University Urbanism: Campus Development and Urban Regeneration

Aimed at developers and consultants, university estates professionals, town planners, masterplanning firms, and architectural practices, the course will address specific industry challenges in the field of university-led urban regeneration, notably:

• how universities can maximise investment value in their estates while also enhancing university-city relationships;
• how universities, planners and design consultants can communicate with each other and with communities effectively to achieve the best development outcomes.

Through a combination of lectures, discussion and individual and group exercises, the course will focus on three key issues:

• Site selection and creation of partnerships and long-term relationships between universities and other urban actors, e.g. city councils, businesses, and community stakeholder groups.
• Universities as clients: visioning processes and briefing of masterplanners and architectural consultants; academics and students as key stakeholder groups in university development.
• University space: what kinds of buildings and spaces do universities need, and how do they form connections with the wider urban environment?

The course will provide access to evidence-based case study research – which will be used to illustrate general principles or introduce innovative ideas – plus data on university campus development in urban environments, as well as personal insights from experienced professionals and practitioners in the field.

By the end of this course you'll have learned:

• to recognise key issues in university development and to contextualise these within a wider discussion around urban regeneration
• to incorporate evidence-based arguments into design approaches
• to justify innovatory approaches to university development
• to critique development processes by reference to current academic research
• to demonstrate knowledge and refer to a number of comparative case studies

On completion of the course, participants will receive a UCL certificate of participation.

Lunch will be provided, and throughout the day there will be the opportunity for networking, ending with a drinks reception on the roof terrace of the Bartlett’s newly remodeled building.

Course team

• Clare Melhuish is Co-Director and Senior Research Associate in the UCL Urban Laboratory, where she has been working on the role of university spatial development projects in urban regeneration and the production of cosmopolitan urbanism in the UK and abroad. Her background is in architecture and anthropology, and she has worked both within and beyond the academic context, drawing on many years experience as a journalist, author, and curator in architecture and design.
• John Goddard OBE is Emeritus Professor of Regional Development Studies and was also the Deputy Vice Chancellor at Newcastle University until his retirement in 2008, during which time he had special responsibility of the University’s city and regional engagement. As NESTA Fellow, he authored the 2009 ‘provocation’ Re-Inventing the Civic University, and in 2013 co-authored The University and the City.
• Euan Macdonald is a partner at Hawkins\Brown and leads a team of 20 architects and designers, working on a range of projects across the education, residential and cultural sectors. He recently led the completion of the Bartlett School of Architecture building project.
• Alexi Marmot is Professor of Facility and Environment Management at UCL, and leading on the establishment of a new Bartlett Global Centre for Learning Environments. She is an internationally acknowledged expert in the design, management, and use of places for work and learning. Director of consultancy firm AMA, Alexi has spent the last thirty years exploring how people use space, how buildings operate in practice, and how to create buildings that really work for the organisations that inhabit them.
• Richard Meier is a partner at Argent and has worked primarily on the King’s Cross redevelopment, where he is responsible for coordinating and delivering some £600 million of projects, including major residential, retail, public realm and infrastructure projects. Notably, Richard oversaw the delivery of the new £155 million campus for Central Saint Martins (University of the Arts London).
• Ben Campkin is author of Remaking London: Decline and Regeneration in Urban Culture (I.B. Tauris, 2013), which won the Urban Communication Foundation’s Jane Jacobs Award, 2015. He is Director of UCL’s Urban Laboratory and represents the Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment in leading a collaborative academic proposal on cities for UCL’s new campus in east London. He formerly chaired the UCL East Academic Challenge Panel, which sought to connect academic expertise on cities and the built environment with the campus development.
• Georgiana Varna is Lecturer in Planning and Urbanism at Newcastle University. She is developing a multifaceted theoretical framework that looks at the university campus and its innovation district through several perspectives: urban design and place-making; real estate development with a focus on networks; IOT & the 'smart' city and meaning/sense/use of place. She is involved in a team looking at the University of Glasgow's campus redevelopment, which will act as an anchor for a new innovation quarter in the West End.

Further information

• Contact: Jordan Rowe, jordan.rowe@ucl.ac.uk

The rooms used for this event are fully accessible to wheelchair users. If you have any other accessibility queries, please contact urbanlaboratory@ucl.ac.uk