In this bi-monthly event series, we inspired conversations about how we can think differently to create more equitable spaces, inclusive experiences and diverse cities and societies.
In each event, we delved into the latest ideas and research from The Bartlett’s leading thinkers in the built environment field. We explored disability, race, gender, LGBTQ+ and many other dimensions of diversity and discover how they intersect with built environments around the world.
Past events
Decolonial and Restorative Policy
This online Inclusive Spaces event explored the importance of decolonial, intersectional, and other social justice frameworks in the rise of digital technology and artificial intelligence (AI), and explored restorative futures to champion change.
About the speakers
Nai Lee Kalema is a PhD student at UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose.
Felicity Atekpe is an Associate Professor in Professional Practice at The Bartlett School of Architecture
LGBTQIA+ Places and Stories
In this online event, the editors of ‘Queer Spaces’ explored the past and present life of LGBTQIA+ spaces from around the world – and their worthy place in history.
About the speakers
Joshua Mardell is an architectural historian, and is currently Lecturer in the School of Architecture at the Royal College of Art
Adam Nathaniel Furman is an artist and designer who trained in architecture
Jordana Ramalho is a Lecturer in Development Planning for Diversity, Co-Programme Leader MSc Urban Development Planning, The Bartlett Development Planning Unit (DPU)
Lo Marshall (they/them) is a Senior Research Fellow in Equality, Diversity and Inclusion within the Built Environment, The Bartlett, Faculty of the Built Environment
Environments for Mental Health
This online Inclusive Spaces event explored the architecture of psychiatric buildings and the importance of involving end users in the design and planning of mental health care environments.
About the speakers
Dr Evangelia Chrysikou is an Associate Professor, The Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction, University College London (UCL)
Prof Helen Killaspy is a Professor and Honorary Consultant in Rehabilitation Psychiatry at University College London (UCL) and Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust
Katherine Barrett is Co-Chair of the Service User Research Fora at University College London (UCL)
Deafening Architecture
This online Inclusive Spaces event explores the voices, experiences and designs of D/deaf creatives within architectural practice, pedagogy and research.
About the speakers
Dr Stylianos (Stelios) Giamarelos is an Associate Professor in Architecture at The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London (UCL)
Richard Dougherty is an Architect RIBA ARB and Director at Richard Lyndon Design
Prof Ann Heylighen is a Design Researcher at KU Leuven, Dept. of Architecture, Research[x]Design
Dr Nina Vollenbröker is an Associate Professor at The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London (UCL)
Trans Visibility and the City
This online Inclusive Spaces event explores trans people’s experiences of in/visibility in urban spaces and city life, and the contradictions that can make them simultaneously hyper-visible and hyper-vulnerable.
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About the speakers
Lo Marshall (they/them) is a Senior Research Fellow and Tutor at the Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment, UCL.
Carmen Abouamra is a PhD candidate, and a graduate teaching assistant at The Bartlett Development Planning Unit, the UCL Institute for Global Prosperity, and the UCL Department of Arts and Sciences.
Carla Ecola is a queer homelessness activist, and Founder/Director of The Outside Project, London's LGBTIQ+ Community Centre, Shelter and Domestic Abuse Refuge.
Housing Inequality and Heritage
In this interactive online discussion, we will explore the role that community engagement can play in addressing housing inequalities, and ask how communities can be better included in shaping and creating their own housing culture and heritage.
About the speaker
Eva Branscome is an Associate Professor Architectural History and Theory at The Bartlett School of Architecture.
Naomi Israel is the Co-Chair at SPID Theatre.
Priya Aggarwal Shah is the Founder and Director at BAME in Property.
Disability-Inclusive Design for Climate Resilient Cities
In this Inclusive Spaces session, our global experts share how the climate crisis is impacting disabled people, and what disability-inclusive and resilient solutions might look like.
About the speaker
Iain McKinnon, Director of Inclusive Design at Global Disability Innovation Hub.
Mikaela Patrick, Senior Inclusive Design Researcher at Global Disability Innovation Hub.
Shivani Gupta, Technical Officer at CBM International, India.
Anna Landre, PhD Candidate at UCL Department of Computer Science.
