Global Urbanisms, Emergent Challenges and Theories
This thread critiques dominant models of urban development and theory, calling for more grounded, plural, and situated approaches to understanding cities.
Through lenses such as postcolonial theory, southern urbanism and technological critique, the research here challenges who drives global urban agendas and how urban futures are imagined. Emphasising field-based learning, transnational exchange and community perspectives, the thread interrogates the uneven geographies of power that shape contemporary urban life, especially in the face of 'smart city' narratives and top-down innovation.
The Urban Salon is an ongoing seminar series based in London that fosters open, interdisciplinary dialogue on urban experiences from around the world. Aimed at scholars, artists, practitioners, and urban enthusiasts, the series invites relatively short presentations supported by visual or written material, with ample space for discussion and exchange.
Emphasising international and comparative perspectives, The Urban Salon encourages participants to rethink taken-for-granted narratives by placing them in dialogue with diverse urban contexts. It explores how people, ideas, and practices circulate across cities, revealing unexpected commonalities and critical differences. By engaging with global urban experiences, the series aims to decentre the traditional dominance of European and North American urban theory, instead approaching these perspectives through a wider, more inclusive lens.
Counterspeculations: Audio Tour of the City of London
Counterspeculations is a critical soundwalk through the City of London that examines the hidden logics and mythologies of financial capitalism. Blending field recordings, narration and site-specific reflections, the series features scholars, artists and theorists who explore the cultural and symbolic dimensions of finance – from algorithmic trading and digital speculation to gold, almanacs and anarchist histories. Recorded during a 2018 workshop organised by UCL Urban Laboratory and the ReImagining Value Action Lab, the project invites listeners to rethink the city as a site where money, imagination and power converge in unexpected ways.
Contributors: Conrad Moriarty-Cole, Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Robbie Richardson, David Benque, Ed Mayo, Judith Suissa, Carla Ibled, Brett Scott, Paul Gilbert, Steven Taylor, Carey Young, Rachel Rosen
Urban Laboratory Lecture Series – Autumn 2018
This lecture series critically revisits the concept of the 'urban laboratory' by exploring the intersections of scientific and arts-based research in urban studies. Challenging dominant narratives of smart innovation and technical governance, the series foregrounds the lived, embodied and imaginative dimensions of urban life. With a focus on urban identities, heritage, infrastructure and spatial justice, it brings together diverse methodological approaches to reflect on how cities are shaped – and reshaped – through experimentation, adaptation and cultural meaning.
Contributors: Dr Andrew Karvonen, Dr Clare Melhuish, Prof Cynthia Myntti, Prof Camillo Boano, Valeria Ribeiro Corossacz, Andy Pratt, Dr Andrew Harris, Dr Sarah Marie Hall, Dr Yasminah Beebeejaun, Dr Patricia Noxolo, Dr Ellie Cosgrave
Unmoored Cities: Radical Urban Futures and Climate Catastrophes
This interdisciplinary symposium explored radical and imaginative visions of future cities in response to climate change. Bringing together voices from anthropology, architecture, geography, fiction and the arts, it challenged conventional thinking by asking what it might mean for cities to submerge, float or move. Supported by UCL Urban Laboratory and the Bartlett School of Architecture, the event expanded the scope of urban futures through speculative and cross-disciplinary inquiry.
Organisers: Paul Dobraszczyk, Barbara Penner and Robin Wilson, with support from UCL Urban Laboratory
This event brings together academics and practitioners to critically examine the rise of high-rise buildings in London and the UK. While debates have often centred on architectural suitability and the influence of capitalist urbanisation, this discussion expands the lens to include the everyday realities and global-local dynamics of high-rise urbanism. By fostering interdisciplinary dialogue, the event aims to unpack the complex challenges and opportunities that accompany this vertical transformation of the city.
