Shaping UCL Urban Lab: Trajectories of cross-disciplinary urban research

This roundtable brings together former and current Urban Lab directors and co-directors to look back at the achievements of the lab, and to explore new trajectories for cross-disciplinary urban research. The discussion will revisit the (hi)stories around the multiple ways Urban Lab has drawn on a wide range of urban expertise and research methodologies, based on exchange and collaboration between researchers from across the institution, including The Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment, and UCL's faculties of Social and Historical Sciences, Engineering, and Arts and Humanities. This roundtable will foster a dialogue about the process of pulling together an interdisciplinary initiative and shaping the core research priority areas, pedagogical offer and the multiple strategies to encourage engaged urbanism.

This event marks the start of a series of events to celebrate 20 years of UCL Urban Lab and will be followed by a drinks reception. 

Speakers

Matthew Beaumont is Professor in English Literature at the Faculty of Arts & Humanities, UCL. He is Co-Director of UCL's Urban Lab. His books include Nightwalking: A Nocturnal History of London (Verso, 2015), The Walker: On Finding and Losing Yourself in the Modern City (Verso, 2020) and How We Walk: Frantz Fanon and the Politics of the Body (Verso, 2024). He is also the author of Lev Shestov: Philosopher of the Sleepless Night (2021). For Verso, he has co-authored The Task of the Critic: Terry Eagleton in Dialogue (2009) and co-edited Restless Cities (2010). He has also edited several essay collections and published numerous articles in scholarly journals. 

Ben Campkin is Professor of Urbanism and Urban History at The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, and Vice-Dean Public and City Engagement for The Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment. He was formerly Co-Director of UCL Urban Laboratory 2008–2011 and 2018–2023 and was Director from 2011–2018. Ben is the author of Queer Premises: LGBTQ+ Venues in London Since the 1980s (Bloomsbury, 2023) and Remaking London: Decline and Regeneration in Urban Culture (I.B. Tauris, 2013). He was UK principal investigator on the EU-funded project Night-spaces: Migration, Culture and Integration in Europe (2019–23) and is currently completing a project on night work in London in collaboration with the GLA and UCL Social Data Institute.

Matthew Gandy is Professor of Geography at the University of Cambridge. He was previously Professor of Geography at UCL, and was founder and first director of the UCL Urban Laboratory from 2005–11. His books include Concrete and Clay: Reworking nature in New York City (MIT Press, 2002), The Fabric of Space: Water, modernity, and the urban imagination (MIT Press, 2014), Moth (Reaktion, 2016), and Natura Urbana: Ecological constellations in urban space (MIT Press, 2022). He has published articles in a range of journals including New Left Review, Society and Space, and the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. He is also an award-winning documentary filmmaker. 

Clare Melhuish  is Professorial Research Fellow in Anthropology of Built Environments at UCL Urban Laboratory. She was Head of Department/Director of UCL Urban Laboratory from 2018–24. Her books include The Life and Times of the Brunswick, Bloomsbury (Camden History Society, 2006). Her co-edited volumes include Post-war Architecture between Italy and the UK: Exchanges and transcultural influences (UCL Press, 2021) and Co-curating the City: Universities and urban heritage past and future (UCL Press, 2022). Her research focuses on the processes and impacts of large-scale urban developments in the UK and abroad, and conceptualisations of urban heritage within transformative processes of change in multicultural cities. 

Jennifer Robinson is Professor of Human Geography at the Department of Geography, UCL. She is Co-Director of UCL Urban Lab. Her books include Ordinary Cities (Routledge, 2006) that developed a post-colonial critique of urban studies, and more recently, Comparative Urbanism: Tactics for Global Urban Studies (Wiley-Blackwell, 2022) which proposes new methodological foundations for urban studies, further developed in the co-edited Routledge Handbook of Comparative Global Urban Studies (2024). She was elected in 2024 as a Fellow of the British Academy, one of the highest honours in the field of humanities and social sciences in the UK.

Chair

Catalina Ortiz is Professor of Critical Urban Pedagogy and Director of UCL Urban Laboratory. She is an urbanist who is passionate about spatial justice, her research uses decolonial and critical urban theory through knowledge co-production methodologies mainly in Latin American cities. Her work revolves around urban pedagogies, planning for equality, and southern urbanisms. Her articles have been published in several journals including the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Planning Theory, Environment and Urbanization, Urban Studies and Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. She is one the editors of Urban Studies and trustee of the charity, Latin Elephant.

More Information 

• Urban Lab 20

Image: Collage of Urban Lab posters taken from the last 20 years