I wanted to do urban design, but specifcally the MRes program just because of the way the program was structured and the ability to do lots of different things.

Refecting on your time in the MRes Program, could you share a memorable experience or project that signifcantly impacted your academic or professional development?

I would say the fnal research project was my most memorable and was my favourite part of

Graduating year: 2015-2016

MRes Thesis Topic: Reconciling public space perspectives: the institutional and the everyday in Trinidad

Currently: Urban design planner and Consultant

the course and essentially the entire experience of doing that. Firstly, I had a really good supervisor and we had a good relationship, he let me do my own thing but was always there to give advice and give feedback and suggestions. But I also enjoyed the process of learning research skills and actually going out into the ground and doing the feldwork in Trinidad and Tobago, meeting people and collecting data coming out of that MRes, I have been doing some work, in the last couple of years, which kind of emerged because I started that research project on public spaces in Trinidad and Tobago.

Now that you have completed the program, can you tell us a bit about your current role or work in your feld?

Currently, at this moment, I am a consultant and I do lots and lots of different things.

I consult for the UN Offce for Disaster Reduction where we have wrapped up a project recently looking at strengthening infrastructure resilience in Trinidad and Tobago. My job is to kind of integrate Disaster Risk Reduction into that plan and come up with an integrated strategy for climate change adaptation and disaster reduction. I am also working on early warning systems for a consultancy frm based in Haiti. I am also part of the consulting team working on the analysis of a smart city project in Trinidad and Tobago. I am also doing some urban planning and design work for a retail company in Trinidad and Tobago, where we’re designing outdoor food courts and their land and property matters.

Graduating year: 2019-2020

MRes Thesis Topic: From Walkable to Sociable - An exploration into the ways we walk together and how the socialness of walking affects perceived walkability of the built- environment

Currently: A PhD candidate at the University of Waterloo

What inspired you to pursue the MRes Program, and how did it align with your career goals?

I graduated from undergrad in 2018 and I was working as a professional transportation planner for about a year and a half, and then I really wanted to start to think about, going back into research. I was always really interested in research during my undergraduate degree, so I wanted to fnd a master’s that kind of brought together a lot of different ideas, particularly around urban design but focused on the research side of urban design. So, when I found the MRes interdisciplinary urban design program, I felt like it was going to be a really good ft for me to explore. I was also looking at other options that were direct entry PhD options and I sort of wanted to have like a bit of a like introduction to heavy research-based programs before committing to the whole PhD.

Could you highlight a specifc skill or knowledge area that you gained during the MRes Program that has been particularly valuable in your professional life?

I think one thing is thinking about one problem from many different sides. I think this is probably the biggest skill I gained out of the MRes because we had such diverse modules and then we came together for our seminar classes with the other students in the MRes it was like from day to day I was going from one module that was teaching me about the developer perspective on privately owned public space. And then I was going to my anthropology class where I was directly criticizing those initiatives for how they can sanitize space. So it was like this ability to see things from multiple sides and form my critical thinking skills.

Looking ahead, how do you see the MRes Program continuing to infuence your professional journey?

I’ll give you a little anecdote. In the frst year of my PhD program, we were taking up planning theory class and we were all sharing our thoughts and opinions and whatnot. I was talking about my thoughts on one element of planning theory, and the professor, sort of said, Samantha kind of probably has that thought because she’s had the opportunity to look at like British schools of thought as well as Canadian schools of thought on planning. And so, there’s been like this like a real advantage to having the MRes degree in my back pocket as I’ve been moving forward through my PhD in terms of just continuing to think that a little bit differently about issues and problems and like have that like multi-sided critical thinking.

Samantha Leger

Juhyun Lee

Refecting on your time in the MRes Program, could you share a memorable experience or project that signifcantly impacted your academic or professional development?

So my research thesis in the MRes, I did something that kind of combines what I did before which is urban policy, especially transport and urban regeneration. So, my research project was developing a specifc evaluation framework that, examines measures of transport-oriented, urban regeneration in London. And basically what I what I did there in MRes became my frst publication out of my PhD. My research still uses what I developed during my MRes for my project. I also really wanted to publish in an academic journal so after my MRes I prepared my publication in an academic journal and I published within one year of my MRes thesis.

Graduating year: 2015-2016

MRes Thesis Topic: Spatial Ethics as an evaluation tool for the long term impacts of mega urban projects

Currently: Assistant professor at the University of China

What inspired you to pursue the MRes Program, and how did it align with your career goals at the time?

So, my career goal at the time was to do a PhD. I did my frst master’s degree at UCL the Institute of Archaeology, that was 2005/6. Then I had been working intensively for 10 years with the United Nations, UN Habitat. So, I’ve been working as a researcher but I was doing more urban policy-oriented research for international organizations or the local government. So, I wanted to do proper research, which is necessary and needed for urban policy. So, I was encouraged to do the MRes before my PhD whilst having a PhD proposal already, because it will be much more benefcial in terms of how I can get more updated with literature but also, how I can pile up my PhD. So, I did my MRes research with my PhD proposal. After I went straight to do my PhD and then I fnished my PhD within three years with full publications, and I can’t even imagine if I didn’t do the MRes. I wouldn’t be where I am.

Would you say that the MRes supported you to be able to do your PhD?

Yes. Somebody like me, who’s been so eager to go back to academia, and has quite some knowledge from practice it was great for me. I went to almost every module of Bartlett School of Planning and soaked in all this theory. We have so many good professors there. And as our MRes is interdisciplinary my brain fgured out how to use these different disciplines, even within the Bartlett School of Planning. And it really put me in a different universe.

Graduating year: 2015-2016

MRes Thesis Topic: (Re-conceptualizing land claims through the concept of (property) rights Currently: PhD candidate at UCL

What inspired you to pursue the MRes Program, and how did it align with your career goals at the time?

I found out about the program in 2013. Back then I already had a Masters in Urban Design from Lebanon and when I graduated, I ended up working, even as there were not a lot of opportunities in Lebanon to work in urban design. I graduated in 2012, but a bit before that I already started working in research. Then I was starting to think of doing a PhD, but I wasn’t very confdent. So, in 2013, the professor I was working for, and different colleagues from across the Bartlett were planning a trip to Beirut to initiate a conversation about interdisciplinarity. So when they came to Beirut and wanted to explore the city, I ended up helping plan lectures for them and some trips. So that’s when I met Matthew Carmona and the professor that I was working for told him that I’m thinking of doing a PhD. So, he suggested, thinking about the MRes that’s how I ended up fnding out about it.

Refecting on your time in the MRes Program, could you share a memorable experience or project that signifcantly impacted your academic or professional development?

So I think broadly 2 things, one of the things is that if you’re a student in a country like Lebanon, even if you’re at a good university, they’re very limited in terms of the scope of what you understand is urban design. So, I was reading the work of people like Matthew Carmona, who were talking about research by design, s going to the Bartlett was nice because you’re actually meeting the authors of those books, so that was nice. Also, the fact that we were allowed to, take modules based on things we were interested in, I ended up taking two of my modules in real

Abir Eltayeb

estate, which was nice because if you were back in Lebanon, you wouldn’t have taken those as electives and I ended up learning a lot from them and taking on what I had learned to do my dissertation.

What advice do you have for current MRes students or individuals considering enrolling in the program to make the most of their experience and set themselves up for success?

I think one of the things that I would say is to think of what a dissertation of urban design would look like versus what would a dissertation in interdisciplinary urban design look like. This is important because you can get the opportunity to express from access.

A Decade of Remarkable Research

This section is catalogue of research works, showcasing a selection of journal articles, refection and project descriptions from our alumni, and the fnal seminal MRes IdUD research projects completed during the program. Through this collection, this publication aims not only document the intellectual legacy of the MRes IdUD community but also to inspire future inquiry and innovation in urban design.

Journal Articles, Refections & Project Descriptions

From groundbreaking research to insightful articles, this section serves as a tribute to the transformative impact of their scholarly pursuits. The diverse array of contributions reflects not only the program's multifaceted influence across disciplines but also the ongoing commitment of our alumni to advancing knowledge.

As we delve into this collection, we invite readers to witness the intellectual evolution of those who once walked the same academic corridors, now contributing profound insights that resonate across time. Join us in celebrating the enduring spirit of inquiry and discovery that defnes our vibrant community of alumni scholars.

Tea-houses As Ordinary Heritage: Spatial Interface Of Tea-houses & Chengdu City

Qiling Chen

This research focus on the spatial profle of teahouse and urban space interfaces in order to interpret ate tea-houses phenomena in the context of Chengdu on the encounter felds which generated by spatial confguration of the urban grid. This research aims to open up the understanding of tea- houses in Chengdu as the ordinary heritage. The emergence of tea-house phenomena in open space and streets is the consequence of aggregation processes of individual tea-houses in urban space at micro scale, but also the constitutions of confgurational processes of movement and co-presence in city-wide scale. Based on the classifcation of interface between tea-house and urban space, morphologic descriptions have been signed to the tea-houses and urban space relationships to link the gap between teahouses and urban space at micro scale. The spatial profle of street segments with tea-houses and typological tea-house interfaces have provided the precise and distinctive spatial description of interface between tea-house and urban space. The confgurational description of tea- house and urban space interfaces is not only enable to explain the tea-house phenomenon at the interfaces, but also provide suggestions and signs to understand the spatial culture of typological tea- house interfaces in heritage conservation and urban design discourses. It is not suffcient to understand teahouses as social space in Chengdu. There are differentials according to the confgurational and morphological relationships of interface between tea-houses an urban space, although

the tea-houses is social space in everyday life. These differentials is the key spatial signs for understanding the relationships of tea-houses, urban space, social groups, urban heritages and Chengdu city contexts.

This research focus on the spatial cultures at the interface of tea-houses, urban space and city to provide a spatial descriptions of ‘tea-house, urban space and people’ relations in Chengdu, not only at city-wide scale but also micromorphological scale. The spatial cultures here refer to multi-scale confgurational description of typological tea-house interfaces in Chengdu. It is produced with the idea of ‘spatial cultures’ in between the tea-house and urban space as a confgurational arrangement of space to generate or restrict the ‘feld of encounter’ of human beings and their symbols (Hillier, 1989), and the meaning and function as a whole thing to extent our understanding of space – society relation (Griffths and von Lunen, 2016). The typological tea-house interfaces is the basic land use components of the interface between tea-houses and urban spaces. In the line of the ‘virtual community’ concept in space syntax, the probabilistic social interaction and everyday encounter is relation to the encounter feld in the generative process of pedestrian movement and co-presence in street network (Hillier, 1987). Confgurational description of tea-house interfaces is ‘the spatial articulation of encounter feld’ (Palaiologou et al., 2016) for the absent description of tea-houses in the process of everyday movement and co-presence.

This research shifts spatial propositions of teahouse interfaces with the concern of the tea-house phenomena by interpreting teahouse interfaces in the encounter feld which materialized and generated through street networks. It aims to provide a link in between tea-house and urban space to open up the understanding of tea-houses as ordinary heritage in everyday life by representing and interpreting how tea-house interfaces are embedded in the probabilistic encounter feld in specifc historic and cultural context of Chengdu city.

The inquiry of tea-houses as ordinary heritage not tries to defne the role and value of tea-houses in actual practices of heritage conservation, but in general open up the understanding of tea-houses in a bottom-up approach for rethinking the questions about urban renewal development and historic urban landscape in the process of urban change. For example, what is the possible attitudes and strategies when facing the urban regeneration of streets, parks, and riverfront space with the aggregation of teahouses in everyday life? How to understand the relationships among tea-houses, formal heritage sites and urban space? How to understand “the possibility of the stubborn resistances offered by traditions” (Certeau, 1984, p. 94) if the emergence of confict of everyday use of space between tea-houses and other public urban space. Thus, my specifc research questions about the spatial culture at the interface of teahouses, open spaces and city are:

• How individual tea-houses aggregate into streets and open spaces in micro-morphological level? What is the rule of built form aggregation and their implications for shaping the teahouse – urban space interface in terms of probabilistic social encounters over historical time?

• What is the historic spatial description of the interface between historic tea-houses and urban space in 1929, as well as the relationship between physical remains of historic tea-houses and their embedded urban space from 1929 to 2020?

• What does this kind of spatial culture of teahouses tell us about Chengdu today? How does it expand our notion of city and its architecture and heritage?

Reference

Hillier, B., 1989. The architecture of the urban object. Ekistics, pp.5-21.

Griffths, S., & Lunen, A.V. (Eds.). (2016). Spatial Cultures: Towards a New Social Morphology of Cities Past and Present (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315610269

Hanson, J & Hillier, B, 1987. The architecture of community: some new proposals on the social consequences of architectural and planning decisions. Architecture et Comportement/ Architecture and Behaviour , 3 (3) pp. 251–273.

Palaiologou, G, Griffths, S & Vaughan, L, 2016. Reclaiming the virtual community for spatial cultures: Functional generality and cultural specifcity at the interface of building and street. Journal of Space Syntax , 7 (1) pp. 25-54.

Certeau, M.de & Rendall, S., 1984. The practice of everyday life / Michel de Certeau ; translated by Steven Rendall.

Unlocking Productive Urban Foodscapes: Space As A Driver Towards Sustainable Urban Food Systems

Urban areas have long depended on rural areas to be fed, a dependence that has been exploited by the global food networks. The implications of this dependence are now prominent, with a worsening climate crisis, low productivity, prevalent hunger, malnutrition and a very unstable future, and we can no longer turn a blind eye. Intensive agriculture may be credited with1 increasing the agricultural output, but it has come with a price, that we pay with planet exploitation, farmer exploitation and resource exploitation. As cities fll up faster than ever, it is becoming essential for cities to fnd ways to feed themselves. Feeding cities, however, is not a small task. Certainly, there is a growing awareness to allow production of food in cities, but will these continue to be productive in the long run. And with urban space at a premium, whose slice of cake do we cut into? Urban land is contested, as more people fll into cities, we need to be smart about what we want from the land and infrastructure.

