Comparative urban design: Border-Making Practices in Medellin and Beirut Book Launch

The Bartlett Development Planning Unit, UCL (DPU) will launch the publication of the second volume of the "Cities, Design and Transformation" book series edited by Catalina Ortiz, 'Comparative urban design: Border-Making Practices in Medellin and Beirut'.

The book offers comparative reflections on what pedagogies of urban design can offer to the challenges posed by contested cities around border-making practices. It brings together reflections from three cohorts of students of the MSc Building and Urban Design in Development, teaching and research fellows, as well as scholars and activists whose work focuses on the cities of Medellin and Beirut. This publication captures not only discussions on the pedagogies for addressing urban design in cities that have experienced armed conflict but also on the multiple understandings of urban borders and the possibilities around their interventions through design.

The e-book is available on the DPU's Issuu channel.

Speakers:

Dr Catalina Ortiz is a lecturer and programme leader of the MSc in Building and Urban Design in Development at the DPU. She is interested in the negotiated co-production of cities and the political economy of urban design. She works on disentangling the ways in which the transnational flows of urban models, ideas, and tools shape the built environment and the political process of space production in global south cities.

Murray Fraser is Professor of Architecture and Global Culture at the Bartlett School of Architecture, as well as Vice-Dean of Research for the Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment, University College London, UK. He has published extensively on design research, architectural history & theory, urbanism, post-colonialism and cultural studies. 

Camillo Boano is Professor of Urban Design and Critical Theory at the DPU, programme leader of the MSc in Building and Urban Design in Development, and Co-Director of the UCL Urban Laboratory. He is interested in the complex encounters between critical theory, radical philosophy and urban design processes, specifically engaging with informal urbanisations, urban collective actions, as well as crisis-generated urbanisms.