Celebrating 20 years of UCL Urban Laboratory
Since being established in 2005, UCL Urban Lab has been at the forefront of urban research, education and public engagement, pioneering innovative and interdisciplinary approaches to understanding and shaping cities across the globe.
Throughout 2025, we are hosting a year-long series of events, exhibitions and discussions that celebrate two decades of impactful work and reflect on our vision for the future of urban studies.
As part of this milestone, we have curated six Legacy Threads – thematic strands that bring together key outputs from across our history. These threads form the backbone of the Urban Lab 20 Archive, encompassing more than 270 records of collective work, including publications, exhibitions, podcasts and research projects.
The Legacy Threads offer a way to navigate across different formats and disciplines, providing clusters of research and pedagogical resources that illustrate the evolving contributions of UCL Urban Lab to urban scholarship and practice over the past two decades.
Legacy Threads
Urban Heritage, Memory and Cultural Representations
Critical urban heritage, collective memory, spatial transformation, housing histories and architectural culture.
Queer Urbanisms and Night Life
Queer infrastructures, night-time cities, affective atmospheres and visibility/invisibility.
Global Urbanisms, Emergent Challenges and Theories
Southern urbanism, field-based learning, transnational networks and higher education.
Housing, Regeneration and Gentrification
Participatory design, housing justice, regeneration critiques and spatial inequalities.
Creative Urban Methodologies
Soundwalking, field recording, exhibition-as-method and artistic practice in cities.
Engaged Urbanism and Urban Pedagogies
Teaching legacies, public engagement, curation of knowledge and co-learning.