We take a case study approach to understand how spatial analysis, spatial relations and spatial connectivity can increase or decrease productivity of urban food production sites in Rotterdam and Tokyo. The comparative analysis between Rotterdam and Tokyo offers valuable insights into differing spatial paradigms and their infuences on food productivity. Rotterdam, renowned for its innovative urban agriculture initiatives and adaptive spatial planning, provides a context for understanding localized food production practices. Conversely, Tokyo,

with its dense urban fabric and sophisticated distribution networks, offers perspectives on high-density urban foodscapes and optimized logistical strategies. The fndings underscore the signifcance of spatial proximity, land utilization, transportation networks, and community engagement in augmenting productivity within urban foodscapes. Additionally, the study illuminates the role of policy frameworks, technological integrations, and cultural aspects in shaping spatial strategies for enhanced food productivity.

Productivity- Connectivity- Community Nexus

In the past two decades, Urban farming has created a lot of curiosity in research and practice, giving rise to multiple urban farming projects2. While the perceived benefts 3 are manifold, three important things need to be addressed, frstly, urban farming must be made productive enough so cities can divert their urban space for farming projects. Secondly, urban farming needs to be made more viable and sustainable for a long-term transition. Thirdly, the perceived benefts must reach maximum number of inhabitants, directly or indirectly. We identify that three important sectors need to be focused on in this regard, Productivity, Connectivity and Community, by micro analysing them with spatial and social lenses at multi levels.

Pooja Boddupalli

Productivity of urban foodscapes must be redefned and looked beyond yield. Urban land is contested and farming in urban areas must be made more appealing, socially, economically and environmentally, and must aim at improving the well-being of its people, calling for a new defnition that benefts more people. Preliminary analysis of the case studies from Tokyo and Rotterdam show that the nature of productivity of the farming sites depends on not just the production typologies but also the spatial relations and connections, the connectivity it shares with its micro and meso urban fabrics. In other words, each urban production typology in different context displays a distinctive set of relations it shares with the connections that fow from it, and the community it relates to, leading to who the consumers are, laying a strong emphasis on the fact that the systematic spatial study of ‘productiondistribution- consumption’ typologies will demonstrate the productivity-connectivity- Community nexus.

Space as a Driver of Urban Food Systems

In the words of Mougeot (p.5, 2006) “Urban agriculture is anywhere and everywhere that people can fnd even the smallest space to plant a few seeds.”

Space as a starting point to understanding production in a multifaceted manner, space as production of food, functions and societal relations. Analysis of space needs to play a bigger role in the making of urban food systems than it has been researched. All the activities of the food system take place in relation to space, yet the role of spatial structures, patterns, connections and relations to each other and their societal counterparts could be better understood through systematic spatial research. A further understanding of the role of space in integrating the different systems, at multi levels could, frstly, help increase productivity of the urban farming typologies, secondly, improve the connectivity between different silos and multi levels, and thirdly, examine the role of community by assessing them with social lens and the spatial lens, all together to maximise the benefts... This systematic spatial approach will help urban systems better realise their potential and be viable for a longer term.

For instance, the comparative case study analysis of two commercial food growing sites in Rotterdam and Tokyo show spatial structure and layout effect the productivity at micro level but the productivity can be enhanced by encouraging spatial interventions at the meso scale. Realistically therefore, Urban Farming must take into account that there are citizens who do not want to grow food but the produce must be allowed to reach

the community through different supply chains that must be connected more effciently via space and systems so that the produce is ample, visible and accessible to these consumers. Further, the disposal must be spatially connected back to the sites making disposal and valorisation an inherent process for the site activities as well as the consumers.

Conclusion

It is, therefore, the aim of this research to analyse Productivity, Connectivity and Community from the spatial lens5 and make a strong argument that the longterm success and viability of food systems and effective transition to localised food systems ultimately depends on the socio-spatial relations and the interlinkages the various activities such as production, distribution, consumption and disposal share with each other at micro level, the site in itself, and meso level, the site surroundings. Comparing and contrasting multiple sites in different contextual scenarios will give a comprehensive view of how Urban Food systems are a spatial manifestation of their various components and how spatial relations between the activities will impact the success or the failure of this sustainable transition. If we want to transition towards more local and regenerative methods in urban areas, we need to analyse production, distribution, consumption and disposal in urban areas not as independent silos but as an integrated system, thereby analysing them in relation with each other, both socially and spatially.

Bibliography

1. FAO. FAO’s Strategic Framework 2022-31. (2022).

2. Smit, J., Nasr, J. & Ratta, A. Urban agriculture: food, jobs and sustainable cities. (1996).

3. Viljoen, A., Bohn, K. & Howe, J. Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes: designing urban agriculture for sustainable cities. (eBook2005 Oxford ; Boston : Architectural Press, 2005, 2005).

4. Mougeot, L. J. A. Growing better cities: Urban agriculture for sustainable development. www.idrc.ca/ books. (2006).

5. Kasper, C., Brandt, J., Lindschulte, K. & Giseke, U. The urban food system approach: thinking in spatialized systems. Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems 41, (2017).

Richard Sobey on Placemaking

Richard Sobey

As a Creative Producer, Richard collaborates with architects, planners, artists, technologists, serious games developers, communities and audiences to make engaging and impactful experiences in the public realm designed to inform decision-making in urban design programmes and in policy. These experiences make temporary changes to the managed environment, urban and rural, to challenge understandings and expectations about what we can do and what we can affect in local neighbourhoods and gathering places. They aspire to effect permanent change in how we think about living together.

How Richard thinks about placemaking:

It is useful to think of space as an asset rather than just a place; and to explore how it contributes in a number of ways as a natural, ecological, cultural, social, community and economic asset. It is not just a public space, but a public asset. This allows us to think about how it functions as an asset and how we might nurture it.

Placemaking is about working with the relationship between people and spaces as places shared with each other and with other species. It is about the connections between these things and how these function together to create a physical identity specifcally informed by social, historical and cultural aspects to form a uniquely valued place that is enacted socially, economically and politically.

Placemaking is about the variety of ways in which a place is used – not a single use. It is about the creative patterns of use over the day, week, seasons and years. It is about the capacity for people and the natural world to thrive together. It therefore draws on an understanding of the place built on the knowledge, experience, skills and tools of those inhabiting, using or invested in the space.

Placemaking seeks to understand the sense of place and contribute to its evolution, respecting local knowledges, sustainability and uses. Placemaking does this by drawing on local assets, knowledges, experience and skills as well as re-imagining the possibilities and potential of the place.

It is about what happens in a space or location, what is there and how it got there.

It is about how those activities and experiences come about; who created them and how.

It is about a tangible sense of place.

We are not designing a space; we are not programming a venue. We are co-curating a sense of place with a variety of tools that draw not only on architecture and urban design, but also, most importantly, narratives that draw on the past(s) and imagined futures. It is about connection, ownership, inclusivity, accessibility and collaboration. It is built on narratives that are strong, appropriate, relevant and timely - narratives drawn from the past(s), present and a series of imagined futures and from the diversity of opinions, attitudes and identities present (or who may inhabit the place).

The process is hyper-local and context-specifc, but draws on the use of, and ambitions for, spaces by many differing actors with often conficting interests - and often from places beyond the local, so that city-wide, regional, national and international infuences and pressures are brought to bear.

Some questions arise from this:

• Who is identifying what is valued?

• Who are we including? And excluding? Is this purposeful?

• Whose narratives are we hearing or ignoring?

• How are these narratives constructed? Are they informed by traditions or speculating on a future?

• Whose assets, inspirations and potentials are we drawing on?

• What are our parameters for this?

• What do we focus on and how does this relate to our goals?

• What takes precedence and why?

• How do we make for experiences, not structures?

• What type of experiences and for whom?

• Who makes decisions? Who designs the solution or outcome?

• Are we community-led? Or community-responsive? Or community-aware?

• What do we actually mean by ‘co-created’, coproduced’, ‘collaborative’ and ‘participatory’?

• How do we ensure we are exploring all avenues of possibility?

• Who should be ‘in the room’?

When thinking about specifc initiatives or projects, it is useful to understand placemaking as a mechanism by which we can build productive sustainable relationships between four constituencies:

• The diversity of local communities (there is not one ‘local community’)

• Those invested in the neighbourhood (ownership and expectations)

• Those seeking change (either from within or external; developer, policy maker or resident etc)

• The local eco-system (a diversity of actors and actants, including other species).

It is also worth thinking about ambition and pragmatism. Placemaking can also be expressed as placeshaping, a term that recognises that things already exist and many will remain; that this is a process over time that does not start with the blank canvas that the word making suggests. Placemaking is a collaborative journey, not a structural outcome. All travellers should be valued, even if not all are taking the same path. It is also critical to note that placemaking is contested and could more usefully be described as place-defending, where some want and need their spaces and places left to them to make, shape and own. Not everyone wants to be a traveller or wants to be shown a path.

Thinking about placemaking in this way helps us together design more effective ways to engage with people and places. It helps us question the assumptions we make about consultation in urban development.

4.1 Politics, Justice and Representation

Mediaspree Revisited: Long-term impact of Urban Social Movements in the case of Mediaspree, Berlin, Leonardo Ailings, 2014-2015

Visions of Modernity in Cairo: A Spatial Political Economy Approach, Omar Sherif, 2014-2015

(Re-)Conceptualizing Land Claims through the Concept of (Property) Rights: The Case of Solidere, Beirut, Abir Mahmoud Eltayeb, 2015-2016

Reconciling Public Space Perspectives: The Institutional and The Everyday in Trinidad, Renelle Sarjeant, 2015-2016

Towards A Cartography of Precarity in Academia: A Case-Study of The Spaces of Work Used by Researchers and Teachers in The BartlettFaculty of The Built Environment, UCL , Farina Alessandra, 2016-2017

Infrastructures of Reception: The Spatial Politics of Refuge In Mannheim, Germany, Frein Von Nettelbladt Gala, 2016-2017

Re-tracing Home: Conversations with Syrian newcomers on the “arrival crisis“ in Berlin, Stoll Benedikt, 2016-2017

The infuence of historic development on the publicness of public space, London’s Festival of Britain site: a case study, Bee Steven, 2017-2018

The Search for Meaning: To the Standardized and Unstandardized Shop Signs on Yuyuan Road, Shanghai, He Luwen, 2017-2018

Whose spaces? Spatial practices, boundaries and thresholds in the regenerated public spaces of the historical centre of Palermo, Italy, Pandolfo Andrea, 2017-2018

Exploring the potential and challenges of grassroots-driven digital innovation in a contested city: The case of Beirut, Lebanon, Zeitoun Lea, 2017-2018

Disruptive Citizenship: a need for spaces of resistance in the smart city? Richard Sobey, 2018-2019

Developing Downtown Los Angeles A Partial History of Racialised Spatio-Legal Violence in a Settler-Colonial City, 1950s-Present, Sarah Goldweiz, 2020-2021

Green Infrastructure: The Struggle for Social Equity in The Post-Industrial Environment, A Case Study of Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London, Fangchen Liu, 2020-2021

4.2 Morphology and Use

Urban Private-Public Spaces: A Study of Their Uses, Jospeh Chambers, 2014-2015

Street Hierarchy and the Distribution of Frontage Uses, Ziyu Chen, 2014-2015

Exploring the Relationship between Spatial Patterns and Static Activities within Ordinary Markets: Case Studies based on London, Jiawen Tu, 2014-2015

Tea-Houses as Ordinary Heritage: Spatial Interface of Tea-Houses and Chengdu City, Qiling Chen, 2019-2020

Exploring the relationship between summer urban heat and physical activity levels in the public green space of Victoria Park, London, Zhijiang Ge, 2020-2021

Exploring Openness: the transformation of spatial and social openness in the context of China’s community opening policy – A case study of Youtian City, Weiyi Yang, 2022-2023

4.3 Communities and Design

Gerani, Athens: Space and Patterns of Immigrant Segregation, Athina Vlachou, 2013-2014

Multiple factors on citizen perception towards the functions of green spaces and human behaviours in urban parks, Jiang Huiying, 2016-2017

Public spaces as a stage for integration in Chinese Urban Villages: The impact of publicness on social integration, Lan Xiaoxuan, 2016-2017

Habits Around Co-Working Space: Making Place in Spitalfelds, London, Manzini Irene, 2017-2018

Exploring the Potential of Residual Spaces as A Catalyst to Improve People’s Daily Life in China, Xu Haibo, 2017-2018

Minecraft and Playful Public Participation in Urban Design, James Delaney, 2019-2020

4.4 Sustainability, Health and Climate Change

The Role of Urban Design in Promoting Cycling: A Behaviour Change Perspective, Christoph Kollert, 2015-2016

The Role of Sanitation in Urban Health: Exploring the Relationship between Public Space, Sanitation and Health in Slums, Stricker Julia, 2016-2017

Old Solutions to New Problems - Exploring the New London Vernacular, Jose Senra, 2018-2019

Sustainable Neighbourhood Foodscapes: Re-Calibrating Urban Form to Create Resilient & Localised Food Systems in London, Pooja Boddupalli, 2020-2021

Planning for Healthy Neighborhoods: The case of London, Shani Pearl Nachman, 2022-2023

Design Framework and Strategies for Dementia-Friendly Communities, Yuehao Liu, 2022-2023

4.5 Processes and Development

Relationship Between Housing Design Quality and Viability, Liu Wenlin, 2016-2017

Organisational Problem-solving and the Urban Design Process, Roberts Jeffrey, 2016-2017

Place-shaping Process of Station-led Regeneration: A Case Study of Oshiage, Tokyo, Yudi Liu, 2019-2020

