Building and Urban Design in Development MSc overseas practice engagements
Each year, our Building and Urban Design in Development MSc students gain hands-on experience of using the skills, concepts, theories and techniques of urban design in a developing context.




About our overseas practice engagements
The overseas practice engagement forms part of our 'Spatial Design Practice' module, which is a core aspect of our students' learnings and journeys to become better development practitioners. Each year, our Building and Urban Design in Development MSc students focus on social development challenges and opportunities in an urban area of the Global South and engage in an action-learning project that brings out the core concepts and concerns of our master's course, and provides our students with practical research skills, such as engaging with issues raised by partners and communities in a local context. To date, we have engaged with partners and communities in Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand, India, Turkey, North-Cyprus, Jordan, Jamaica, Sri Lanka, Malta, Cuba, Cyprus, India, Pakistan.
Our previous overseas practice engagements
Discover where we've worked and the organisations we've partnered with in previous years:
- 2024: São Paulo, Brazil
- 2023: Moravia, Medellín
- 2022: Sheffield, United Kingdom
- 2020 to 2021: Medellín, Colombia
- 2017 to 2019: Myanmar
- 2014 to 2016: Cambodia
- 2013: Thailand
- 2011 to 2012: Bangkok
- 2010: Istanbul
- 2009: Dharavi, Mumbai
- 2008: Istanbul
- 2007: Istanbul
2024: São Paulo, Brazil
- Report - Insurgent Inhabitation
- Report - Practices of Unscripted Citizenship
- Report - Poetics of Reparative Belonging
- Report - Trajectories in Collision
2023: Moravia, Medellín

Our 2023 overseas practice engagement proposed living archives as a decolonial methodology to re-centre life to imagine forms of living heritage based on relational forms of thinking and being, accounting for the everyday interactions, the polyphony of (hi)stories and the multiplicity of spatial practices often silenced.
We proposed two intertwined strategies of co-creation: 1) gendering the archive and weaving (hi)stories of reclamation to reframe a repository of urban memory, and 2) living heritage into a process of collective imagination to counteract the existing enduring eviction threats.
Our aim was to co-create a living archive for Moravia, Medellín, using collective mapping for imagining gendered urban futures, textile practices, audio-visual material, and historic photos. Our living heritage approach reveals processes and practices of memory transmission in Moravia, which builds upon years of partnership and collaboration with the Centro de Desarrollo Cultural Moravia (CDCM).
Read the outputs from our 2023 practice engagement:
- English report - Living Archive: Weaving Gendered (Hi)stories of Territorial Reclamation in Moravia, Medellín
- Spanish report - Archivo Vivo: Entretejiendo Historias de las Reivindicaciones Territoriales de Moravia, Medellín
- 2023 overseas practice engagement photo album
2022: Sheffield, United Kingdom
Due to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, we situated our practice engagement in the United Kingdom and partnered with Resolve Collective on our project titled 'Sheffield Otherwise: Counter-mapping Living Heritage of Diaspora and Queer Communities'. Through Resolve Collective we formed an alliance with several local organisations in Sheffield including Sadacca and Gut Level.
Read the outputs from our 2022 practice engagement:
- Sheffield Otherwise Project Website
- Sheffield Otherwise Instagram Archive
- Report - Sheffield Otherwise: Counter-Mapping the Living Heritage of Diasporic & Queer Communities
2020 to 2021: Medellín, Colombia
Moravia in Medellín was our site of inquiry where we situated our overseas practice engagement 'Living Heritage Atlas' and engaged with living heritage through the dimensions of urban memories, care, recycling landscapes, and community connections, emphasizing the migratory movements that have taken place towards, into, and from the neighbourhood territory. Discover the project website, 'Partimonio Vivo' ('Living Heritage').
Read the student reports from our 2021 practice engagement:
Discover the outputs from our 2020 practice engagement
- Podcast series - Moravia’s Living Heritage: A tool to rethink the future
- Report - Living Heritage Atlas (Atlas de Patrimonio Vivo): A Tool to Rethink Moravia's Future (Una Herramienta para Repensar el Futuro de Moravia)
2017 to 2019: Myanmar - Transformation in a time of transition
Read the outputs from our 2019 practice engagement:
- Group 1 report - Home in Yangon: Maintenance, mobilisation and consolidation of infrastructure as strategies of upgrading (PDF)
- Group 2 report - Resilient Yangon: Incremental planning towards risk mitigation (PDF)
- Group 3 report - Beyond the park: Flexibility as a mode of spatial production (PDF)
- Group 4 report - Canalising waste for just development (PDF)
Read the outputs from our 2018 practice engagement:
- Introduction to the group reports by Diana Torres Molano
- Group 1 report - Disaster Justice As a Tool for Upgrading (PDF)
- Group 2 report - Collaborative Infrastructure Upgrading (PDF)
- Group 3 report - Sustaining Livelihoods Through Collective Action (PDF)
- Group 4 report - Yangon in Transition: Health as a (Citizens’) Right (PDF)
Read the outputs from our 2017 practice engagement:
- Group 1 report - Reframing Risk as Transformative Potential (PDF)
- Group 2 report - Building the City as a Home (PDF)
- Group 3 report - Citizenry by Recognition and Redistribution (PDF)
- Group 4 report - Yangon: Reconfiguring People's Practices to Shape Their City (PDF)
- Group 5 report - Transformation in a Time of Transformation: Understanding the City through Livelihoods and Gender Sensitive Research (PDF)
- Group 6 report - Yangon (PDF)
- Group 8 report - Potentialising Alternate Circuits of Value Through Co-Production in Yangon, Myanmar (PDF)
2014 to 2016: Cambodia - Transformation in a time of transition
Read the student reports from our 2016 practice engagement:
Read the student reports from our 2015 practice engagement:
- Transforming Discourses
- Framing Transformation
- Synchronizing with the Rhythm of the People
- Video - Cambodia: A State Of Transition (By 2015 DPU Student Film Competition winner David McEwen)
Discover the outputs from our 2014 practice engagement:
- Video - Chamkar Samroung II: A City Tale (2014 DPU Student Film Competition winner)
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2013: Thailand - Transformation at the Citywide Scale
Read the student reports from our 2012 practice engagement:
- Breaking Boundaries: Reimagining the Power of Collaboration
- Imprinting Strategic Alliances into Space. Bangkok, Thailand
Discover the outputs from our 2011 practice engagement:
- News article in Archinect.com - Decoding Bangkok’s Pocket-Urbanization: Social Housing Provision and the Role of Community Architects
- Student blog - Final Thoughts on Bangkok: the Role of Urban Practioners, Promoting Change on Small & Large Scales
- Student report - Depocketisation
- Student report - De-CODI-ng Baan Mankong: Spaces of Community for Transformation
- Video: Behind the Walls (2011 DPU Film Competition winner)
2010: Istanbul - City of islands
Read the report from our 2010 practice engagement:
2009: Dharavi, Mumbai - A Case of Contested Urbanism
Discover the outputs from our 2009 practice engagement
- Student reflections on Blogspot
- Report - Dharavi: A Case of Contested Urbanism
- Video: Scenes behind a World Class City
2008: Istanbul - Stories Behind the Wall: A Development Plan Connecting People and Heritage
Read the outputs from our 2008 practice engagement:
- Student reflections on Blogspot
- Report - Stories Behind the Wall: A Development Plan Connecting People and Heritage
2007: Istanbul - Placing Sulukule: Towards an Alternative Proposal to conserve the Living Heritage of Romani Culture
Discover the outputs from our 2007 practice engagement: