Urban Lab appoints Dr Clare Melhuish as Research Associate

Dr Melhuish has extensive research experience, most recently as part of the ESRC-funded project 'Architectural atmospheres, branding and the social: the impact of digital visualising technologies on contemporary architectural practice' at the Open University. 

While based in the Urban Laboratory, Dr Melhuish will undertake independent research collating a set of case studies that analyse regeneration, drawing on the full range of qualitative and quantitative evidence available. This work has been commissioned by UCL in order to inform discussions about the university's role within urban development in London, and the opportunities presented by future growth; as well as to contribute to the university's wider scholarship on regeneration, and public and academic debates more widely.

Dr Ben Campkin, Director of the Urban Laboratory said: "An anthropologist by training, Dr Melhuish has a wealth of experience and a wide range of research skills, ranging from participant observation, to interviews, literature review and visual methods. She is therefore well placed to contribute to the Urban Laboratory's critical work on urbanization, and to develop much needed methodologies to analyse the discourses and results of urban regeneration, looking across the full range of available evidence. These case studies will be made freely available and disseminated as widely as possible, offering a resource for Londoners and the communities in whose name regeneration is undertaken, as well as for academics and practitioners."

Before joining UCL Dr Melhuish worked on a project examining regeneration under the direction of gentrification specialist Professor Loretta Lees at Kings College London. She has also undertaken research and teaching for the University of Westminster, University of Sussex, Women's Design Service, CABE and Queen Mary University of London. She is a Visiting Research Fellow at Brunel University (Anthropology) and a Steering Committee member of the London Women and Planning Forum. Author of numerous publications on architecture and cities, Dr Melhuish's research interests include the anthropology of architecture and the built environment; urban anthropology; Modern Movement architectural heritage and social identity; domestic space and cultures; ethnographic research and urban design and regeneration; and the ethnography of architectural design practice.