A Critical Review on the Chinese Eco-cities: Based on Cases of Dongtan Eco-City, Caofeidian Eco-City and China-Singapore Eco-City, Fengliang Tang, 2019-2020

THE REVIVAL OF BRITAIN’S INLAND CANALISED WATERWAYS: A case study of the London Regent’s Canal, Alex Wilcox, 2022-2023

4.6 Methodolog ies

Representations of Urban Space as (Inter-) Disciplinary Tools, A methodology for comparatively analysing graphics in urban investigations, Terspsithea Laopoulou, 2014-2015

‘A view from the Bicycle in Urban design’ – Exploring a transdisciplinary research methodology for the production of cycling system knowledge in the context of transformative research paradigm, Gantert Marius, 2016-2017

4.7 Temporary Urbani sms

Tactics and Processes - The Making of Tactical Space in Dalston, Zhang Yigong, 2016-2017

The Railton Low Traffc Neighbourhood: Evolving temporary urbanism projects and exploring inherent social capital through a Feminist ‘Ethics of Care’ framework, Chloe MacFarlane, 2021-2022

4.8 Post-socialist Urbanisms

Open space of a post-socialist housing estate as collective luxury, Blazej Czuba, 2014-2015

Negotiating the Inheritance of Communism Urban Design in a Post-Communist Country: Perspectives from Romania, Uma Humelnicu, 2020-2021

4.9 Sensory and Affect ive Urbanisms

Exploring the Nearness of Collective Memory in Urban Design. Three Cases in Rome, Elisa Avellini, 2016-2017

Community art as a vehicle for socio spatial change in Latin America, Delia Bermeo Maria, 2017-2018

Embodiment of the Smartphone: Does it (Re)Shape Space or the Body? Wookey Simon, 2017-2018

From Walkable to Sociable - An exploration into the ways we walk together and how the socialness of walking affects perceived walkability of the built- environment, Samantha Leger, 2019-2020

4.10 Gender

Women’s Use, Experience, and Preference of Public Space in Tokyo, Japan, Erica Mizukami, 2022-2023

4.11 Informal urbanisms

Design with informality: a study of spatial informality in Wuhan, Yicong Yang, 2013-2014

Spatial Agency for Complex Paradoxical Societies’ Conviviality: The Case of Greater Cairo’s New Enclosed and Fragmented Settlements’ Regeneration, Shadan Elgalaly, 2019-2020

Kampung Muka in Jakarta, Indonesia: Common Space as Adaptive Infrastructure in Informal Settlements, Megawati, 2019-2020

4.12 Mega-Projects

Spatial Ethics as an evaluation tool for the long term impacts of mega urban projects: An application of Spatial Ethics Multi-criteria Assessment to Canning Town Regeneration Project, London, Juhyun Lee, 2015-2016

Spatial Ethics as an evaluation tool for the long term impacts of mega urban Dubai Expo 2020: The Expectations and Realities of Fulflling a Legacy Plan, Mariam Alzaabi, 2020-2023

4.1 Politics, Justice and Representation

MEDIASPREE REVISITED: LONG-TERM IMPACT OF URBAN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN THE CASE OF MEDIASPREE, BERLIN

Leonardo Ailings

This MRes thesis set out to explore the long- term impacts of urban social movements in the case of the Mediaspree area in Berlin. Rather than focusing on the protests themselves, the thesis aimed at revisiting the contested urban area seven years after the protests peaked and to investigate their impact on the urban de- velopment discourse and practice. Through a series of qualitative research methods, three different scales were explored: District, Project and City Scale.

The evidence suggests that the protests have contributed to a gradual change in the way urban development and planning are dis- cussed and practiced in the Mediaspree area and beyond. This shift is initiated by different players and affects - to a different degree - all the scales that were explored. On the District Scale, the impact of the protests can be seen in the urban development discourse rather than in the actual policymaking and real estate business. This shift within the urban development discourse can also be observed in the city-wide urban development narrative and in some cases even led to actual changes in policymaking. Furthermore, the evidence from the Project Scale suggests that the claims of the 2008 social movement considerably informed the design of particular developments, such as the Holzmarkt and the Spreefeld project.

Based on a broad range of evidence, the thesis fnally discusses that the shift within the urban development discourse and practice may not only be related to the 2008 protest movement, but also to the post-2008 developments them- selves, which feed into a multi-scalar feedback loop. The research argues that the protests got onto another level over the course of time, shifting from a widely visible urban social movement to a kind of long-term protest that is incorporated in specifc projects and policies.

VISIONS OF MODERNITY IN CAIRO: A SPATIAL POLITICAL ECONOMY APPROACH

Omar Sherif

Ever since Egypt’s integration into the globalised economic system in the 1990s, new modes of urbanisation appeared, which promised novel visions of modernity. To interpret this process, this thesis explores the effect of political economy on the spatial production process in today’s Cairo. It asks: what visions of modernity do political and economic elites promote and why, and how are these mediated through the built environment?

The research starts by contextualising current developments within a historic analysis of urban planning throughout Cairo’s modern history. It then develops an analytic framework from the theories of Henri Lefebvre on the social production of space, and Kim Dovey on the mediation of power through space. It starts by analysing the stakeholders and the sources of funds for each project, followed by an analysis of the visions of modernity projected by each one. These are divided into two: modernity as self-transformation, which applies to daily life practices, and modernity as self-representation, which is seen in large scale state projects.

architecture and urban design in globalised Cairo. The first is new urban developments, with the case study of the New Giza gated community, west of Cairo. The second is state-sponsored signature architecture, with the case study of the new Grand Egyptian Museum, near the pyramids of Giza.

The study finds that the pursuit of profit by real estate developers in Cairo leads to the promotion of exclusivity and luxury within the gated communities’ design. Meanwhile, stakeholders in state megaprojects seek to represent Egypt as modern through the grandeur and technical competence of its chosen designs. Both these visions of modernity share a tendency to stigmatise Cairo as a metropolis of congestion, pollution and security threats, which needs to be escaped.

(RE-)CONCEPTUALIZING LAND CLAIMS THROUGH THE CONCEPT OF (PROPERTY) RIGHTS: THE CASE OF SOLIDERE, BEIRUT

Abir Mahmoud Eltayeb

Between 1975 and 1990, Lebanon witnessed a 15-year civil war that resulted in the massive destruction of the Beirut Central District (BCD). The BCD has since been subject to a detailed master plan entrusted by the weakened government to the joint-stock real estate company, Solidere. This dissertation sheds a property rights perspective on the case study of the given reconstruction project. It argues that such a perspective allows us to move beyond a narrow focus on architectural solutions or the shaping of functional and equitable public spaces in the BCD, to consider how the rebuilding ushered a wave of transformations in the way land claims were made in Beirut (by converting the ownership of property rights into company shares).

Accordingly, this dissertation questions the following: Solidere may be empowered by a weakened post-war government with limited public resources that hinder physical rebuilding, however, should a private entity be given ultimate control over land and property rights after confict, hence dictating its future use? The research analyses this through tracing the formation process of the company and exploring the effects it had on the property rights within the BCD. It relies on an inductive approach that proceeds from an in depth understanding of a single case study that examines contextual descriptions of a certain phenomenon that has not yet been fully understood. In doing so, it foregrounds the use of two data collection methods: document analysis and semi-structured interviews that allow the

By reviewing literature on property rights, this dissertation also seeks to contribute wider lessons to the practice of urban design and planning that is rendered an interdisciplinary endeavour responding to societal, legal and corporate-driven goals. It concludes with a critical assessment of the case of Solidere against the societal functions that urban designers and planners can potentially assume; in doing so, it proposes avenues for future research on the little- understood “morality of rights.” (Blomley 2016: 11)

RECONCILING PUBLIC SPACE PERSPECTIVES: THE INSTITUTIONAL AND THE EVERYDAY IN TRINIDAD

This dissertation takes place at the intersection of what happens in public spaces and the community of practice involved in public space. Treating public space as both an object of study and interpretation and an academic and institutional concept this research explore two key concerns: does the reality of public spaces and public life in the town centre transfer to narratives of public spaces, and can a view of the everyday improve the way public space is thought about in policy and actioned on the ground by offcials and institutions.

In this multi-method research, public space is conceived as a day-to-day space of sociability and politics, with material dimensions creating a narrative of the lived experience, and also a place of official imagining and action. Through an interrogation of public spaces and public space narratives in two town centres in Trinidad and Tobago these two concerns are dissected.

Renelle Sarjeant

The findings of the research revealed that with officials there are enduring concerns for provision and quality of public space. When detailed the ideals of an inclusive public space and a distinctive environment exist alongside the dominance of movement and policing of use, and identifed failings of management. In the everyday public spaces provide important social benefits to many groups including retirees, young men, vendors, and low-income residents. Public space is also a refection of the vernaculars of society, both its sociabilities and its faultlines.

There are many places where the offcial and the everyday intersect on issues but diverge on content. To resolve these, the two perspectives become interwoven through reconciliations aimed at impacting the processes of public space management and policy content and priorities.

TOWARDS A CARTOGRAPHY OF PRECARITY IN ACADEMIA: A CASE-STUDY OF THE SPACES OF WORK USED BY RESEARCHERS AND TEACHERS IN THE BARTLETT - FACULTY OF THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT, UCL

Farina Alessandra

This study critically explores the notion of precarity with regards to flexibility in higher education in its relation to the urban design of the campus.

I designed the dissertation along Lefebvre’s trialectic of space, applying the locational analysis proposed by Doreen Massey in “Spatials Divisions of Labour” (1995) to explore the university environment. By mapping the topologies of power, I will criticize the narrative of flexibility in the neoliberal university un- covering the way this narrative enforces inequalities through space. Drawing on ethnographic feldwork carried out in the Bartlett, the research project aims to construct a sort of landscape of labour in higher education, focusing on the study of the research space, where the knowledge is produced. This dissertation concludes by arguing that a spatial analysis of the campus conceived as a workspace offers a valuable tool to understand hidden dynamics of exclusion fostered by space.

INFRASTRUCTURES OF RECEPTION: THE SPATIAL POLITICS OF REFUGE IN MANNHEIM, GERMANY

This research project is concerned with the spatial politics of refuge. It investigating the politics of city-making processes at play in the reception of migrants in German cities by adopting an infrastructural lens, destabilising the assumption that urban infrastructures form the mere backdrop of a political meta-structure. Drawing on ethnographic material collected in and around ‘Benjamin Franklin Village’, a state-managed reception centre in Mannheim, Germany, it argues that reception centres conceptualised as infrastructural spaces form a central element in the conduct of Germany’s reception politics. In doing so, it offers a critical reading of the universal, humanitarian gestures the German state has employed towards migrants since 2015, juxtaposing the state’s rhetoric with the actual spaces of migration in Mannheim: Getting closer to the reception centre through an ethnographic approach reveals the ambiguous nature of the state’s humanitarian discourse, fnding that an attention to the situated materiality and locality of the reception centre and the policy framework it is embedded in uncovers on one hand that Mannheim’s reception gesture towards migrants was the outcome of risk-benefit calculations for a local development scheme, and on the other that the urban design of the place contributes to its residents immobility, containment and suspension. Finally, the dissertation contends that an infrastructural approach to urban design not only offers a pertinent theoretical and methodological tool to uncover its political trajectories, but fundamentally also equips us with the ability to imagine more responsible and inclusive ways of designing – potentially and actually – the urban with regards to the reception of refugees.

Frein Von Nettelbladt Gala

RE-TRACING HOME: CONVERSATIONS WITH SYRIAN NEWCOMERS ON THE “ARRIVAL CRISIS“ IN BERLIN

Stoll Benedikt

The design research project “Re-tracing Home” aims to challenge the contemporary notion of the crisis as a one of politics, not of capacity. The social and spatial integration of newcomers as well as the general issue of affordable housing in Europe is correlated to provide a new perspective - a Syrian perspective - on the perceptions and imaginations of “home” and “housing”.

The contemporary crisis is regarded as a political short-term problem. It is therefore exacerbated by temporary architecture which results in an unwelcoming reception of newcomers that hinders their integration. This alleged “arrival crisis” is investigated from an urban design perspective by addressing the discrepancy between government (mass) housing programmes and local grassroot initiatives.

By drawing from the theoretical and conceptual framework of Pierre Bourdieu‘s “habitus“ (1979) concept, James Wines’ “Highrise of Homes” (1981) project as well as the memories and experiences of displaced communities, their old, new and ideal home is re-narrated, re-written and re-drawn.

Based on cognitive mapping workshops with Syrian newcomers, the speculative design proposition of a “fluid home” postulates open and undifferentiated structures that can be appropriated by its inhabitants. In this way, newcomers would be enabled to set the thresholds to the public themselves and become part of the cultural and architectural process of renegotiating meaning into space.

A new cross-cultural co-design agenda could introduce a new narrative of urban design to openly diminish architectural mystifcation and call for a new perspective on “refugee architecture” and contemporary housing models. Challenging common preconceptions and dualisms through an ethical approach to sanctify particularities could blur the lines of architectural and cultural boundaries. Migration may have the potential for re-imagining transtopian cities and societies in which every integration starts at home.

THE INFLUENCE OF HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT ON THE PUBLICNESS OF PUBLIC SPACE

LONDON’S FESTIVAL OF BRITAIN SITE; A CASE STUDY

Bee Steven

This research into the factors influencing the success of public space adopts a case study approach to explore the concept of publicness and examine the value of public space through the example of London’s Southbank Centre.

The site has been studied extensively and from various perspectives. Previous studies provide data and analysis on which I draw to discern the key influences and influencers on the evolution of the area as a public place. The post-war history of the site traverses the modernist and post-modern periods in architecture and planning and the statist and neo-liberal periods of the UK’s political economy.