Religious Infrastructure in the City
In this thought-provoking discussion, we examine the interconnections between public spaces and personal faith and explore how Muslim and non-Muslim communities experience the creation of Muslim spaces.
About the speaker
Ala’a Shehabi is a Senior Research Fellow in Equality Diversity and Inclusion at The Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment and Lecturer in Middle East Politics at EISPS.
Said Mahathir is a PhD Candidate at the Development Planning Unit (DPU), University College London (UCL).
Hanadi Samhan is a PhD Candidate at the Development Planning Unit (DPU) and Seminar Leader/Tutor at The Bartlett School of Planning (BSP) and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences University College London (UCL).
Everyday Curriculums / Everyday Pedagogies
Explore how simple, everyday changes in built environment education can create more inclusive educational experiences, and show how simple, everyday tools can help educators diversify curricula and pedagogies.
About the speakers
Amy Kulper is is an architectural educator, administrator and innovator, and the Director of the Bartlett School of Architecture.
Felicity Atekpe is a practicing architect and the founder of White Table Architects, a practice specialising in sustainable design, interiors, architecture and landscape.
Sara Shafiei is Vice-Dean Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at The Bartlett, Faculty of the Built Environment, and Associate Professor (Teaching) at The Bartlett School of Architecture.
Queering Public Space
In the last episode of Season 2 we explored the relationship between queer communities and public spaces and address the concept of ‘designing in diversity’.
The session was not recorded, but if you are interested in exploring the event’s theme further, you can read the Queering Public Space research report and watch the film produced by the speakers from Arup and the University of Westminster.
About the speakers
Mei-Yee Man Oram is a Consultant Member of the National Register of Access Consultants (NRAC), an International Access Consultant under the CPABE certification and is also a WELL Community, Homes and Health Equity advisor for the International WELL Buildings Institute, helping to shape healthier spaces for all.
Dr Ammar Azzouz is a London-based architect and a short-term Research Associate at the University of Oxford, and an editor at Arab Urbanism.
Pippa Catterall is Professor of History and Policy, Chair of the George Lansbury Memorial Trust, a member of the London Historic Environments Forum, and co-editor of the journal National Identities.
Dr Scott Allan Orr is primarily researching the intersection of climate change and cultural heritage. Scott is also on the committee of the LGBTQ+ STEM @ UCL Network.
Mental Health and Social Justice in the Urban Outdoors
Explore insights into how park users derive wellbeing from greenspaces, the crucial role these can play for people’s mental health, and the lived experiences of disadvantaged and minority groups who have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.
Recording: Mental Health and Social Justice in the Urban Outdoors
About the speakers
Dr Liza Griffin is a Lecturer in Environmental Politics at The Bartlett Development Planning Unit, UCL. Her research lies within the field of human geography, but her work spans health, spatial politics and development studies more broadly.
Kay Pallaris is a Strategic Environmental Planner whose work has included many facets of sustainable development planning and urban regeneration working at the interface of spatial research, policy and practice.
Maxwell Mutanda is a Lecturer in Environmental and Spatial Equity, and Co-Director of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL.
CurrenSee - An inclusive attention economy
Explore data representation and the socio-economic inclusivity of non-human vantage points and volatile urban environments.
Recording: CurrenSee - An inclusive attention economy
About the speakers
Current is an interdisciplinary, intercultural collective whose digital practice is driven by an interest in the reciprocal relationships between virtual and physical spaces. Through the medium of volumetric cinema, ‘Current’ delineates the multiplicity of futures in the attention economy.
Daniel Fitzpatrick is a Lecturer (Teaching) in Planning at the Bartlett School of Planning, University College London. His research is focussed on social sustainability, governance of social infrastructures and community-led responses to climate change.
Exploring gender inequality in the built environment
Bartlett alumna Sherin Aminossehe walks us through her experience in the built environment and the changes that need to be made for gender equality.
Recording: Inclusive Spaces: Exploring gender inequality in the built environment
About the speakers
Sherin Aminossehe is currently Director of Infrastructure and Race Champion at the UK Ministry of Defence, and is a Bartlett alumna.
Paroj Banerjee is the co-lead of the EDI unit at the Development Planning Unit. She is an ethnographer by training and her research interest centre on urban dispossession and responses to spatial inequalities.
