UCL Urban Laboratory is one of UCL's best-known and longest-established cross-disciplinary research centres, formally established in 2005 by geographer Matthew Gandy as a platform for collaboration between urbanists across faculties. Since then it has significantly enhanced the national and international profile of urban teaching, research and engagement at UCL and continues to develop its distinctive contribution to urban debate, policy and practice within and beyond the academy.
Our activities build on the full spectrum of urban research across the arts, humanities and sciences, with an emphasis on critical, creative, independent and interdisciplinary engagement and dissemination. We experiment with innovative research methods across disciplinary boundaries, practices and professions, providing a laboratory in which to address difficult urban challenges through new modes of collaboration and invention. We invite participation from diverse audiences and share the knowledge our work produces widely.
We showcase and promote urban research at UCL which draws on a rich heritage of pioneering ideas evidenced in the work of experimental thinkers, communicators and practitioners who have taught and studied at UCL, including Patrick Abercrombie, Reyner Banham, Peter Cook, Ruth Glass, Peter Hall, Derek Jarman, Otto Königsberger, Eduardo Paolozzi and Walter Segal.
UCL Urban Laboratory builds on this heritage to make an authoritative and critical contribution to urban debate and the design and planning of contemporary cities, underpinning our interventions with rigorous analysis, historical insight, and particular attention to the social, cultural and political dimensions of urban life. Based in London, we engage with this city, and the communities that inhabit it. Drawing on extensive networks across the globe, we also attach great importance to the internationalisation of urban debate, focusing on cities across Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe.
- 2005: UCL Urban Laboratory established by geographer Matthew Gandy, inspired by discussions with colleagues in architecture. It quickly extended across other fields including anthropology, engineering, film studies and urban sociology.
- 2005–08: The Urban Laboratory continues to grow, launching a dedicated website and creating the Urban Salon seminar series in partnership with several London universities.
- 2008–09: Interdisciplinary Urban Studies MSc founded and run by the UCL Urban Laboratory, recruiting 20-25 students each year since.
- 2008–11: The Urban Laboratory is awarded £250,000 by the Provost’s Strategic Development Fund.
- 2009: Inaugural Cities Methodologies exhibition—‘a marketplace of urbanism’—initiated with the Slade School of Fine Art. Subsequent editions visit Budapest and are documented in a 2016 edited anthology, Engaged Urbanism.
- 2011: Urbanist and architectural historian Ben Campkin becomes director.
- 2013: Launch of the first Urban Pamphleteer, containing a range of articles on Future & Smart Cities. The seventh issue was published in summer 2018. Clare Melhuish appointed as Research Associate, funded by UCL Estates to work on a research project on university-led urban regeneration, published in 2015.
- 2013–16: UCL Urban Laboratory is a partner in the URBAN LAB+ international network of urban laboratories, funded by the European Union’s Erasmus Mundus programme.
- 2015: The City Centre in UCL’s Department of English merges with the Urban Lab to form Cities Imaginaries, a new strand of work on the cultural representation of cities, led by Matthew Beaumont.
- 2016: LGBTQ+ nightlife spaces research initiated by Ben Campkin and Lo Marshall, in collaboration with community groups Raze Collective and the Queer Spaces Network. A comprehensive report commissioned by the Greater London Authority is published in July 2017.
- 2017: Urban Lab Exchange launches to deliver professional short courses.
- 2018: Anthropologist Clare Melhuish becomes director.
- 2021: Urban Lab officially becomes a department of The Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment.
- 2022: Launch of the Global Urbanism MAsc.
- 2023: UCL East opens at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, featuring a new Urban Room and London Memory Archive.
- 2024: Urbanist and educator Catalina Ortiz becomes director.
Directors
- Dr Catalina Ortiz (Bartlett Development Planning Unit): 2024 – present
- Prof Clare Melhuish (UCL Urban Laboratory): 2018 – 2024
- Prof Ben Campkin (Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL): 2011 – 2018
- Prof Matthew Gandy (UCL Department of Geography): 2005 – 2011
Activity reports
View the activities reports published by the UCL Urban Laboratory.
Opportunities
Find vacancies and opportunities to work with us.
We often require a number of student event assistants to help us produce our wide programme of public engagement activities. These positions are always paid at the London Living Wage or above.
Tasks often include registering and providing information for attendees, assisting with AV and catering, recording and helping document sessions. You should ideally be undertaking a course or research on an urban topic, or have an interest in and knowledge of the work of the UCL Urban Laboratory.
You should be a current UCL student in hold of a valid UCL ID card at the time of the event(s), and must be aware of any restrictions to your working hours based on Tier 4 visa restrictions (if relevant).
To be considered you must register with Unitemps, UCL’s internal recruitment agency. Once you've done this, please add your details to our student event assistant interest form (you must log in with your UCL account to access), and we will be in touch if any opportunities rise.
We welcome applications from post-doctoral, mid-career and senior scholars to become non-stipendiary Visiting Research Fellows at the UCL Urban Laboratory to spend up to one year with us.
We will provide desk space, membership of our research community, access to UCL resources including the library, and a framework in which you can present and develop your research in association with us. In return, we ask that you make a case as to why being at UCL will be beneficial for you and how, in turn, you will contribute to UCL Urban Laboratory.
Contact the UCL Urban Laboratory office in the first instance to discuss options.
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