The evolution of the site is characterised by periods of intense activity and change separated by periods of uncertainty and inactivity. This allowed informal activities to establish while development in the wider area strengthened the attractiveness of the location to a variety of publics. Crucial to its current character is its public ownership throughout, and the incomplete implementation of successive masterplans for comprehensive development.

Field observation and interviews have contributed to gauging the perceived success of the spaces of the South Bank in terms of openness, inclusiveness and playfulness. Theories of the philosophical, social, psychological and physical nature of space help to explain how and why the sequence of events and the agencies involved have contributed to this success. This allows conclusions to be drawn that may assist the practice of urban design as an interdisciplinary activity to the further beneft of urban communities.

THE SEARCH FOR MEANING: TO THE STANDARDIZED AND UNSTANDARDIZED SHOP SIGNS ON YUYUAN ROAD, SHANGHAI

He Luwen

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, shop signs have been increasingly mandated by officials in Chinese cities. It is regarded as one important tool to improve the urban appearance. One common intervention that has been implemented across most Chinese cities is ‘Shop Sign Standardization’. That is to uniform the signscape along streets with homogeneous design. Opposing views regarding this top-down implementation were heard, which reveals a meaning that people attached to shop signs. However, there are few studies conducted to understand and exam the dividing views and the rationale behind these views. This research starts with this particular government implementation and tries to explore and interpret the discourses around shop signs.

This research aims to identify the profound relationship between shop signs and cities, and to investigate the meaning carried by shop signs to urban dwellers. It employs the signscape of Yuyuan Road, Shanghai, as a case study, to inquiry deep into the transformation of urban surface under official regulations. It traces government ideologies beyond implementations, though the physical presentation of shop signs on Yuyuan Rd. The findings of this research attempted to present a conversation spoken through the signscape, by different groups of actors. It reveals the adoptions and negotiations under the infuential offcial ideologies and aesthetic tastes. Finally, a resistance of the shop sign is uncovered and valued in the search for meaning, for it connoting the right to the city and the restoration of everyday life.

WHOSE SPACES? SPATIAL PRACTICES, BOUNDARIES AND THRESHOLDS IN THE REGENERATED PUBLIC SPACES OF THE HISTORICAL CENTRE OF PALERMO, ITALY.

Pandolfo Andrea

This paper aims to test the concepts of boundary and threshold as methodological lenses to analyse socio-spatial processes of change, exclusion or segregation at the micro-level of spatial practices and perceptions. In order to do that, the casestudy of Palermo, Italy has analysed in detail.

A second phase of the study deployed a multi-method qualitative research on two squares of Palermo. This phase is based on a corpus of twenty-nine individual semi-structured interviews, three grouped interviews, as well as on several informal conversations and six sessions of nonparticipant observation.

As a result of those two phases, a typology of boundaries and thresholds has been established, providing discrete units of analysis that can be used for different analytical operations.

Through those practices and perceptions can be regrouped and used as indicators of larger social and economic phenomena, or to assess the effects of socio-spatial

As such, b&t represent an analytical tool that can be useful to academic scholars in ur- ban studies, where studies of processes of exclusion and segregation at the micro-level is rare and confined to ethnographic approaches. But b&t can be a useful resource also for the Urban Design practitioner looking for a tool to evaluate the social effects of Design interventions.

This research has the ambition of testing the heuristic validity of b&t through a single case study. However, the full range of possibilities of b&t as methodological lenses is yet to explore. The full breadth of analytical operations they allow is yet to explore. Similarly, the depth of the analytical reach of the concepts is to explore, both through comparative and longitudinal researches.

EXPLORING THE POTENTIAL AND CHALLENGES OF GRASSROOTS-DRIVEN DIGITAL INNOVATION IN A CONTESTED CITY: THE CASE OF BEIRUT, LEBANON

Zeitoun Lea

The project explores the city of Beirut as a potential ‘seedbed’ for grassroots-driven digital innovation. Using a socio-technical perspective stemming from studies in Grassroots Innovation and the Smart City model, the research is qualitatively led and adopts an ethnographic method of data collection – semi-structured interviews. The purpose was to collect narratives from different stakeholders who were representatives of the core concepts advanced in my research topic: digital, innovation, grassroots, Beirut. The collected data from each interview has formed a narrative thread, starting with the collective perception of Beirut today and ending with visions of Beirut tomorrow (2030). Indeed, the city is imagined as an entangled web of sociopolitical and physical tensions meshing up from the time of the 1975 Civil War: this has ultimately led to psychological lockdowns and a neglect towards the physical integrity of Beirut.

Nudging at those wicked nodes are ‘buddings’ of innovation and alternative movements trying to disrupt the status quo using grassroots tactics on-the-ground as well as digital platforms. With that narrative set, this thesis will offer an explorative view of whether digital technology can incur innovation through grassroots means in a contested and psychologically severed city. In the context of Urban Design, the project puts a spotlight on the complex dynamics between innovation, urban systems, and psychology in the digital age.

DISRUPTIVE CITIZENSHIP: A NEED FOR SPACES OF RESISTANCE IN THE SMART CITY?

Richard Sobey

As key actors in smart urbanism, a triple helix (Etzkowitz 2007) drives development: city governance, corporations and academia. This configuration also forms the leading power and control structure for smart city development, steering on both direction and implementation (Kitchin et al. 2017).

Citizen participation is positioned within current frameworks in ways that reflect this power structure. Even when civil society supports participation (creating a quadruple helix), citizens still appear to be users (data contributors), testers (living lab users) or evaluators (surveys). The capacity for citizens in decision-making, innovation and development seems limited in practice.

Where we see citizen resistance to dataveillance and geoprivacy, we fail to recognise this as participatory and adequately accommodate these actions in frameworks for citizen participation. Where are Big Brother Watch (bigbrotherwatch. org.uk) and #BlockSidewalk campaign (blocksidewalk.ca) to be situated if we understand them as participatory and contributing to the development of the smart city?

Taking Bristol city as a case study, this study uses interviews with actors across the quadruple helix to explore the role, meaning and position of resistant activity in the smart city. Findings reveal, not spaces of resistance, but temporary spaces of challenge in continual production at a porous interface between communities of practice within the triple helix and the realm of citizenry. With shifting identities, it would appear that those defining the production logic of these spaces inhabit purposefully outsider positions to contexts controlled by the power structure, exploiting the porous boundary for strategic advantage, though also no longer being simply 'citizens'.

To contribute to debate on participatory practice in smart urbanism, the study offers a preliminary framework for citizen participation as challenge, and identifies further study for more assured claims for the role of challenge in smart urbanism and urbanism more widely.

DEVELOPING DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES A PARTIAL HISTORY OF RACIALISED SPATIOLEGAL VIOLENCE IN A SETTLER-COLONIAL CITY, 1950S-PRESENT

Sarah Goldweiz

Since the 1950s, Downtown Los Angeles ('DTLA*) has undergone near-constant development, transforming what were once low-income and immigrant neighbourhoods into a glitzy urban core of civic and commercial activity. Los Angeles ('LA*) has been called 'the most heterogenous city in the world' (Jencks, 1993: 32), 'the first American city' (Weinstein, 1996: 23) and paradigmatic of postmodern urbanism. However described, Los Angeles is a settlercolonial city, occupying Tongva land first seized in the 18th century by Spanish colonists. Like other settler-colonial contexts, it is governed by 'already established, configured social relations disposed by imperial conquest and racial capitalism' (Byrd et al., 2018: 1). The implications of settler-coloniality and racial capitalism, however, are not sufficiently addressed in existing literature on urban change in LA's downtown centre. Thus, how can the urban development of Downtown Los Angeles, from the 1950s until the present, be understood as spatio-legal violence emerging from and constitutive of the ongoing, structural projects of racial capitalism and settler colonialism?

Using three examples of various spatial scales, timelines and geographical locations, this research aims to write a partial history of the development of DTLA to evidence how violence is enacted by the built environment, in cooperation with laws and legal institutions, to maintain ongoing Indigenous dispossession and the racialisation of Black and Brown bodies. This research highlights the differences and similarities between Bunker Hill, South Park and the Los Angeles Sports and Entertainment District (LASED), and the Parker Center in Little Tokyo, suggesting a new mechanism for understanding DTLA's development over the last nearly-75 years.

GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE: THE STRUGGLE FOR SOCIAL EQUITY IN THE POSTINDUSTRIAL ENVIRONMENT, A CASE STUDY OF QUEEN ELIZABETH OLYMPIC PARK, LONDON

Fangchen Liu

Very little is known about how Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, as a large green infrastructure, encourages the issue of social equity for ethnic minority groups. Ethnic minority groups, in the UK, suffer a general vulnerability in accessing green infrastructure, which includes greater diffculty in accessing environmental and social resources. This study evaluates social equity by identifying four conditions: 1) accessibility, 2) frequency of use, 3) landscape preference, and 4) community participation, to analyse the expression of equity among ethnic minority groups in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

This study uses a mixed research approach, combining a questionnaire (n=68) and unstructured interviews that explore the responses of different ethnic groups in the park on the four topics above. A cross-sectional (chi-square) analysis is conducted to segment the questionnaire sample for different ethnic groups. In this analysis, the white group is used as the reference term and ethnic minority groups are divided into four categories (Mixed / multiple ethnic groups, Asian / Asian British, Black / African / Caribbean / Black British, and Other ethnic group). Equity is explicitly discussed by the way of comparison. The views expressed in the interviews are interspersed as a supplement to the discussion of the four topics. The result is that green infrastructure, in terms of accessibility and frequency of use, reflects the issue of equity in favour of ethnic minority groups, yet, in the dimension of landscape preference and community participation, equity issues remain questionable and need to be explored further.

4.2 Morphology and Use

URBAN PRIVATE-PUBLIC SPACES: A STUDY OF THEIR USES

Jospeh Chambers

A variety of political, economic, social and built environment issues resulted in the 20th century seeing a significant dilapidation in the quality of urban public space. Although not a new phenomenon, the private creation and control of public space became a proposed solution for this problem. As larger social, political and economic changes occurred, the model of urban private-public space spread across cities in the western world. Whilst creating pleasant spaces, notable criticisms have been made by people in academia, government and the media. Although much is known about the creation of these spaces, little is understood about how they are used by public. This consequently became the aim of this research.

The literature identified that people's use of urban public space and the influence of private forces are often linked to larger social, political and economic issues. This identifcation meant that it was important to use the spatial political-economic theoretical framework in this research, whilst also incorporating a constructivist grounded theory approach. The qualitative methods involved used a detached observation, a subjective-narrative observation and a social media image analysis of Instagram, the latter two being new and underused methods in built environment research. Three urban private-public spaces were selected for analysis and a fourth urban public space enabled comparison.

The results identified various uses of urban private-public spaces, with each space having a particular mode of representation on Instagram. When analysed, these results indicated a, previously unidentified, sense of 'local' within the spaces. This was created through both the people and the activities carried out in the spaces. Whilst making a significant discovery, this research allowed a platform for future built environment investigations to incorporate narrative and social-media analysis methods, as well as evidencing the importance of the spatial political-economy theoretical framework.

Figure 1 Paternoster Square

Figure 2 Granary Square

Figure 3 Bermondsey Square

STREET HIERARCHY AND THE DISTRIBUTION OF FRONTAGE USES

Ziyu Chen

This dissertation tests the hypothesis that street hierarchy may contribute to explain the distribution of frontage uses. This research is driven by the practical necessity to better understand the land use pattern at a street level. It is consistent with the increasing interest in including street configuration measures in explaining land use pattern as street hierarchy is a classification based on designation of a street’s strategic status according to configurational properties. Two hierarchical classifications are studied: the official UK road classification and transit-oriented hierarchy. The results show that street hierarchy has strong explanatory power in the distributions of residential and retail frontage uses at the local scale. While at the global scale, other factors such as the distance from city centre are more important. It is also demonstrated that how the fndings may inform street-based urban design practice.

EXPLORING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SPATIAL PATTERNS AND STATIC ACTIVITIES WITHIN ORDINARY MARKETS: CASE STUDIES BASED ON LONDON.

Jiawen Tu

Public space has always been a signifcant platform accommodating public life, and the interrelationship between public life and space has been one of the major concerns of urban designers since last century. While there are many scholars criticise the declining public space in recent years, market, as an ordinary urban place, is argued to be one of the neglected but functional stage for public life. This thesis aims to explore the behavioural responses towards the spatial patterns and characters of markets. This empirical study include direct observation, street survey and spatial analysis. Structured observation is used to study the static activities while street survey is conducted to consider users’ experiences. Three main spatial aspects are explored, including accessibility, functions and microenvironmental quality. The findings are summarised based on separate analysis of each cases and the overall comparisons. Higher spatial accessibility contributes to higher level of static activities, and functions provided in a market largely influence the perceptions of users regarding its level of sociality. Outdoor market is likely to be more active than indoor market, while the highest density of static activities is found in a hybrid form combining both. Also, micro-environmental quality is crucial for the density and the length of staying activities, and seats, a good view as well as the provision of food/drink are identifed as three most important factors by users.

EXPLORING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SUMMER URBAN HEAT AND PHYSICAL ACTIVITY LEVELS IN THE PUBLIC GREEN SPACE OF VICTORIA PARK, LONDON

Zhijiang Ge

Urbanization and climate change has exacerbated the urban environment challenges from urban heat effects, which will induce further negative impacts. In addition, continuing physical inactivity could engender health hazards in UK urban residents. In order to discern possible solutions to these challenges and its internal correlation, this research investigate whether thermal comfort are correlated with physical activity motivation in Victoria park users, and what influence the park green spaces can exert on urban heat and physical activity levels. The research use mixed approach to integrated both empirical evidence and descriptive evidence from multiple data sources, including literature review, online survey and feld work.

