PhD student Nicola Antaki was presented with a Provost's Public Engagement Award on 6 June to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the UCL Public Engagement Unit. Her practice-led research explores how architecture can be considered a teaching device and how children can be involved in designing their learning environment.
Since 2012, Nicola has been running an annual series of workshops for primary school children in Mumbai. Using a range of techniques from photography and craft to writing and role play, the students have become involved in the transformation of their school. The selection panel stated that they were hugely impressed by how Nicola’s ‘public engagement activity evolved over time to give children a voice in the design of their own environment’.
About Nicola Antaki
Nicola Antaki is a Bartlett PhD student who currently works as an architect at the practice We Made That. Nicola has taught architecture at Nottingham University and designed sustainable schools at Cottrell and Vermeulen architecture practice.
Nicola is also co-founder of biennial FOCUS Photography Festival in Mumbai, which makes city art accesible to everyone through public interventions.