Visibility, Inclusivity and Allyship in Built Environment Professions
In our latest Inclusive Spaces lecture, Dr Sam Chandan, Anna Coltrane, Adrian Silver, and Bartlett alum Tres Seippel explore the importance of being a built environment professional and visible members of the LGBTQIA+ community.
Recording: Inclusive Spaces Visibility, Inclusivity and Allyship in Built Environment Professions
About the speakers
Tres Seippel is a real estate strategy and finance executive. He is the Chair of the UCL New York Alumni Club, a Board Member of the University College London Friends and Alumni Association (UCLFAA), and a young committee member of the Real Estate Pride Council.
Adrian Silver is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University, where he teaches real estate sustainability.
Anna Coltrane currently serves as the Director of Development at Space Craft where she is responsible for all aspects of new project development from acquisition through lease-up.
Dr Sam Chandan is the Larry & Klara Silverstein Chair and academic dean of the NYU SPS Schack Institute; Founder and Non-Executive Chairman of Chandan Economics; Forbes contributor; and, host of the Urban Lab podcast and Real Estate Hour on SiriusXM
Decentralising solar economy
This Inclusive Spaces lecture explores insights on how civilization can be redefined in the face of our energy crisis, and the potential of solar energy development in compensating our modest urban capacities in renewable energy.
About the speakers
Provides Ng is a teacher at the Bartlett School of Architecture, an architect and researcher who studies the emergence of digital tools, their applications, and impacts on urbanism.
Alberto Fernandez is a Professor of Architecture at UCH, a Digital Design Tutor at The Bartlett at MSci Architecture, MEng AD and MArch AD.
David Doria is an architect and urbanist interested in the convergence of digital technologies and architecture, and a technical skills tutor for the Research Cluster 4 in Bartlett's Architectural Design program.
Crippling educational spaces
This panel discussion explores how we can critique the existing shape of higher education through the richness of our neuro and biodiversity differences, rather than ‘adding’ disabled people or merely including them into existing normative higher education practices.
About the speakers
Dr Jos Boys is Director of the Learning Environments Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Centre (LEEDIC), and Course Lead for MSc Learning Environments. She is a co-founder of the Matrix Feminist Design Collective, and of The DisOrdinary Architecture Project.
Margaret Price is Associate Professor and Director of the Disability Studies Program at the Ohio State University. She is currently at work on a mixed-methods investigation, the Disabled Faculty Study, which combines survey and interview data to learn more about the experiences of disabled faculty in higher education.
Poppy Levison is a 3rd year UG architecture student at Central Saint Martins, UAL. As a blind person, she speaks about architecture’s tendency to fixate on the visual rather than the experiential, as well as the politics of inclusive design. She was a founder participant of the Architecture Beyond Sight intensive study course (an ongoing disability-led collaboration between The Bartlett and The DisOrdinary Architecture Project that explores ways to challenge ableist built environment education practices).
Accelerating Islamophobia and emerging ‘Mosquephobia’
In this talk, Professor Ali Alraouf discusses Islamophobia, and explains how it is related to inclusivity in the built environment, particularly in mosques. He explores how creativity in a mosque's design, alongside activities, openness, and its relation with the community and the urban context would lead to a better perception of Muslims and Islam.
Recording: Accelerating Islamophobia and emerging ‘Mosquephobia’
About the speakers
Prof. Ali Alraouf is an architect, urban designer, and planner interested in research and practice in the domain of theory, criticism, and creativity in architecture and urbanism. He is head of research and development at the Ministry of Municipality in Qatar and is also a professor at HBK University in Qatar Education City.
Sara Motwani is a second-year student studying Engineering and Architectural Design (MEng) at the Bartlett School of Architecture.
Navigating Space Under Lockdown, the young BAME experience
This session examined the key findings of the Navigating Spaces Under Lockdown project, which documented the experiences of Black and racially minoritised young adults in England during the COVID-19 pandemic. Co-led by the Bartlett Development Planning Unit, The Ubele Initiative and FOAM20, and funded by The National Lottery Community Fund, this project explored how young people’s experiences of home, work, mobility, community, and well-being have been affected by the pandemic and by prolonged periods of lockdown.
