Celebrating #IWD2021 with six inspiring women from The Bartlett

8 March 2021

We're celebrating the brilliant women in our community this International Women's Day by sharing our IWD reading list, featuring six inspiring women at The Bartlett.

Future Trends with Dr Neave O’Clery

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Last month, we spoke to Dr Neave O'Clery, Associate Professor in Applied Urban Sciences at The Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, for our Future Trends series to find out her predictions for future developments and trends in 2021. Read the article here to find out more about the growing debates in urban sciences and her predictions for the future of cities in a post-COVID world. You can also read her latest paper, "Productive Ecosystems and the arrow of development," published in Nature Communications here, to learn what drives economic development? Or, more precisely, what constrains economic development?

View Neave's profile

Interview with Kamna Patel on Race in the Built Environment

22 Gordon Street with purple filter and teal text that reads Race and the Built Environment from The Bartlett Annual Review 2020

In The Bartlett Annual Review 2020, we spoke to Dr Kamna Patel, The Bartlett’s Vice-Dean for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, and Associate Professor in The Bartlett Development Planning Unit on why we need a better understanding of ‘race’ and its impact on the built environment.

When asked, "So what is missing from the knowledge environment," Kamna responded:

"People and content that engage with race. We all come to see and know the world through our lived experiences. People at the sharpest end of racism are grossly under-represented in higher education, at every level.

How many Black professors are there in built environment fields? Here at The Bartlett we have none. There’s a recent campaign, led by 10 Black women in UK academia, that draws attention to research grants awarded for work on the impact of Covid-19 on Black, Asian and minority-ethnic (BAME) communities. Not a single grant was awarded to a Black academic as principal investigator.

My own work is in development studies. Recently I reviewed six major journals in my field across 13 years of publication – around 9,000 papers – of which just two spoke about race and development. All this tells us where we are."

Read the full interview here.

View Kamna's profile

The City of Ladies: Reinterpreting heroic womanhood by Professor Penelope Haralambidou

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Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies is an extraordinary feat. An illuminated proto-feminist text, first published in 1405, it details De Pizan’s creation of a metaphorical city inhabited by female role models, from the Queen of Sheba to Margaret of Bavaria, with the help of the three female virtues: Reason, Rectitude and Justice.

Professor Penelope Haralambidou’s City of Ladies installation explores De Pizan's allegorical spatial scheme through an embodied act of design, combining medieval illumination drawing techniques on vellum with digital craft and film. Read this article to discover more about the installation and her reinterpretation of Christine de Pizan’s 15th-century celebration of heroic womanhood for the 21st century.

View Penelope's profile

Mission Economy, A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism by Mariana Mazzucato

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In her latest book, Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism, IIPP Founding Director Mariana Mazzucato calls for new levels of boldness and experimentation to be applied to the biggest social and political issues of our time: inequality, disease and climate change.

In Mission Economy, Professor Mazzucato argues the need to rethink the capacities and role of government within the economy and society, launching new ‘missions’ that require and incentivise innovation in all sectors to achieve a common goal. Find out more.

View Mariana's profile

Inspiring Women in the Built Environment by Sabelle Adjagboni

Last month, we launched a new student blog to give an insider look at what it's like to study at The Bartlett. To celebrate International Women’s Day 2021, Sabelle Adjagboni shares her thoughts on gender equality in the built environment and her personal inspirations.

Read the blog

Re-thinking architecture to create social value with Tumpa Husna Yasmin Fellows

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While not technically a "read," our most recent Inclusive Spaces event was too good not to share. Led by award-winning architect and Bartlett alumna Tumpa Husna Yasmin Fellows, this session explores how architects can re-think their role as designers – from shaping social value to responding to the climate crisis. Watch it here.

View upcoming events