The analysis of satellite imagery indicates that vegetation cover is negatively correlated with averaged minimum land surface temperature in part of Tower hamlets. In the Victoria park, green spaces features are found to influence observed physical activity amounts in target areas. Based upon questionnaire feedback, the correlation between thermal comfort and physical activity levels was not statistically significant. However, there are still part of participants acknowledging such an association exists in individual cases. The research fndings is predicted to contributes to informed design of public green space to further raise physical activity level and mitigate urban heat risks. Besides, it demonstrate the limitations and sample biases in different data sampling. Additionally, the results can served as a preliminary report about the usage information of the case study Victoria park.

TEA-HOUSES AS ORDINARY HERITAGE: SPATIAL INTERFACE OF TEA-HOUSES AND CHENGDU CITY

Qiling Chen

This research focuses on the spatial profle of tea-house and urban space interfaces in order to interpret ate tea-houses phenomena in the context of Chengdu on the encounter fields which generated by spatial configuration of the urban grid. This research aims to open up the understanding of tea- houses in Chengdu as the ordinary heritage. The emergence of tea-house phenomena in open space and streets is the consequence of aggregation processes of individual tea-houses in urban space at micro scale, but also the constitutions of confgurational processes of movement and co-presence in city-wide scale. Based on the classification of interface between tea-house and urban space, morphologic descriptions have been signed to the tea-houses and urban space relationships to link the gap between

The spatial profile of street segments with tea-houses and typological tea-house interfaces have provided the precise and distinctive spatial description of interface between tea-house and urban space. The confgurational description of tea- house and urban space interfaces is not only enable to explain the tea-house phenomenon at the interfaces, but also provide suggestions and signs to understand the spatial culture of typological tea- house interfaces in heritage conservation and urban design discourses. It is not sufficient to understand teahouses as social space in Chengdu. There are differentials according to the configurational and morphological relationships of interface between tea-houses an urban space, although the tea-houses is social space in everyday life. These differentials is the key spatial signs for understanding the relationships of tea-houses, urban space, social groups, urban heritages and

EXPLORING OPENNESS: THE TRANSFORMATION OF SPATIAL AND SOCIAL OPENNESS IN THE CONTEXT OF CHINA’S COMMUNITY OPENING POLICY –A CASE STUDY OF YOUTIAN CITY

Since the release of the CCOP in 2016, China's settlement planning has entered a new development phase. In recent years, there has been a great deal of research and discussion on how to "open up" built-up settlements and promote the development of new types of settlements. However, due to the varying degrees of obstacles to implementing the policy, there is a paucity of practical cases, resulting in the mainstream research still focusing on research into the macro urban planning policy and the "openness" needs of residents. Therefore, this study plans to supplement the understanding of "openness" by introducing empirical analyses of specifc cases.

The study begins with a review of the existing literature, which suggests that the shifts brought about by policies are triple transformations: legal transformation, spatial transformation and ethnographic transformation. These three transformations interact with each other, and together, they influence the development of settlement planning as a whole. Secondly, using space syntax to explore the relationship between local movements and global grids and how spaces within these settlements relate, interact and are understood about urban spaces. Questionnaires were then administered to the three communities in response to the phenomena and hypotheses arising from the spatial analyses.

Finally, the study concludes that residents' perceptions of openness and the shaping of 'open' environments are related to the degree of urban connectivity, the community's size, and the street space's shaping. This study provides a threefold integrated approach to the study of settlement openness. Through spatial analyses, it supplements the existing research on spatial operation modes. It gives exploratory suggestions for settlement planning and development, providing a new perspective for exploring openness in China's settlements.

Weiyi Yang

4.3 Communities and Design

GERANI, ATHENS: SPACE AND PATTERNS OF IMMIGRANT SEGREGATION

Athina Vlachou

The study examines the role of spatial configuration and morphology in shaping pat- terns of immigrant segregation, through the adoption of a more holistic approach that couples analysis at different scale levels and different disciplinary perspectives. It is methodologically based on a combination of primary ethnographic data and census data in order to set the socioeconomic context of immigrant segregation and space syntax analysis in order to grasp its spatial refection.

Athens, a city characterised by high immigrant densities, will be studied at the broad- er citywide analysis in an attempt to identify the socioeconomic and spatial characteristics of immigrant districts. In continuation, the research will focus on Gerani, a district adjacent to the economic core of Athens, examining the patterns of immigrants’ networks in relation to the local spatial configuration and urban morphology.

The results of the city-wide analysis suggest the settlement of immigrant groups depending on cheap housing, labour opportunities and mobility options. Furthermore, an underlying hierarchical rationale seems to relate immigrants’ degree of integration in the native society to their location in the city, in terms of levels of “natural movement” and quality of built space.

Considering the close scale analysis, it could be supported that Gerani’s street grid confguration and the morphology of the building stock and public space support im- migrants’ social and economic life offering them the necessary adaptability, intimacy and freedom. In similarity to the city-wide analysis, an internal hierarchical structure seems to emerge in terms of economic clustering and use of public space. Locations characterised by higher levels of “natural movement”, better quality building stock and proximity to attractors concentrate the more integrated groups to the native society, whilst locations with lowers levels of “natural movement”, lower quality-built space and adjacent to abandoned enclaves of anomy concentrate the less integrated ones.

MULTIPLE FACTORS ON CITIZEN PERCEPTION TOWARDS THE FUNCTIONS OF GREEN SPACES AND HUMAN BEHAVIOURS IN URBAN PARKS

Jiang Huiying

Green spaces (GS) have been the subject of lengthy discussion and are signifcantly important, contributing to the urban quality of life at the individual and societal levels. Scholars claim that urban parks have been viewed as a multifunctional product rather than a creation for leisure, while how citizens view about the various roles of GS are defined unclearly. Thus, the study explored citizen knowledge on park functions and their behaviours in parks, followed by the analysis of factors which can infuence their recognitions and activities.

Based on the research question above, the study has investigated citizens’ reactions in London Hampstead Heath and Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and analysed the contextual and individual factors on perceptions and behaviours. The author utilised qualitative and quantitative methods including site observations, case studies and questionnaire surveys. Feedbacks from 160 respondents demonstrated the roles of GS were understood differently in different parks. Through the comparative study of human attitudes, this thesis fnally concluded individual factors and contextual factors could play important roles in human perception and behaviours. Among them, age is the best indicator to understand human behaviours and functions of the parks. Also, education plays an important role in understanding public knowledge towards GS and human activities in urban parks. Ethnicity has the significant infuence on citizen perception towards knowledge of GS, particularly on the social benefts, while distance affects human perception on the economic benefits of GS. Gender only has significant effects on human behaviours, and income has no distinct influence either on knowledge of GS or human activities.

PUBLIC SPACES AS A STAGE FOR INTEGRATION IN CHINESE URBAN VILLAGES: THE IMPACT OF PUBLICNESS ON SOCIAL INTEGRATION

Lan Xiaoxuan

Urban public spaces are recognised as important places for citizens’ social life, and those with better publicness are considered to be good stages for social contact and social interaction. In China, after the economic reform in 1980s, a large number of rural migrants begin to work and live in large to middle sized cities. However, they have faced with serious problem in integrating to the social community. Besides the institutional issues, it is also worthwhile to discuss if the improvement of built environment can contribute to better social mix and social interaction for different social groups, and therefore providing more chances for migrants to integrated to the urban society. This research chooses Caitang Village in Xiamen as a case. It frstly explored the development process of a variety of public spaces within the community, followed by a careful examination of the publicness of these public spaces, and then is fnalised with an analysis about the contribution of publicness to migrants’ social integration. According to this research, with the collective efforts of village, municipal government and residents, dramatic changes happened in the open spaces in Chinese urban village since 1980s—a diversity of different kinds of public spaces have been produced and some of them are with good publicness. It will not only provide more chances for different people getting together, but can also contribute to the establishment of new social ties and place attachment within the community, which can be vitally important in the integration process of migrants in Chinese urban villages.

HABITS AROUND CO-WORKING SPACE: MAKING PLACE IN SPITALFIELDS, LONDON

Manzini Irene

Over the past decades, globalisation and technological change have altered the relationships between geographic location and socio-economic activities (Giddens, 1991). The collapse of the employment paradigm combined with high social expectations and job uncertainty have led to the recasting of labour organization and the confguration of a new way of working as a freelancer.

Considering the relationship between the concept of precarity embedded in the postFordist economic model (Atkinson 1985; Lewis, et al., 2014), and the condition of ‘work from everywhere’ emerging with the use of new technologies (Massey 1984; Harvey 1989; Castells 1996), spatial sharing dynamics have emerged in the contemporary city.

The research aims to understand the dynamics carried out around the spatial configuration in a single, embedded co-working space, Second Home Spitalfields, through habits that may generate meaningful attachment to specifc neighbourhoods. By exploring the informal actions (Merkel, 2018), such as events and spatial production in workspaces, the study focuses on the role that the specifc co-working space has in fostering a collective sense of community.

Based on the diary-method interviews with members of Second Home, the awareness of the complexities of human behaviour might postulate open structures to unlock the potential of a co-working space at the urban level through processes of attachment. In this way, members would be enabled to create a shared sense of place and re-negotiating meaning into space.

The research findings attempted to address the positive and negative aspects of the behavioural processes in making place around co-working with the hope to contribute to the

EXPLORING THE POTENTIAL OF RESIDUAL SPACES AS A CATALYST TO IMPROVE PEOPLE’S DAILY LIFE IN CHINA

Xu Haibo

Residual spaces, as potential resources in cities, have been valued as significant resources during the process of new urbanisation to improve urban living quality in China. Meanwhile, residual spaces have been utilised to reconnect the disruptive urban fabric and improve cultural significance in public spaces. However, the research in relation to residual spaces only emphasises on the physical and cultural value, with less studies and understanding on the social value. This causes that, in practice, the reclamation of residual spaces still fails to improve people’s daily experience.

Therefore, this research aims to explore the potential social value of residual spaces. Drawing on four case studies carried out in Suqian, the dissertation frst identifes the reasons for being residual and then examines the social characteristics of each case, especially stressing on appropriation patterns, in order to unfold the potential social value. Through the deep inquiry and observation of appropriation patterns, the research generalises four concrete social value, which contributes to improving daily lived experience, enhancing social interaction in communities, compensating social inequality and promoting the expression of self-identity. The fndings can be presented for governments, decision makers and planners to deepen their understanding on social value of residual spaces so as to guarantee that residual spaces can be utilised to improve the quality of public realm and people’s daily life.

MINECRAFT AND PLAYFUL PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN URBAN DESIGN

James Delaney

Digital networks are transforming the way in which our built environment is planned, designed and developed. The growth of a digitally enabled and networked population has created a revolution in how information about our built environment is communicated. Whilst many have heralded this technology as a solution to the problems of citizen engagement and participation in planning and design processes, the state of public participation in this feld still arguably leaves much to be desired. In the last decade, academics and practitioners have explored the possibilities of 3D, multi-user, digital environments in planning and urban design contexts. These ‘inhabited virtual spaces’, where stakeholders and citizens are represented through digital avatars, hold the possibility of engaging a much wider audience in participatory processes, creating a more democratic and bottomup process, and improving the outcome of community consultations. These multiuser environments can take many forms –and among the most promising are game environments. The benefits of using play and games in creative tasks and decisionmaking have been widely recorded, leading to the developing field of ‘serious games’, games which have been designed to accomplish a serious task or purpose. Despite this, there has been a reluctance to entertain the idea of appropriating more commercial, populist games for serious tasks, rather than designing ones from scratch.

One game in particular, Minecraft, has shown promising results as part of a participatory design methodology pioneered by UN- Habitat and the Block by Block Foundation. Through an analysis of this program, and coordinating my own research workshop, my thesis will explore how the videogame Minecraft might be used as an innovative tool to improve public participation in urban design, whilst offering a virtual alternative to traditional models of consultation which are no longer feasible in the current COVID-19 crisis.

EXPLORING THE ROLE, VALUE, AND POTENTIAL OF ALLOTMENT GARDENS

IN THE EASTERN EUROPEAN CONTEXT –AN ANALYSIS OF THE CONTEMPORARY STATE OF URBAN ALLOTMENT GARDENS IN WARSAW, POLAND

Aleksandra Brzozka

With continuous growth of urban populations, the quality of life in cities has become a subject of debates from various perspectives and in different contexts. Recognising the challenges of city living and the continuous need to improve the quality of life and the important role of nature in its improvement, city authorities and design practitioners moved toward innovative green infrastructure solutions. However, there is also a need to recognise the role and value of vernacular urban green spaces, such as urban allotment gardens.

This research aims to understand the contemporary role of UAGs in Warsaw, Poland, and to assess their value and social, health, environmental and economic place quality benefits. The study uses data gathered from observations and semistructured interviews with the users of UAGs to trace activities and perspective on value of these areas, taking the historical and political context into consideration. A review of policy documents and strategies serves to inform the fndings on the future directions of development of the UAGs in Warsaw, other Polish cities and beyond.

The main findings reveal the multiple functions, such as active and passive recreation or food production, which are illustrated with accounts of several users. It is found that the role and benefits of place quality of UAGs are dependent on people's interests and on belonging to a specifc demographic group. The study fnds that UAGs in Warsaw have the potential to become more widely accessible to the public, provided their opening is promoted through inclusive social programmes, which respect the needs of various user groups. Overall, the research enhances the understanding of UAGs in the Eastern

WHO KNOWS? HOW DO OUR CONCEPTIONS OF KNOWLEDGE SHAPE COMMUNITIES’ POWER WHEN PARTICIPATING IN URBAN DEVELOPMENT?

