The DPU’s briefing meeting in London’s Ecuadorian Embassy – held in advance of the UN Habitat III Congress in October in Quito Ecuador – was joined by his excellency Ambassador Carlos Abad. The Ambassador noted the reconstruction work ongoing following Ecuador’s devastating earthquake in April 2016. Future buildings and infrastructure will need to be designed to be more resilient to such natural hazards. Alexandre Apsan Frediani described DPU’s objectives for at Habitat III which included ‘urban economy’; ‘informal economy’; ‘solidarity economy’; ‘rights of the city’ and ‘urban mobility’ in addition to poverty-reduction and inequality. This was in addition to the ‘Habitat International Coalition’ - all of which interested the Ambassador.
DPU academics will be contributing to many project and networking events in Quito – there is a host of parallel academic seminars/workshops at nearby leading universities. Plans for delivering a series of public lectures at local universities such as PUCE, USFQ, EPN and FLACSO are well underway in addition to organising, with local alumni help, a dinner at which it is hoped UCL alumnus Minister Guillaume Long might be the guest of honour.
The exhibition will attract a vast number of potential students keen to study overseas and we very much hope that Bartlett presence at this bi-decennial event will generate more applications from Latin and South America. Finally, let’s just hope the nearby active volcano Cotopaxi remains asleep!
Enquiries to: david.cobb@ucl.ac.uk