Building and Urban Design in Development MSc alumni experiences

Explore the experiences and career paths of our Building and Urban Design in Development MSc graduates.

Building and Urban Design in Development MSc enhances students’ skills in critical thinking, action-research, spatial analysis, design research and creative practice, which are in demand in a variety of sectors around the world. Our alumni have now launched careers across NGOs, aid and development agencies, social movements, community-led organisations, government organisations, urban think tanks, public agencies and institutions, architectural, planning and urban design practices, and more. Our course has also often inspired graduates to pursue further research at PhD level and to develop independent practices.

Provided with the analytical tools, I was committed to understand my previous work experience in participatory design with rural communities in the Andes and in the Amazon forest. I was able to apply decolonial and participation theory to better understand my own practice and to question our strategies and perspectives.

Jessica Alvarez

Jessica Alvarez

Read more about Jessica's Experience

Throughout this masters I worked with a diverse range of disciplines, scales, actors and media that highlighted to me the importance of the ‘bigger picture’; the importance of being able to deconstruct processes of development, through the evaluation and analysis of both their measurable and non-measurable impacts, and then piece them back together to implement in the built environment.

Luisa Miranda Morel

Luisa Miranda Morel

Read more about Luisa's Experience

Alumni in practice

We have a dedicated website exploring stories from our alumni in practice. This website is conceived as an open-ended research project, enquiring what practice of/in the built environment means nowadays. The enquiry feeds on the words and perspectives of alumni of the Building and Urban Design in Development MSc, who we interview to discuss recent projects of theirs.

Explore the interviews on:

  1. Addressing ecological concerns
  2. Fostering spatial justice, rethinking public spaces
  3. Reinventing housing provision
  4. Mobilising communities and networks of care
  5. Investigating and reinterpreting the urban
  6. Enquiring violence and conflict
  7. Recalibrating humanitarian action
  8. Preserving and enhancing heritage

Watch alumni career stories

Lucy and Akil shared their career journeys after graduating, as part of The Bartlett Development Planning Unit’s alumni career stories video playlist on YouTube.

Watch Lucy's alumni career story - Building and Urban Design in Development MSc on YouTube.
Lucy transitioned to joining an architecture and design co-operative.
Watch Akil's alumni career story - Building and Urban Design in Development MSc on YouTube.
Akil co-founded RESOLVE Collective—a small, integrated design collective.

Explore more alumni stories

  1. Jessica Alvarez
  2. Aurélie Knecht
  3. Nada Elfeituri
  4. Bobae Lee
  5. Aamina Shahid
  6. Aji Bima Amriza Amalsyah
  7. Samia Khan
  8. Shannon Lawrence
  9. Shoko Sakuma
  10. Juan Usubillaga
  11. Edwar Hanna
  12. Belen Desmaison
  13. Jessica Mamo
  14. David McEwen
  15. Alberto Piccioli and Kaiting Chang
  16. Riccardo Conti, Joana Dabaj and Laura Antona
  17. Luisa Miranda Morel
  18. Lucia Maffei
  19. Nathan Mahaffey
  20. Francesco Pasta
  21. Sepideh Hajisoltani
  22. Katja Starc
  23. Josue Robles Caraballo
  24. Jose di Girolamo
  25. Jennifer Cirne
  26. Krista Canellakis and Marisol Garcia
  27. Igor Malgrati
  28. Andrew Wade
  29. Benjamin Leclair
  30. Kelvin Naidoo
  31. Diego Collazos
  32. Katja Schäfer