Recording: Navigating space under lockdown, the young BAME experience
About the speakers
Dr. Barbara Lipietz is Associate Professor at the Development Planning Unit where she directs DPU’s MSc in Urban Development Planning and convenes the DPU Research Cluster on Urban Transformations.
Dr Jordana Romalho is a Lecturer in Development Planning for Diversity at the Bartlett Development Planning Unit and co-director of the MSc in Urban Development Planning at UCL. Her research spans the fields of feminist political ecology, gender and development and urban geography, and seeks to promote more socially just urban development.
Participatory design and diversity
This event explored how the co-design of public spaces in areas affected by displacement and conflict can promote inclusivity and redress unequal power relations.
Recording: Participatory design and diversity
About the speakers
- Dr Andrea Rigon is an Associate Professor at The Bartlett Development Planning Unit
Joana Dabaj is the Founder at CatalyticAction
Queer perspectives: cross-cultural experiences in physical and online space
This event explored a variety of cross-cultural perspectives highlighting the physical and online experiences of queer people worldwide, and discussed the varied relationships that queer folk, especially QPOC (Queer People of Colour), have with the spaces they occupy, move through or are regulated by.
Recording: Queer perspectives: cross-cultural experiences in physical and online space
About the speakers
- Dr Sharif Mowlabocus is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University, New York. His research is located at the intersection of digital media studies and sexuality studies.
- Dr Regner Ramos is Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Puerto Rico. His research on the relationship between queerness and space is informed by experimental research methods, shifting between model-making, drawing, and performative writing.
- Professor Ben Campkin is Professor of History and Theory of Architecture and Urbanism at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. He is the author of Remaking London: Decline and Regeneration in Urban Culture and leads UCL Urban Laboratory’s work on Queer Infrastructure.
- Claire Tunnacliffe is a research student at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. Claire's doctoral research focuses on queer practices of placemaking: urban constellations of LGBTQ+ activism in London.
Preventing ‘ruins of regeneration’ through youth-led co-design
This event explored the role youth-led design can have addressing the negative consequences regeneration has on young people in East London.
The panel showed how design thinking can be leveraged by young people in the local area to make regeneration work better for young East Londoners, and how their design as part of the Fuse project came from a consideration of what 'prosperity' means to young East Londoners and how it will support young people to thrive in the careers they want.
Recording: Preventing ‘ruins of regeneration’ through youth-led co-design
About the speakers
- Hannah Sender is a Research Fellow in the UCL Institute for Global Prosperity. Her research focuses on the relationship between adolescence, societal change and mental health.
- David Adesanya is a sponsored athlete, architecture graduate and social innovation fellow.
- Diana Hysenaj is an undergraduate student at Queen Mary University, a Young Artist at NEWYVC Choir and an ambassador for Brokerage social mobility charity.
Why is cultural heritage under threat in London?
This event examines the nexus between ethnic minority spaces, London heritage policies (both local and city-wide), and the creative industries. It shares recent research findings on what is described as gentrification through 'hipsterfication', and its impact on ethnic minority spaces in London's East End – notably Brick Lane's Banglatown.
Parallels with other 'ethnic majority' are also be explored, in collaboration with the Just Space Network, an informal alliance of around 80 community groups, campaigns and concerned independent organisations acting as a voice for Londoners at grass-roots level.
About the speakers
- Saif Osmani, a postgraduate research student at The Bartlett School of Architecture, and an interdisciplinary creative practitioner specialising in the fine arts and architectural design.
- Mama D - Community Centred Knowledge
- Richard Lee - Just Space Network
Rethinking disability and built space
This interactive workshop session will start from the work of disabled artists, designers, campaigners and scholars. We will discuss how engaging with disability at the intersections can be both a creative design generator, and a key means to challenge and change what is ‘normal’ in the design of the built environment.
In architecture and related fields in the built environment, disability as a concept – and disabled people – continue to be predominantly framed through a set of outdated and functionalist categories (wheelchair user, blind, deaf, etc.).
There is still a widespread assumption that ‘disability’ is unable to bring any kind of creativity to the design of human spaces.
Since 2008, the DisOrdinary Architecture Project has been challenging this assumption by promoting new practice for the built environment, led by the creativity and experiences of disabled artists.