David Dawson

This paper explores debates on the relationship between knowledge and power (such as Foucauldian Power/Knowledge, Feminist epistemology, Critical Race Theory and Participatory Action Research) using them to explore the failings of and potential solutions to the lack of power that citizens have during participation or consultation programs accompanying stateled urban development. While some degree of consultation or participation has increasingly become the norm in UK/US planning, and in the UK is required by law, it is often ineffective and/or performative.

The paper uses four locational case studies to possible causes and solutions to this, Alton Estate, Elephant and Castle, Latin Village/Wards Corner and Mountford Community Build. These are London-based movements, all of which include some form of community-based design and organisation used to address council/developer-initiated changes to local housing, infrastructure and business premises. These community members are proposing alternative approaches, mostly in the form of community plans. To analyse this, I have created a conceptual framework which splits knowledge use during participation into three categories; location (where is knowledge? how are practitioners situated?), creation (what form can knowledge take? How can communities infuence larger discourse?) and application (how is local knowledge used? Are community member able to increase their capacity?). Through these categorizations I have identifed six key tactics being used currently by community-led initiatives.

EXPLORING THE POTENTIAL OF LEFTOVER SPACE IN IMPROVING COMMUNITY

SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY IN LONDON

Fanzhangyang Jin

In the context of rapid urbanisation and globalisation, top-down planning and the urban space functions changing in urban development have produced a large number of urban leftover spaces. These non-functional spaces have become a breeding ground for urban insecurity (Yiftachel, O., 2009, p.89). Fast-paced urban life and compact urban space make social interaction and interpersonal communication a luxury, it is difficult for people to establish a sense of belonging in the megacity.

Social infrastructure as an important space and serves to enhance social interaction, provide opportunities for people from different cultural backgrounds to communicate (Mayor of London, 2020, p.20). Based on the reality of excess urban leftover space and lack of social infrastructure, this research aims to explore the potential of building urban leftover space into social infrastructure to help improve community social sustainability and community resilience.

The research will use design-led research methods, taking Barking as the design testing site. Through literature review, find the impact factors of social sustainability and resilience in urban design and build an analytical framework; through the analytical framework, select different types of urban leftover space design cases to analyse the design methods and their impact on community sustainability and resilience; apply design methods to Barking, test the design through semi-structured interviews to analyse existing problems, fnd solutions, and establish a promotable design toolkit.

The research will fill the gap in improving community social sustainability and resilience through urban spatial organisation (Larimian, T., 2020, p.747). From the spatial design, policy support, implementation phase, management and maintenance four aspects, find the activation method of urban leftover space, find its potential to enhance community social sustainability and resilience.

4.4 Sustainability, Health & Climate Change

THE ROLE OF URBAN DESIGN IN PROMOTING CYCLING: A BEHAVIOUR CHANGE PERSPECTIVE

Christoph Kollert

This thesis is based on the premise that the ways in which urban design interventions are used to promote cycling (1) favour (certain) physical interventions and (2) are determined by model solutions. (3) As a result, the full range of potential and necessary interventions are not fully explored and employed. Therefore, this thesis tries to explore the role of urban design in influencing cycling behaviour in London through analysing variables can lead to an uptake in cycling and how cycling policies are promoting cycling in London. The objective was to (1) provide an overview of all variables that were hypothesised and proposed by cycling policies in London and to (2) identify how urban design could support an uptake in cycling.

First, key positions in the literature on infuencing cycling behaviour were synthesised, followed by a section on the benefits of cycling as policy determinants, on the importance of (re-)configuring behavioural patterns. Then, theories that describe how the context, policies and interventions influence behaviour were then synthesised into a new framework that conceptualise how policies, interventions and variables influence cycling. Thereby, the BCW was integrated, as a theory-based, comprehensive model that is applicable to cycling and has – according to Biddle et al. (2015) – particular advantages in comparison with the other frameworks.

Then, a review of scientific studies was conducted to identify variables that influence cycling, which was followed by a policy content analysis of policy documents that effect cycling in London. It was found, that urban design and reconfiguration, re-design of space can be a powerful tool to achieve change by providing or denying “opportunity" both as possibilism or determinism. But this should not hinder designers to go beyond prevailing traditions or to explore the possibility of combining urban design measures with other, not-spatial interventions.

THE ROLE OF SANITATION IN URBAN HEALTH: EXPLORING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PUBLIC SPACE, SANITATION AND HEALTH IN SLUMS

Stricker Julia

Sanitation in developing cities is one of the most pressing issues to be solved in present times. Unfortunately, the topic suffers from a severe of lack of attention, especially FSM services (emptying filled up sanitation facilities and transporting fecal sludge out of the neighbourhood) which is the equivalent to a sewer. This neglect has devastating consequences for public health and the environment. It also fuels a vicious circle of poverty and inequality mediated through contaminated public space. Change is happening. Since 2015, global monitoring includes FSM services and a considerable number of tools to measure, infuence and plan FSM services has emerged. It is within this Zeitgeist that this thesis situates itself and that it also critically examines.

By applying a systems approach this thesis aims at developing a nuanced understanding of FSM services as a determinant of urban health and what factors impact both (Objective 1), analyse the available tools to measure, influence and plan FSM services (Objective 2), identify relevant areas that are not covered by the available tools (Objective 3) and try to explain these gaps (Objective 4).

The city-sanitation-health-system model developed through the literature review includes the thematic areas urban design and density; social norms; constitutional, legal and regulatory frameworks; financing and technological options. Of these thematic areas, the first two are underrepresented in the existing tools and none of the tools includes epidemiological endpoints.

The available tools cover a wide range of pathways and there is an ambition to combine them to use synergies. Developing a city-sanitation-health-system model might help to conceptualise where unintended consequences and co-benefits could arise and monitor these areas. Integrating epidemiological endpoints should be advocated for – under the normative presumption that health equity is what societies should ultimately strive for.

OLD SOLUTIONS TO NEW PROBLEMS

- EXPLORING THE NEW LONDON

Jose Senra

From the first settlements, humanity has encountered and dealt with a constellation of problems, producing lasting and sustainable forms of built environment, forms that have successfully adapted and survived to this day. Elements within the surviving historical heritage are the physical representation of a much broader knowledge, the vernacular.

London has developed over two millennia and accumulates a wealth of inherited built knowledge that has recently been brought into the spotlight and refashioned, creating the New London Vernacular. But what is the New London Vernacular?

This research aims to explore the concept of vernacular, the evolution of London’s vernacular and what the New London Vernacular is.

SUSTAINABLE NEIGHBOURHOOD FOODSCAPES: RE-CALIBRATING URBAN FORM TO CREATE RESILIENT & LOCALISED FOOD SYSTEMS IN LONDON

Pooja Boddupalli

The disruption of lives in 2020 has taught us that our global food systems are indeed vulnerable and we need to transition towards a more localised arena for food, where production, consumption and distribution can be more sustainable and resilient. With hunger and obesity both on rise, and food vulnerability issues looming over us due to a disrupted food supply chain, it is time for communities to disallow the commercial form of foodscape and allow communitybased food systems to fourish. Localisation of food production, consumption and distribution can help make the food systems more sustainable and resilient.

A detailed theoretical study has been carried out focussing on how humans have slowly moved away from the local food arena to a global one, prompting a mechanised foodscape that has left behind millions impoverished. Further, the national and local food and poverty plans of London have been studied, giving an insight into the work done by the authorities in this regard. The spatial implication of the food and poverty plans were then mapped using GIS to identify the allotments in most deprived and least deprived zones of the city. These research fndings were applied in the London Borough of Ealing, by suggesting a neighborhood Poverty Action plan that introduces a food-based

‘third place’ to fourish. The proposal involves creating a ‘third place’ where urban agriculture takes roots, which can help increase production and reduce the supply chain costs and greenhouse emissions from longer supply chains, advocate responsible consumption by creating a sense of community where knowledge and know-how can be shared and create a holistic environment that allows distribution and redistribution of food to maintain the dignity it deserves. This evidence-based study will ascertain the importance of reviving urban architecture, especially in the light of the recent disruptions of the global food systems.

PLANNING FOR HEALTHY NEIGHBORHOODS: THE CASE OF LONDON

Shani Pearl Nachman

The built environment (BE) plays a fundamental role in health outcomes. With the movement to urbanisation, understanding the link between planning the BE and health outcomes becomes crucial. This research explores the link between planning and health at the neighbourhood level, using London, with its 33 boroughs, as a case study. The study specifically focuses on green space and health as a driver for planning. The research uses mixed methods of data collection. The quantitative data collection portion includes a scoping survey and content analysis from the 33 boroughs of London, offering insights into the discourse on health, adding to six in-depth semi-structured interviews with public officers from London boroughs and national offces.

Findings show that primary determinants for health in Local Plans were access to health care, green and blue infrastructure, and housing. Another finding is that the drive for green space planning tends to be more related to the eco-system rather than health. Physical activity primarily emerged when looking at the specifc health determinants for green space planning. However, despite the robust literature and the fndings from the Local Plans analysis, the evidence from the interviews implies a disconnect in between health and planning departments, leading to a barrier in linking planning with health. The fndings imply a need for closer collaboration between departments, more explicit guidelines, and an enhanced focus on health in planning, assisting in making the link more robust.

DESIGN FRAMEWORK AND STRATEGIES FOR DEMENTIA-FRIENDLY COMMUNITIES

Yuehao Liu

Dementia is a chronic neurodegenerative disease medically explained as a process in which mental, memory, reaction and physical functions become progressively impaired over time (Porsteinsson et al., 2021). And there is currently no direct cure for dementia, only a combination of treatments to slow the progression of the disease (Yiannopoulou and Papageorgiou, 2020). According to some background research findings, people with dementia have become marginalised in urban spaces, and the number of people with dementia is expanding, resulting in more significant socio-spatial pressures. More realistically, there is a shortage of specialised care institutions and facilities, and the existing general community cannot meet the sociospatial environmental needs of dementia patients. Therefore, it is urgent to enhance the design of community environments to address dementia care. However, there are no frameworks and strategies in existing research to guide the design of dementia-friendly communities (DFCs), and most practices are in the exploratory stage.

4.5 Processes and Development

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HOUSING DESIGN QUALITY AND VIABILITY

Liu Wenlin

This dissertation explores the relationship between housing design quality viability by conducting interviews with stakeholders from public sector, private sector, the third organization and academic field and comparative case studies of housing development schemes in London. The UK government has adopted an ‘austerity’ agenda which encourages private market to provide public services such as affordable housing provision. The introduction of National Planning Policy Framework makes viability assessment as a dominant part of the planning process, which means planning obligations and policy should not threaten the viability to be developed. Good-quality design is too often considered to be expensive rather than cost-effective so design quality is not prioritized in a viability-led planning system. However, the relationship between design quality and financial viability is understudied. This study demonstrates four key fndings. Firstly, research fnds out that design quality is downplayed in a viability-led planning system and the weight assigned to design and viability depends on partnership models and market characters. Secondly, although viability assessment does not aim to deal with design issue, design does have an implicit but limited role to influence the appraisal result. Thirdly, design and viability interact with each other in statutory planning process. Viability assessment can infuence the indicative layout or design visualization and design ideas can also alter the ratio of cost/ value in viability appraisal. Last but not least, developing long-term sustainable financial model and encouraging effective community participation can help achieve a balance between design quality and viability.

ORGANISATIONAL PROBLEM-SOLVING AND THE URBAN DESIGN PROCESS

Roberts Jeffrey

This dissertation explores how the problem-solving activities of formal organisations shape the urban design process. Building on Carmona’s (2014) model of urban design process and place- making, this study combines insights from sociology, political science, and organisational studies to develop a novel approach to evaluating the emergence and development of places over time. Exploring two periods in the life history of Stuyvesant Town in New York City – establishment: 1942- 1947 and sale and default: 2006-2015 – this dissertation uses historical process tracing to reconstruct the organisational ecology, explore the problems and solutions that shaped interactions within it, and examine the way contingency and historical settlements shaped the place over time. Drawing a combination of archival data, newspapers, and secondary sources, this study examines the manner in which historically contingent solutions shaped the trajectory of this “quasi-public” place’s development. With a specific focus on the mechanisms of problem-solving and brokerage, this study proposes a novel approach to evaluating places and examining how the historically sticky contingencies shape, enable, and constrain their development trajectories.

PLACE-SHAPING PROCESS OF STATIONLED REGENERATION: A CASE STUDY OF OSHIAGE, TOKYO

Yudi Liu

In Tokyo, station-led development has been a driver of urbanisation since the late nineteenth century. Following Japan’s 1980s marketisation reform, such development often happened in the form of high-density urban regeneration. While these developments share many characteristics with the advocacy for transit-oriented development (TOD), to date, scholarly investigations have been lacking. With the focus on Oshiage Regeneration, a property-led project developed by a private railway firm, this study applies Carmona’s place-shaping continuum to explore how development and design processes have been integrated and iterated in a Japanese station-led regeneration.

As the result reveals, Oshiage was shaped under a market-driven polity with three pillars: (1) regulatory processes that supported flexible development and design; (2) development processes that replied on private-sector capacities; and (3) design processes that contributed to commercial pursuits. As these processes integrated and iterated in OshiageRegeneration, they induced the project’s dual identities as: (a) a station-led development that might create social value through TOD qualities; and (b) a property-led regeneration that might create economic value through market-led mechanisms. However, these two identities require future studies to examine their value and risk.

