FOREWORDS
From an Arts and Humanities perspective, Urban Lab continues to be a crucial example of interdisciplinary and cross-faculty engagement that can help to break down traditional disciplinary boundaries in hugely creative ways. Engagement with notions of the urban, the intersections between the city and identity are central to the humanities (in literature, film and media, cultural exchanges) and I welcome the opportunity to continue to support the multidisciplinary events and research nurtured by and debated within Urban Lab. With UCL East in mind, the synergies between the Urban Room and Memory Workshop and the creative humanities, media and art-focused programmes being developed in the School for Culture and Creative Industries are invigorating and exciting. Stella Bruzzi Executive Dean, UCL Faculty of Arts and Humanities Professor of Film
Getting to know UCL over the last year as the new Dean of The Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment, I have been struck by the extraordinary range of exciting, edgy research initiatives active across the university. The ability to connect and collaborate across disciplinary boundaries is definitely one of UCL’s greatest strengths. To my mind, Urban Lab is a perfect example of this. Created and led by a cross-faculty team of urban specialists, Urban Lab is a vital space where researchers, students, practitioners, and community partners come together to interpret and shape contemporary cities. For more than a decade, this collaboration has been pushing the conceptual and methodological boundaries of “urban studies”, opening up new ways of understanding spaces and communities, asking new (and different) questions about everyday life and urban environments, surfacing hidden problems and emerging injustices, and developing new tools and platforms for engaging diverse publics. Along the way, Urban Lab has not only worked across London and the UK but also in cities around the world, from Beirut and Johannesburg to Paris and Toronto. In a time of global pandemic, widening inequality, technological acceleration, and climate emergency, we need Urban Lab to continue and even amplify this work. As the many projects featured in this report make clear, we need the lab’s energy, innovation, and commitment to urban justice. Christoph Lindner Dean, The Bartlett UCL Faculty of the Built Environment Professor of Urban Studies
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