By finding innovative and enjoyable ways of bringing together disabled creatives with built environment students, educators, researchers and practitioners, DisOrdinary Architecture is co-developing new forms of valuing, and designing with, the rich bio- and neurodiversity of our many different ways of being in the world.
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About the speakers
- Dr Jos Boys, Senior Lecturer in Environments for Learning, The Bartlett Real Estate Institute & co-director of The DisOrdinary Architecture Project
- Natasha Trotman, Artist in Residence at Somerset House, and a designer whose work explores extending the frontiers of knowledge around mental difference, non-typical ways of being and marginalised experiences. Natasha Trotman's studio practise site
- Raquel Mesquer, founder and Artistic Director of Unchartered Collective, where she develops projects and an aesthetic exploring difference as a creative tool, including 'A Crash Course in Cloudspotting (the subversive act of horizontality)'. https://uncharteredcollective.com/
Rethinking architecture to create social value
This session will be led by award-winning architect and Bartlett alumna Tumpa Husna Yasmin Fellows.
In part one, we’ll explore inclusive design methods, and answer key questions: How can architecture enable the voices of underrepresented communities to enable spatial justice? How can architects design for social value creation in places, buildings and neighbourhoods? How can designing inclusive spaces help us respond to the climate injustice? We’ll bring these issues to life with case study projects from the practise Our Building Design, which enabled marginalised local voices to be heard through community participation and evidence-based research, tackling complex social and environmental issues faced by the disadvantaged communities.
Part two will expose the urgent issue of diversity in the architecture profession. FAME collective is a research-based platform responding to a lack of understanding of how race and gender affect practitioners, young scholars and students in architecture and the built environment. We’ll explore how these professions need to diversify, in order to reflect the diversity of the local communities they are serving.
Recording: Re-thinking architecture to create social value
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About the speaker
Tumpa Husna Yasmin Fellows is an award-winning British architect, and Bartlett alumna (UCL Architecture BSc 2005, Grad Dip 2008, MArch 2010, RIBA/ARB - Part 3- Professional Practice 2011). She co-founded the inter-disciplinary practice Our Building Design, the charity Mannan Foundation Trust, and two organisations that promote and support architects from the ethnic minority in the UK: FAME collective and Asian Architects Association. She is also part of the Design Review Panel for the Southwark Council Planning Department.
Currently Tumpa is a Senior Lecturer in architecture at the University of Westminster and a PhD candidate, where her research focuses on community participatory methods on architectural responses to the changing climate, landscape and social practices in the UK and in Bangladesh. She was awarded the RIBA-J Rising Star Award in 2017, and a commendation for the RIBA President’s Award for Research in 2019.
Levelling the playing field
With over 30 million children forcibly displaced across the globe, can play spaces provide places of refuge, equity and inclusion?
Emergencies of forced displacement are prevalent across the globe, as of 2019, 40% of the 79 million people forced out of their homes were children. However, research often ignores the plight of urban refugee children who have limited access to resources and rights within the built environment.
Using Kitengela, a peri-urban town in Kenya as a case study, we’ll explore how play spaces can become significant places of safety, social integration and developmental progress.
Through the process of storytelling and digital mapping, we’ll look at the material and spatial characteristics which promote the naturally occurring play culture – while also foregrounding the issues that prevent both refugee Congolese children and host Kenyan children from accessing play in an inclusive, equitable manner.
This work has been developed by Marie Williams, based in the UCL Institute of Global Prosperity, through the process of co-design, in collaboration with local researchers and over 200 participants in 2020.
Recording: Levelling the playing field
About the speaker
Marie Williams is a senior product development engineer, designer and academic who has adopted co-design principles to collaboratively create contextual solutions to a variety of social and environmental challenges our world faces. A finalist to the Institute of Engineering Female engineer of the year, her playful career has seen her collaboratively create innovative solutions within a range of industries, ranging from aerospace to nuclear building design, to corporate social responsibility and most importantly play.
In 2016 she launched Dream Networks and began a journey to enable inclusive play4all children through the process of co-design. She is a PHD student at the Bartlett Institute of Global Prosperity and an exchange scholar at Yale School of Architecture. Through her situated, participatory co-design research project, she hopes to generate accessible and tailored play solutions that enable children from the Kenyan and Refugee community in Kitengela thrive through play.
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