People

UCL Urban Laboratory

UCL Urban Laboratory

critical and creative urban thinking, teaching, research, practice
UCL Urban Laboratory

exploring new methods of urban research across disciplinary boundaries
UCL Urban Laboratory

critical, independent, rigorous and original scholarship on cities
UCL Urban Laboratory

leading urban debate and the design and planning of contemporary cities
UCL Urban Laboratory

engaging with London and its communities
UCL Urban Laboratory

developing international networks and comparisons in urban research and action
UCL Urban Laboratory

drawing on UCL’s heritage of pioneering urbanism
UCL Urban Laboratory

critical and creative urban thinking, teaching, research, practice

People

Director

Director of UCL Urban Laboratory
Senior Research Associate

University-led urban regeneration; Modern Movement architectural heritage and social identity; domestic space and cultures; ethnography of architectural design practice; curating the city.

Past Directors

Ben Campkin

Director, 2011 - 2018
Senior Lecturer in Architectural History and Theory

Urban decline and 'regeneration' in London; housing, including early twentieth century slum clearances, and the representation and redevelopment of modernist mass housing; LGBTQI nightlife space; and the uses of images in urban change.

Matthew Gandy

Director, 2005 - 2011
Professor of Cultural and Historical Geography and Fellow

Cyborg urbanization; urban metabolism; cinematic landscapes; infrastructure; bio-diversity; epidemiology.

Co-Directors

Pushpa Arabindoo Senior Lecturer in Geography and Urban Design	Urbanization, public space and political activism in India; cities and climate change.
Matthew Beaumont Professor of Nineteenth-Century Literature	Night-time city; utopia in fiction writing; urban representations; thinking the city.
Camillo Boano Professor of Urban Design and Critical Theory	Urban development, contested urbanism, socio-spatial dialectics, design and urban transformations, and shelter and housing reconstruction in geographies of the global south.
Ben Campkin Senior Lecturer in Architectural History and Theory	Urban decline and 'regeneration' in London; housing, including early twentieth century slum clearances, and the representation and redevelopment of modernist mass housing; LGBTQI nightlife space; and the uses of images in urban change.
Ellie Cosgrave Lecturer in Urban Innovation and Director of UCL City Leadership Laboratory	Urban and local governance; city leadership; engineering design; smart cities; sustainable urban environments; choreographing the city.
Andrew Harris Senior Lecturer in Geography and Urban Studies	Art, space and the city; creative cities; gentrification; urban infrastructure; vertical urbanism.
Jennifer Robinson Professor of Human Geography	South Africa, including studies of segregation and state power; the politics of urban development; comparative urbanism; city strategies and the circulation of urban policy.

Centre Manager

Jordan Rowe

Steering Committee

Yasminah Beebeejaun Senior Lecturer in Urban Planning	Race and territorialisation, decision-making processes, community organising, nationhood debates, colonisalism
Sarah Bell Professor of Environment Engineering	Sustainability of urban water systems, particularly social and policy factors as they relate to engineering; community engagement with engineering and infrastructure provision
Claire Colomb Reader in Planning and Urban Sociology	Urban governance, policies and politics, European spatial planning, and urban sociology
Adam Drazin Teaching Fellow in Anthropology	Culture, materials and design
Murray Fraser Professor of Architecture and Global Culture	Design, architectural history & theory, urbanism, and cultural studies
Alexandre Apsan Frediani Lecturer in Development Planning	Housing and squatter settlement upgrading; participatory approaches to research, planning and design; social movements and right to the city; urban regeneration and well-being; human development and the capability approach
Kalliopi Fouseki Senior Lecturer in Sustainable Heritage	Museology, cultural heritage, anthropology, reception studies, heritage management and public archaeology
Haidy Geismar Professor of Anthropology	Intellectual and cultural property, indigenous rights, new forms of cultural representation, the anthropology of art, critical museology and the South Pacific
Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou Lecturer in Social Theory	Political sociology, nationalism studies, radical imagination and speculative futures, financialisation, risk and debt practices, housing movements
Susanne Kuechler Professor of Art and Anthropology	Art and memory, material translation, new materials and new technologies, sustainable development
Barbara Lipietz Lecturer in Development Planning	Urban governance, participatory governance and planning through co-production; circulation and localisation of public policy; anti-poverty strategies; inclusive cities and the 'right to the city', sustainable cities, resilient cities; housing policy, slum upgrading practices, urban regeneration
Susan Moore Lecturer in Planning	Sustainable urban development processes and practices; Relational geographies of urban (and suburban) development and built form
Michał Murawski Assistant Professor in Critical Area Studies	Architecture and planning of Eastern European communism; social condensers; Warsaw and Moscow; curatorial and art practice methodologies
Florian Mussgnug Reader in Italian and Comparative Literature	Catastrophe and apocalypse in comparative literature, including climate change fiction, cold war culture and existential risk; Rome
James O'Leary Senior Lecturer in Architecture and Innovative Technology	Contemporary Art & Architecture, Situated Practices, Critical Spatial Practice, Narrative Spaces, Urban Memory, Contested Space
Kieren Reed Lecturer in Fine Art	Sculpture, performance, installation, public art, culture-led regeneration
Rafael Schacter Research Fellow in Anthropology	Independent public art; street art and graffiti; visual culture; vernacular art; popular politics; public sphere; anthropology of art; material culture
Helena Titheridge Professor of Mobility and Sustainable Transport	Sustainable systems, transport planning