Festival of the Commons in Architectural Writing

Jane Rendell is Professor of Critical Spatial Practice and Co-Director of Ethics at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. Introducing concepts of ‘critical spatial practice’ and ‘site-writing’ through books, such as The Architecture of Psychoanalysis (2017), Silver (2016), Site-Writing (2010), and Art and Architecture (2006), she led Bartlett’s Ethics Commission, 2015-22 (with David Roberts), and ‘The Ethics of Research Practice’, (for the GCRF-funded KNOW – Knowledge in Action for Urban Equality project) 2018-22, (with Yael Padan). Currently she curates www.practisingethics.org, and is responding through site-writing to ethical and ecological issues concerning blue green infrastructures in the Pyrenees.

Lidia Gasperoni is Associate Professor, Co-Director of Design and member of the Just Environments Cluster at The Bartlett School of Architecture. She is a philosopher and architectural theorist specialized in the experimental transformative function of architectural theory, practice and education by responding to contemporary challenges associated with designing just environments. Between 2018 and 2024, she was a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer in the Department of Architectural Theory at TU Berlin. She is the coordinator of the non-profit association Fieldstations, which promotes spatial research and knowledge in the Anthropocene. 

Hélène Frichot is Professor of Architecture and Philosophy, Melbourne School of Design, University of Melbourne, Australia. Previously, she was Professor of Critical Studies and Gender Theory, and Director of Critical Studies in Architecture, KTH Stockholm, Sweden. She is the author of Creative Ecologies (2018), and Dirty Theory (2019). With esteemed colleagues, she has co-edited Infrastructural Love: Caring for our Architectural Support System (2022); Architectural Affects After Deleuze and Guattari (2021); Writing Architectures (2020); and she has recently co-edited a special issue of the Journal of Architecture, Jennifer Bloomer: A Revisitation (2024).

Ela Egidy is a typographer, designer and researcher. She works as a Lecturer in Design at the University of Melbourne where she is also a PhD candidate. Her research emphasises critical feminist perspectives to study typography in its varied forms. Her research areas span commodity feminism and the fetishisation of language, design’s relationship to control and dissent and sixteenth-century bibliography. Her PhD is a historico-philosophical enquiry into the prototypographic practices of nuns working in early modern Italy. Though her research areas seem disparate they are all connected by an unyielding fascination with the materialities of language and their socio-political implications.

Virginia Mannering is an academic in architectural design at the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, University of Melbourne. Her research examines the way the construction of the settler-colonial city has reshaped landscapes, the built environment and its relationships with the Anthropocene, and the flows of construction materials across time and space

Alex Zambelli is a Senior Lecturer in Architectural Design at the University of Melbourne and a UK-qualified architect. Formerly an Associate Professor at Portsmouth School of Architecture, he co-founded Bates Zambelli Architects (2000–2013) and is a managing editor of Architecture and Culture Journal. His research focuses on urban commons, leading to English Urban Commons (Routledge, 2024) and a Journal of Architecture special issue (2023). His work also intersects architecture, archaeology, and anthropology, producing Scandalous Space (2019). He co-organized the AHRA 2023 conference, with a related book and journal Special Issue forthcoming in 2025/26.

Eleanor Suess is an architect, artist, and educator and is Professor and Head of Architecture at Deakin University, Australia. She studied fine art and architecture in Perth, Australia, then London, completing her doctoral studies at Central Saint Martins. Eleanor has over twenty years’ experience teaching and leading architecture courses and academic teams, drawing upon a decade’s experience in architectural practice. Her research responds to her dual-disciplinary grounding and involves critical practice and writing in the field of architectural representation, with a focus on the temporal and experiential. Eleanor’s writing and the artefacts of her practice have been published and exhibited widely.

Dr Polly Gould is an artist, writer and curator with an interest in ecocriticism and the histories and futures of extreme environments. Gould is an Associate Professor in History and Theory at The Bartlett School of Architecture.

Dr Jhono Bennett is co-founder of 1to1 – Agency of Engagement, a design-led social enterprise based in Johannesburg. He is a Design Tutor at The Bartlett School of Architecture and Design Fellow at Cambridge University. 

Dr Merijn Royaards is a artist-researcher working through music, art and architecture and the interaction between space and sound in cities. He teaches on Situated Practice MA at The Bartlett School of Architecture. 

Dr Zen Marie is an artist, filmmaker, and educator with a commitment to innovative research processes, and a PhD in Fine Art from WITS and an MA in Cultural Analysis from the University of Amsterdam. He is Senior Editor of Ellipses: Journal for Creative Research. 

Dr Brigitta Stone-Johnson has been a lecturer and creative practice researcher since 2016. Her ongoing research in Environmental Humanities and vital materialism focuses on post-extractive urban terrains. Her PhD, 'The Botany of Stone,' explores stone as a vibrant social matter. She teaches at the School of Architecture and Planning, University of Witwatersrand. 

