Inclusive Spaces: Housing Inequality and Heritage

Cities and their buildings are an integral part of human experience. In London, as elsewhere, our built environments frame our society and reflect our underlying ideologies and power structures. 

Minority ethnic groups make up more than 50% of the population across many cities in England and Wales, but the cultural history and significance of housing environments is often at odds with their own cultural identities.  

In this Inclusive Spaces event we’ll explore the role that architecture, planning and public engagement can play in addressing racial inequalities and differences in housing and living arrangements across ethnic communities. Drawing on the latest UK Government Census, as well as the lived experiences of young people and ethnic minorities, we’ll discuss themes of social housing architecture and history, attitudes to home ownership, access to finance and multigenerational living. 

We’ll present the work of community theatre group SPID (‘Social, Progressive, Interconnected, Diverse’) who provide training to young people from North Kensington in London, using cultural and artistic activities in order to empower them to interpret and better understand their own urban environments. We’ll also hear from BAME in Property, an organisation that advocates for the diversification of the built environment sector by considering diversity in design needs, layouts, language translation through engagement with community and ethnic minority leaders. 

Led by The Bartlett Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) group, the Inclusive Spaces monthly series presents the latest ideas and research from The Bartlett’s leading thinkers in the built environment field. We explore disability, race, gender, LGBTQ+ and many other dimensions of diversity and discover how they intersect with built environments around the world.

Housekeeping

The Inclusive Spaces lecture series are streamed live through Zoom. Please ensure you have downloaded Zoom, created an account, and are logged in before joining the event.

This session will be recorded and auto captioned. The recording along with the transcript will be shared with registered attendees after the event has ended.

If you have any accessibility requirements or additional queries, please contact Alma Daskalaki at a.daskalaki@ucl.ac.uk. Please note we require two working days' notice for requests.