A CRITICAL REVIEW ON THE CHINESE ECOCITIES: BASED ON CASES OF DONGTAN ECO-CITY, CAOFEIDIAN ECO-CITY AND CHINA-SINGAPORE ECO-CITY

Fengliang Tang

This research aims at critically reviewing and understanding the eco-city development, especially in the context of China. Four research questions were raised at the beginning as 1) What and how can be learnt from the successes and failures of Chinese eco-city development? 2) What are the challenges when developing an eco-city in China? 3) how is the Chinese political planning system adapting and facilitating during the process of eco-city development? 4) Would there be any enlightening ideas coming out to help the future eco-city development in China? Hence, the western literatures including the origins and notions of eco-city, the successful city example of Malmo, Sweden reviewed frst to gain basic understandings of eco-city concept. Specifically, the context of China such as Chinese planning system under the characterized politics and the ecological development in China. And then a qualitative investigation, combing with a case study method, a comparative analysis and a semi-structured interview, was applied into the exploration of Chinese eco-city development.

Although this year many people were suffered from the COVID-19, as well as this research. Many efforts such as referring to more online resources and remote interviewing were made to collect data as much as possible. In detail, Dongtan eco-city, Caofeidian eco-city and SinoSingapore Tianjin eco- city were selected carefully as the cases. Dongtan ecocity is the first eco-city project and failed. Caofeidian eco-city is also an incomplete project. Sino-Singapore Tianjin eco-city is the comparatively successful case. After analyzing the three cases from the perspectives of their backgrounds, their envisioned plans and their reflections and critiques, a comparative analysis was conducted at last. Consequently, nine recommendations were come out for the future eco-city development in China.

THE REVIVAL OF BRITAIN’S INLAND CANALISED WATERWAYS: A CASE STUDY OF THE LONDON REGENT’S CANAL

Alex Wilcox

This research paper looks at how Britain’s urban canalised waterways are recognised and managed, and how their evolved status impacts their function and potentiality as urban assets. The paper frst analyses the role of canalised waterways in Britain’s urban development, particularly in the Industrial era. It then explores the modern functionality of waterway infrastructures and their relationships with their surrounding urban spaces. This paper will examine how canals relate to broader issues pertaining to the disuse and renewal of industrial infrastructure, and where policymakers and advocates have acted to prevent their dereliction. Findings indicate a need for more purposeful and heritage-based regeneration around these urban waterway systems.

4.6 Methodologies

REPRESENTATIONS OF URBAN SPACE AS (INTER-) DISCIPLINARY TOOLS

A METHODOLOGY FOR COMPARATIVELY ANALYSING GRAPHICS IN URBAN INVESTIGATIONS

Terspsithea Laopoulou

This research project stems from an understanding of urban research as a de facto interdisciplinary field and sets out to explore the specific workings of interaction between a range of disciplines engaging in urban analysis, by investigating the visual representations produced to illustrate and communicate findings. It is built on a two-fold argument: on the one hand, disciplinary interaction can be traced to the level of methods or tools and the ways those are exchanged among different felds. On the other side, the disciplines revolving around the study of urban space place particular importance on the role of visual tools as methods of both investigation and communication of fndings. Therefore the representations of urban space, produced under varied disciplinary lenses, become the object of analysis, through which modes of knowledge transfer between the relevant felds can be uncovered.

Through a theoretical and methodological exploration, a framework and a set of methods are developed, capable of analysing those representations with regard to their capacity to act as 'interdisciplinary mediators'. An appropriate typology of graphics is devised and then used as the basis of a two-stage coding scheme aimed at comparative analyses of visual data. This scheme is then experimentally applied to a small study sample, selected from a broad database of student coursework produced under different urban - related postgraduate programmes at UCL, to explore the format of results, the possibilities for interpretation they allow, and the potential of the whole method to be expanded into a larger study.

‘A VIEW FROM THE BICYCLE IN URBAN DESIGN’ – EXPLORING A TRANSDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH METHODOLOGY FOR THE PRODUCTION OF CYCLING SYSTEM KNOWLEDGE IN THE CONTEXT OF TRANSFORMATIVE RESEARCH PARADIGM

Gantert Marius

This research project explores a cycling perspective in urban design research by developing a transdisciplinary methodology, based on existing and proven research methods for mobile practices from geography, ethnography and urban design. Within the context of a transformative research framework, the scope of the research project is the first phase of a transition research cycle: the production of system knowledge. With an exploratory and iterative urban design approach, its aim is to develop a scalable and reproducible methodology for the co-production of context-specifc cycling system knowledge with local cyclists.

The city of Stuttgart (Germany) serves a case study cycling environment, which entails regular negotiations of spaces of mobility dominated by automobility. Here, regular cycling gradually establishes a broad, intrinsic cycling knowledge, which can be elicited with methods of analytical refection. The analysis in this research project is subdivided into three parts, based on the representation of a cycling system model, where relevant felds of research are identifed as the reciprocities of the system’s constitutive components (the conception, experience and practice of cycling). In the context of transformative research, these system dynamics represent feedback loops and tipping points for a potential transition towards a system of velomobility and alternative modes of spatial production rooted in it.

The conception of cycling is analysed by means of representations of cycling in policy and planning documents, cycling surveys and the local discourse on cycling. Then, the cycling experience in Stuttgart is visualized using various mapping methods from urban and geographic research in order to examine the imageability of Stuttgart’s urban ’cycle space’. Finally, the investigation of the practice of cycling focuses on the elicitation of meaning inscribed into spaces of mobility and experienced through cycling using ethnographic methods such as ride-along video-elicitation interviews with local practitioners. In addition to individual findings, the overarching goal of the research process is the identification of interrelated themes and based on them, the development of implications for urban design research and practice with a cycling perspective.

4.7 Temporary Urbanisms

TACTICS AND PROCESSES - THE MAKING OF TACTICAL SPACE IN DALSTON

Zhang Yigong

With the recent increasing debate around the use of tactical urbanism in urban development, the practice entered the mainstream of planning around the globe. It is recognised as a transformative and inspiring movement that enables urban change either through top-down agenda or bottom-up initiatives. However, while there are various studies examine particular case studies as a snap shot of the present or narrating and cataloguing the types and formats, there is little knowledge in understanding the factors and mechanisms necessary to facilitate tactical projects in a long term perspective.

As such, this dissertation aims to work backwards to investigate in a single, embedded tactical project, Making Space in Dalston, ten years after its initiation. It inquiries deep into the tactics and processes around power operated and manifested in the making of the spaces, traces the long term value, social benefits and the changing impact on the local area, explores possible trajectories of the practice. The fndings of the research attempted to address both the positive and negative aspect of tactical urbanism through the processes emerged, and the tactics applied. It reveals the power relationship and mechanisms of actors and drivers in the context, with the hope that the discussions and methodology in the dissertation will continue to contribute to the wider debates on the regeneration of cities.

THE RAILTON LOW TRAFFIC NEIGHBOURHOOD: EVOLVING TEMPORARY URBANISM PROJECTS AND EXPLORING INHERENT SOCIAL CAPITAL THROUGH A FEMINIST ‘ETHICS OF CARE’ FRAMEWORK

Chloe MacFarlane

Low Traffc Neighbourhoods (LTNs) are not a new phenomenon in London. But recently, LTN implementation has been accelerated (and contentiously) by the Mayor of London's desire to alleviate implications of car dominated cities, the climate change crisis and ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Since the frst wave of LTNs in 2014, a plethora of studies have examined the environmental and economic value of such urban design configurations. Amidst this, there has been very scarce introspection of the social capital engendered by LTNs. Uniquely, this thesis sought to examine the social capital engendered by LTNs using Tronto's feminist ethics of care philosophy. Tronto's feminist ethics of care philosophy postulates that all humans are interdependent beings; and this may prove critical in retaining the future integrity and effectiveness of LTNs. The case study choice for this thesis was the Railton LTN in Brixton, Lambeth, South London.

Since implementation in June 2020, various tactical urbanism features have emerged, from bespoke parklets to guerrilla gardens, posing questions about new social relations formed. Desktop research, non-participant observation walks, and community walkabouts were conducted to examine to what extent the Railton TN manifests an ethics of care. Findings revealed that technocratic model of care is particularly prevalent in the Railton LTN, resulting in the underestimation of the local community's capacity to assist with care management. Subsequently, this paper called for Lambeth Council to acknowledge the different care collectives which exist in the area, to recognise the transformative potential of care to local communities and work with other care collectives to alleviate the ramifications of care absence in some parts of the Railton LTN.

4.8 Post-socialist urbanisms

OPEN SPACE OF A POST-SOCIALIST HOUSING ESTATE AS COLLECTIVE LUXURY

Blazej Czuba

Vast verdant spaces between blocks of flats were a key design gesture of the Modern housing estate morphology. Originally anticipated to be the core of a new community and an element fostering it, the realised open space of estates has been pictured as generic and inhumane in academic and non-academic literature alike. This dissertation reviews the role of open space on a post-socialist housing estate. It uses Sluzew nad Dolinka in Warsaw as a case study. Warsaw is the most dynamic city in Poland and its estates face pressure from a changing social composition as well as new developments. A residential transience survey conducted as part of the dissertation shows significant resident turnover rates on Sluzew nad Dolinka in the last decade, which may impact on the form of neighbour relations on the estate. Semi-structured interviews with local residents investigated their views on the estate’s open space, and on changes to them in the recent past. The results show the estate’s green, spacious and unrestricted character to be the most appreciated feature of the morphology. The dissertation reviews the academic debate on open space and spatial configuration of Modern housing estates, predominantly focusing on defensible space and space syntax theories. It suggests that Sluzew nad Dolinka differs from British and American estates due to the scale of the estate and of its parts. It stresses that open space is less restricted on the post-socialist estate, and movement is less channelled.

The dissertation concludes by suggesting that the publicness of the space of Sluzew nad Dolinka should be embraced as a feature of the morphology that can address the changing socio-economic composition on the estate. The results of investigation caution against generically applying different morphologies on post-socialist estates, without prior analysis of the problems and opportunities of an existing urban form.

NEGOTIATING THE INHERITANCE OF COMMUNISM URBAN DESIGN IN A POSTCOMMUNIST COUNTRY: PERSPECTIVES FROM ROMANIA

Uma Humelnicu

Understanding how communist planning and urban design impacted the current urban environment in Romania is imperative in the future of cities. This research investigates if and how past theories and practices of architecture and urban design influence the current built environment in Romania in policy-making and decision-making, and ultimatelywhat gets built. Recognising that the transition from an authoritarian communist state to a neoliberal democratic one has been a diffcult journey for the country's economy and social environment, this research explores how urban planning and design have adapted to the new political, economic and social landscapes. Privatisation, changes in land use, economy, and law disrupted the deeply regulated and systematic planning of Romanian communist cities. This research aims to contribute to urban theories on the post-communist space and urban design and fll in lacunas in literature on Romania's experience with negotiating its past.

The research is of qualitative nature with mixed methodologies. Interviews with architects and planners from across the country have been carried out in order to understand their educational background, either during communism or after, and their work experience to date.

A case study has been chosen in the city of Brasov, where the nature of urban design is studied in connection to the socialist microraions. Archival research of past and current policy documents, architecture journals and magazines complement the previous research methods. The hope is that this research will provide a clear picture of the nature of the on-going change in post-communist urban design and contribute to enhancing the literature on urban theories on Romania.

4.9 Sensory and Affective Urbanisms

EXPLORING THE NEARNESS OF COLLECTIVE MEMORY IN URBAN DESIGN. THREE CASES IN ROME

Elisa Avellini

This inter-disciplinary study explores the topic of collective memory, approaching it through its relation with sensory experience. The main research question gravitates around this duality, questioning how such a study can be a valuable tool for urban design to understand place.

A socio-anthropological literature (Halbwachs 19980, Connerton 1989, Assmann 2008, 2011) will frame the concept of collective memory. A social science and urban design literature will help understanding sensory experience and its bi-directional relation with collective memory. The concept of nearness will be introduced to discuss the above relation. This will be done through three dimensions (physical, affective, established) thanks to the anthropological studies of Buchli (2010, 2013) on propinquity, Hall (1966) on proxemics, Low (2011, 2014, 2017) on embodiment and Altman and Low (1992) on place attachment.

The research will adopt a qualitative approach and a phenomenological line of inquiry. The analysis will look at three case studies in the city centre of Rome, Italy: Belvedere Scatoli, a space characterised by a monumental fountain and a viewpoint of the city; Piazza Tevere, a space along the banks of the river Tiber; Piazza Trilussa, an important gathering point. The categories introduced in the literature will be used to code the results of the feldwork (a pilot study and 30 semi-structured interviews). The results of the feldwork will then be represented in three memory/sensory maps, to spatially render the results. Collective memory will be proven to be a useful concept to explore the experience of place, researching the deep interrelation between the way a place is collectively remembered and its present sensory experience.

COMMUNITY ART AS A VEHICLE FOR SOCIO SPATIAL CHANGE IN LATIN AMERICA

Delia Bermeo Maria

Public art is a contentious theme in urban design. Advocates of public artwork defend its potential for socio spatial change, some as social binder and others as means for disruption and debate. On the other hand, it is questioned as commoditised, hollow, exclusionist instrument in neoliberal urban design. Among the different practices of public art stands community art, understood as an artistic participatory process between people bounded to a common territory and common ties (Lowe 2000). Community art has often been related to increasing sense of place and collective identity of a community, but there is little empirical work that goes beyond its immediate social impact. The proposed research aims to add to the body of knowledge around community public art and how it can support urban development processes and needed socio spatial change in the Latin American context, by placing the study in one of the region's intermediate cities: Cuenca, Ecuador.

The dissertation retraces the processes of planning, urban regeneration and cultural programmes in the peripheral neighbourhoods of Uchuloma - Narancay Alto, El Calvario in Guzho and El Tablón in Sinincay, to illustrate and discuss community art in relation to the strengthening of collective identity, the display of alternative modes of community engagement, a critical reflection for the appropriation of the built environment, and fostering social inclusion and spatial segregation through the disruption of everyday. The discussion of these point through the case studies aims to understand what is the role of community art in urban development of intermediate cities in Latin America and how it can support needed inclusive socio spatial change.