Dr Bettina Malcomess is a writer and artist based in Johannesburg, who teaches interdisciplinary studio practice at the Wits School of Arts. Known for exploring multivocality and material investigation, their work rethinks historical material through ecological and political lenses. 

Lolo Ntsewa is a sound artist from Johannesburg. He is completing an MA Fine Art at the University of Witwatersrand. 

Pebofatso Mokoena is an artist from Johannesburg. Mokoena earned his Honours Degree in Fine Art (distinction) and is completing his MAFA at Wits University. Mokoena is represented by First Floor Gallery Harare.

Ato Isaac Jackson (b. 1994, Ghana) lives and works in Kumasi. His practice begins from an interest in image-making as a medium to connect his community to the world at large. He is part of blaxTARLINES community and exhibited in SCCA Tamale, Galerie Wedding Berlin, and Architectural Association London, amongst others.

Albert Brenchat Aguilar is the co-Director of Public Programmes at The Bartlett School of Architecture. He edited As Hardly Found: Art and Tropical architecture (AA Publications, 2025) and Wastiary: A bestiary of waste (UCL Press, 2023). His work has been funded by Graham Foundation, Henry Moore Foundation, Paul Mellon Centre, AHRC, and Elephant Trust.

Thomas Aquilina is an architect and academic dedicated to building communities of radical imagination and collective practice. He is an Associate Professor and co-director of Spatial Justice at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. Thomas is also co-director of New Architecture Writers, an experimental pedagogic project based in London.

Sarah Akigbogun is an Architect, filmmaker, writer and educator. She currently teaches at The Royal College of Art, and the Architectural Association and is the founder of Studio Aki, one of Wallpaper’s Emerging practices of 2021. Sarah trained as an actor at Drama Centre, Central St Martins, and is creative director of Appropri8 Theatre, through which she uses performance as a way of provoking conversation about the built environment and activating disused space. A large part of Sarah’s work is Advocacy within the profession, she a former London Representative to RIBA Council and Vice Chair of Women In Architecture and is the founder of The XXAOC (Female Architects of Colour) Project. Sarah is currently PhD candidate at The Bartlett.

Jane Rendell Professor of Critical Spatial Practice and Co-Director of Ethics at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL (see above) with students.

Andrea Izurieta is a transdisciplinary architect exploring the intersections of architecture, writing, and language as site-specific and collaborative practices. A core element of her research inquiry is the exploration of language’s organic quality in specific contexts and geographies. She holds degrees from Universidad Iberoamericana (BA) and The Bartlett School of Architecture (MA).

Castaña Arango is Mexican architect, Situated Practice MA, The Bartlett School of Architecture, where she explored themes of Latin American identity in the UK.

Dr. Catalina Mejía Moreno  Architectural History MA, The Bartlett School of Architecture and PhD in Architectural Theory and Criticism, Newcastle University. Spatial practitioner and architectural historian interested in practices of resistance, situated and critical spatial practice, environmental, racial and spatial justice, as well as feminist and decolonial/anticolonial thought and practice.

Inés Váchez Architecture Typology MSc, TU Berlin, currently pursuing postgraduate studies in Social and Political Anthropology at FLACSO Argentina. Urban researcher, writer, and photographer interested in gender and public space, forced migration, gentrification, and collective memory.

Enrique Cavalier MLA I AP, GSD, Harvard University; Situated Practice MA, The Bartlett School of Architecture. His research explores new ways of relating space, time, people, and ecologies. His practice uses archives, fiction, film, and fieldwork to construct alternative narratives alongside communities and activists.

Jimena Hogrebe Architectural History MA, The Bartlett School of Architecture. With over ten years of teaching experience across institutions, she is currently a lecturer at the Faculty of Architecture at UNAM and a part-time professor and researcher at Universidad Anáhuac México. Her practice spans architectural and art projects, research, and writing.

Julia Villaca Brazilian architect, Situated Practice MA, The Bartlett School of Architecture.

Rafael Guendelman Hales Situated Practice MA, The Bartlett School of Architecture. Multidisciplinary artist working with moving image, archives, and objects to explore the relationship between humans and their environment, questioning how memories and narratives are constructed.

with input from Dr Sol Pérez Martínez who is not able to join in person, but has significantly influenced the roundtable’s framing and guiding questions.

Tumpa Husna Yasmin Fellows is an architect, academic, and design practice researcher. She is also a spatial and climate justice design consultant. Tumpa utilises feminine embodied architectural practice, as an active agent of socio-spatial decolonisation for environmental, climate and spatial justice. Her research and creative practice are tools for activism that also inform Tumpa’s teaching of architectural design at several universities in London. She is the co-founder of the practice Our Building Design, the charity Mannan Foundation Trust and the founder of (Female Architects of Minority Ethnic) - FAME Collective. Tumpa is the recipient of several awards, including the RIBA President's Award for Research 2019 (commendation) and the Aga Khan Award 2022 (nomination).