EMBODIMENT OF THE SMARTPHONE: DOES IT (RE)SHAPE SPACE OR THE BODY?

Wookey Simon

The phenomenon of people walking while using their smartphones has coined various descriptors. From China’s use of “the head down tribe” to Germany’s portmanteau of smartphone and zombie the “smombie.” They all describe the apparent distracted nature of people using their devices in urban environments. Research conducted by Germany’s vehicle inspection company DEKRA shows that in some European cities as many as 1 in 4 pedestrians uses a smartphone. While there is research into the effects of smartphone use on pedestrian behaviour – there is little theory as to why we are using these smartphones the way we are increasingly doing. This paper aims to look at two predominant theoretical frameworks of mobility and interface, Alexander Galloway’s The Interface Effect and Jason Farman’s Mobile Interface Theory, and how they may be applied to embodied cognitive theories in order to help explain the smombie. To do so I propose a novel performance lead explorative and investigative methodology that uses professional actors as an instrument to explore the embodied nature of the smartphone.

FROM WALKABLE TO SOCIABLE - AN EXPLORATION INTO THE WAYS WE WALK TOGETHER AND HOW THE SOCIALNESS OF WALKING AFFECTS PERCEIVED

WALKABILITY OF THE BUILT- ENVIRONMENT

Samantha Leger

Although walking is a longstanding feld of study within urban studies– and more specifcally, urban design– little research has specifically analyzed how socialness can impact the embodiment of the walk and the perception of the built environment; specifcally, perceived walkability. Informed by interviews with members of walking groups in both Toronto (Canada) and London (United Kingdom), this research embarks a novel and relational categorization of forms of socialness in walking and values associated to walking together, as opposed to alone. Based on the categorization, fve social walking forms are proposed within this research: passively collective, familiar faces, close-knit, group walk, and actively collective. It is found that the degree of socialness in a walk has notable effects on perceived walkability. Not only is the embodiment of the walk affected by this metric, but also participants were found to defne walkability differently depending on if they are walking alone, or together.

Therefore, this paper concludes, that socialness is not an outcome of walkability, but rather an intrinsic variable. In order for urban designers to inform ‘sociable’ streets, they must consider the nuanced socialness of traditional walkability indicators and recognize how the various forms and values of socialness that exist within walking can affect the perception of the street. To begin this conversation this paper conducted a semiotic coding of social value into common walkability indicators to broaden the discussion of how ‘walkable’ can be perceived and designed based on degree of socialness. Based on our findings, specific recommendations are given to extracting the social value of local community knowledge in urban design interventions.

4.10 Gender

WOMEN’S USE, EXPERIENCE, AND PREFERENCE OF PUBLIC SPACE IN TOKYO, JAPAN

Erica Mizukami

This study explores women’s use, preference, and experience of public spaces, as well as women’s involvement in design process in the specific cultural and social context of Japan, from a feminist perspective. It aims to capture the lived experiences of women in public spaces and situate it within a wider context of Japan that faces gender inequality. Taking a phenomenological approach, the investigation involved 8 walking interviews with adult women living in Tokyo, in addition to supplementary sit-down interviews with female practitioners.

Findings reveal that public spaces of Tokyo are gendered and demarcated by temporal, spatial and social boundaries. Multiple factors guiding the selection of public spaces are identifed, namely cleanliness, availability of resting areas, and perceptual elements. Privately owned spaces, and internal spaces appear to better cater to such women’s needs and preference. In the context of limited land resources and increasing public-private partnerships in urban developments, this suggests that privately owned spaces play crucial roles in women’s everyday lives in cities. Findings also reveal that cultural and social dimensions largely infuences both women’s experience in public space, as well as its design process. In particular, social pressure to conform to communities, and the structural issues rooted in patriarchal system of Japanese society are identifed as social and cultural factors.

The study contributes to urban design and planning research and practice by providing a rationale for literature within a particular context of Japan, as well as within a broader framework that illustrates the entirety of women’s experiences.

4.11 Informal urbanisms

DESIGN WITH INFORMALITY: A STUDY OF SPATIAL INFORMALITY IN WUHAN

Yicong Yang

The intriguing topic on urban informality has been studied by researchers for decades. This research begins with a comprehensive review of multiple approaches to urban informality research worldwide while trying to understand and fnd out problems on informality research in Chinese context. It is found that current researches on urban informality are mainly through social and political sciences approaches while the integrated understandings of informal urban form are very few; and the current understanding of urban informality in China is not yet clear. Therefore, this research tries to understand informality in China while introducing a more spatially rooted methodology. Wuhan city is the study area.

The research tries to explore – spatially – the informal patterns, and relate them to urban growth pattern and urban design approaches. Through an exploratory spatial data

analysis of 510 informal urban places, several characteristics of informal pattern in terms of geometry and distribution are identifed and discussed. Three major typologies of spatial informality are found and studied with reference to their formation dynamics. The exploration further goes to evaluating the design approaches to them.

It is found that there are certain relationships of informal pattern, urban development pattern, and their locations. Therefore, a constructive network of these relationships is generated drawing from the analysis. More possibilities of urban informality research are provided; and a suggestion for ‘design with informality’ – better understanding the form and spatial dynamics of urban informality and better integrating informality with urban design – is envisioned.

SPATIAL AGENCY FOR COMPLEX PARADOXICAL SOCIETIES’ CONVIVIALITY: THE CASE OF GREATER CAIRO’S NEW ENCLOSED AND FRAGMENTED SETTLEMENTS’ REGENERATION

Shadan Elgalaly

This thesis focuses on the issue of new settlements, that are planned to be ‘closed systems’, specifcally within the Global South where exists complex paradoxical societies. They are spatially and socially enclosed, homogeneous and fragmented settlements that increase social segregation and exclusivity and alienate the urban cultures of large percentages of societies, such as informal practice. By lacking open public space, human- scale infrastructures and fexible environments, they cause a decline in urban public life. However, because the diverse socio-economic groups of complex societies have juxtaposed urban cultures, opposing ideologies and mindsets, they are unwilling to co-exist in public urban space, which causes an obstacle for planners and designers to design inclusive and cohesive spaces. Therefore, the aim is to discover and test the best methodological approaches to be used as spatial agents for the regeneration of fragmented settlements by enabling the conviviality of its diverse paradoxical socio-economic groups. The methodology will be directed from aggregating sociology and design theories by Richard Sennett, Pablo Sendra, Ash Amin, Setha Low, and more, on unfolding multiurban cultures and situating multiplicity in open mixed-lives spaces, which are defned as those spaces designed to be cohesive and support and accommodate diversity, adaptability, different uses and meanings.

The methodology is divided into two phases while using Greater Cairo as a case study. The first phase will be exploring design strategies for the regeneration of enclosed settlements from different urban schemes that enabled conviviality and informal practice. In the second phase, research by design is used as a method to test the ethnographic methods directed from the theoretical framework to act as spatial agents for complex societies. The results of the data collected and analysed will be experimented with by design for the regeneration of the 5th Settlement of New Cairo. Therefore, this thesis will be testing the ability of the methods chosen to produce an alternative inclusive reality that can reconcile social paradoxes in enclosed settlements. Finally, it was concluded that in order to regenerate enclosed and fragmented settlements of the Global South by enabling the conviviality of complex societies, it is essential to use ethnographic qualitative methods for spatial agencies to fully understand the political processes, the production and construction of space and the local discourses; as the experiences, perceptions and socio-spatial values of the diverse social groups becomes evident from people’s choice of words, facial expressions and personal perspectives

KAMPUNG MUKA IN JAKARTA, INDONESIA: COMMON SPACE AS ADAPTIVE INFRASTRUCTURE IN INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS

Megawati

This dissertation explores the common space in Kampung Muka, an informal settlement in Jakarta, and its identity as an urban infrastructure to accommodate informal productivity. Streets in informal settlements are regarded as a common space for urban kampung inhabitants to carry out socio-economic interactions. These urban networks connect kampung area within the city, creating a symbiosis between informal and formal sectors. In this context, streets are far more than spatial support for circulation. They are a space utilised as a source of liveli- hoods, a corridor that shapes communication and places for everyday life to be engaged in.

The objective of this dissertation is to present a new way of looking at streets as a common space in Kampung Muka, and it proposes the concept of gotong-royong (helping others without economic beneft) and cooperation between the locals as a system by which communities and outside architects and urban designers can operate together. This system acts as a protocol to administer socio-economic relationships and corresponding practices in informal settlements. Qualitative methodology is conducted based on the theoretical worldview of ‘com- mons’ by Ostrom and the methodological framework relating to ‘Production of Space’ by Lefebvre. In turn, they will be used to develop two main arguments, which are as follows: the role of experts in helping to activate common space, and the way it is conceptualised as adaptive system strategies to facilitate social relations in Kampung Muka.

The outcome is a small design proposition that allows communities to manage their resources autonomously, unveiling how the practice of collectivism between the local community and experts produces an adaptive system strategy along with the concept of gotong-royong. This idea challenges the solely material perception of space and looks forward to the opportunities gifted by ‘com- mons’ to defne and produce goods and services that can be shared.

4.12 Mega-Projects

SPATIAL ETHICS AS AN EVALUATION TOOL FOR THE LONG TERM IMPACTS OF MEGA URBAN PROJECTS: AN APPLICATION OF SPATIAL ETHICS MULTI-CRITERIA ASSESSMENT TO CANNING TOWN

REGENERATION PROJECT, LONDON

Juhyun Lee

Decision-making processes for mega urban infrastructure developments are far from closed rational systems, contrary to what current planning and appraisal paradigms would suggest. They rarely satisfy everyone, and are politically driven, reflecting the interests of key stakeholders and macroscale economic development goals, with limited evaluation of multi-scales impacts and unwanted negative consequences to society at large. An integrated approach to evaluating differential impacts on the space of cities is required in consideration of the spatial and thus unavoidably ethical, political nature of decision-making on mega infrastructure development.

Spatial Ethics is addressed as a conceptual basis for investigating the long-term impacts of infrastructure investment in consideration of multi-scale impacts and the spatial equity issues of mega urban projects. Spatial Ethics Evaluation adopting multi-criteria assessment has been explored as a pragmatic and integrated tool to evaluate mega urban transport investment in respect of a plurality of actors, interests, and priorities by involving different numbers and types of participants in shaping the framework as well as evaluating long term impacts.

A case study applies the tool as a practical calibration and proof of concept test. Adopting the pragmatic approach to multi-criteria assessment, it identifies that transport infrastructure development for urban regeneration brings benefts and costs related to spatial differentiation, segregation, and severance. According to the results of assessment, positive contribution of the project to society is limited from the spatially ethical perspective. However, identification of winners and losers of infrastructure development cannot be generalised as the impacts are perceived differently by individuals who are affected by various external and internal factors. At both a theoretical and practical level, such an approach would support decision-making processes for urban infrastructure investment to balance interest of diverse member of society so that mega infrastructure development bring the positive return to society over time and space.

DUBAI EXPO 2020: THE EXPECTATIONS AND REALITIES OF FULFILLING A LEGACY PLAN

Mariam Alzaabi

Mega events are large-scale events of an iterative nature, often coordinated by international committees and run by host nations and cities. Despite their limited and fxed duration, legacy planning for mega-events and can produce long-term and complex consequences for the cities which can be diffcult to plan and realise as intended. Using Dubai Expo 2020 as a case study, this research will look at exploring the extent of development and delivery of the legacy plan of the project.

The four main lenses will look at the role of 1) politics and power, 2) economic viability, 3) social sustainability and vitality, and 4) the role of city and event branding. The main overarching question of the research is to explore and assess the extent of development and delivery of the Expo 2020 Dubai legacy plan. An analysis through interview-led methodology, with the support of archival research and relevant literature will formulate the structure of the research paper and draw conclusions to the proposed question of the research.

The fndings reveal that all the four lenses examined have contributed, in varying scales, in deterring the legacy plan from reaching its full vision and potential. With factors such as politics and power and economic challenges being one the two main infuences of change, branding of the city has contributed to rebranding of legacy to ft within the bigger vision of the city of Dubai. Moreover, these fndings showcase a series of lessons that can be learnt in terms of realistic development of goals and milestones for legacy planning.

The study of Expo 2020 Dubai and its legacy contributes to urban design and planning research by providing a substantial amount of information and analysis of legacy planning. This could offer a preliminary framework for further studying the impact of legacy planning and the challenges faced in hosting mega-events with long lasting legacies.

Closing Thoughts: Looking Forward

The MRes Community’s Mission: Shared Ethos, Vision and Values

The MRes Interdisciplinary Urban Design is a globally unique programme where learning shall continue to be tailored to background, experience and the future academic and or professional aspirations of each individual in the field of cities, planning and design. And its offer highly flexible though supported by a comprehensive programme of urban critical thinking and both research and professional skills training.

Goals for the Next Decade & Vision for the Future

The programme will continue to set its focus critical thinking and critical spatial practice, and be guided by the belief that, on one hand, research perspectives are a critical dimension to advance professional practice and, on the other hand, that better professional practice is the worthy ultimate goal of good critical urban research.

The main goal will be to grow and continue to expand and diversify its offer to as many individuals as possible, those which aspire to gain rigorous training in research, and develop the knowledge, skills and research project experience, and with that, propel themselves towards the success of their PhD studies and either a professional or academic career.

MRes Inter-disciplinary Urban Design

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The Bartlett School of Planning, UCL

Editors

Adonai Boamah-Nyamekye

Zhejun Wang

Mariam Alzaabi

Shani Pearlman

Dr. Filipa Wunderlich

Bartlett life photography included taken by Bartlett members of staff and MRes students.

Copyright 2023 The Bartlett School of Planning, UCL.

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This MRed IdUD programme research catalogue would not have been possible without the generosity of UCL ChangeMakers project fund.