Contributors: Dr Andrew Harris (UCL Urban Laboratory and UCL Geography), Justin McGuirk (Writer and director of Strelka Press), Dr Richard Baxter (School of Geography, Queen Mary University of London), Paul Scott (Make Architects), Professor Peter Wynne Rees (Bartlett School of Planning, UCL)
Urban Lab+ Symposium: Global Urban Higher Education
On 16–17 September 2015, UCL Urban Laboratory hosted a symposium in London in partnership with the Urban Lab+ International Network. The event brought together over thirty urban educators, researchers and practitioners to explore how inter- and trans-disciplinary approaches in urban higher education can address global urbanisation and inequality. The symposium featured presentations by students and staff from the Urban Lab+ network, a panel discussion with leading academics and practitioners, and keynote talks by Dr Adrian Lahoud and Professor Susan Parnell. Funded by the EU’s Erasmus Mundus programme, Urban Lab+ connects eight urban laboratories across Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Introduced by: Ben Campkin (UCL Urban Laboratory) and Andrew Harris (UCL Urban Laboratory). Cluster one: Johannes Novy (TU Berlin), Stephan Schmidt (TU Berlin), Lenhle Mavuso (WITS University, Johannesbury), Ben Campkin (Director, UCL Urban Laboratory), Neil Klug (WITS University, Johannesburg) Cluster two: Paola Cannavò (University of Calabria), Manoj Parmar (Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute), SIlvia Paldino (University of Calabria), Nancy Couling (LABA, Basel) Cluster three: Daniela Konrad (TU Berlin), Paola Alfaro d’Alençon (TU Berlin), Roberto Moris (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile), Henrik Tieben (Chinese University of Hong Kong)
At the Frontiers of the Urban: Thinking Concepts and Practices Globally
Audio proceedings from the 2014 conference hosted at UCL exploring Southern urban theory and comparative urbanism.
Contributors: Dr Colin Marx – Senior Lecturer, The Bartlett Development Planning Unit, UCL, Dr Beacon Mbiba – Senior Lecturer in Urban Policy and International Development, Oxford Brookes University, Dr Evance Mwathunga – Lecturer and Head of Geography and Earth Sciences Department, Chancellor College, University of Malawi, Prof. Wilbard Kombe – Professor of Urban Land Management and Director of the Institute of Human Settlements Studies, Ardhi University, Dar es Salaam, Dr Kamna Patel – Associate Professor, The Bartlett Development Planning Unit, UCL, Prof. AbdouMaliq Simone – Senior Professorial Fellow, University of Sheffield, Lioba Hirsch – Research Fellow, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Dr Hélène Neveu Kringelbach – Associate Professor, UCL African Studies, Prof. Ola Uduku – Professor of Architecture, Manchester School of Architecture
Building Apartheid: On Architecture and Order in Imperial Cape Town
Audio recording of the launch of Nicholas Coetzer’s Building Apartheid: On Architecture and Order in Imperial Cape Town (Ashgate, 2013). The book examines how British imperial planning and architectural ideas shaped Cape Town’s racial segregation, laying foundations for apartheid, while also reflecting on the legacies shaping post-apartheid urbanism.
Contributor: Nicholas Coetzer
CITY and UCL Urban Lab lecture: Professor Oren Yiftachel, Gray Space and the New Urban Regime
Lecture by Oren Yiftachel on 'gray space' and the contradictions of contemporary urban regimes, chaired by Pushpa Arabindoo with responses from Bob Catterall and Camillo Boano.
Contributors: Lecturer: Professor Oren Yiftachel (Ben-Gurion University, Israel), Chair: Dr Pushpa Arabindoo (Co-director, UCL Urban Laboratory), Introduction: Bob Catterall (Editor-in-Chief, CITY Journal), Respondent: Dr Camillo Boano (Senior Lecturer, Development Planning Unit, UCL)
Editors of Urban Pamphleteer explore the role of publishing in shaping architectural and urban debates ahead of the first issue on Future & Smart Cities.
Contributors: Rebecca Ross, Ben Campkin
All that Breathes: Q+A with Shaunak Sen
Filmmaker Shaunak Sen joins UCL Urban Lab for the Cities Imaginaries Lecture to discuss All that Breathes, a poetic documentary on urban ecology and inter-species care in New Delhi.
Director: Shaunak Sen
A session examining how diverse urban contexts and practices can reshape understandings of urbanisation and generate new responses to its key challenges through dialogue across approaches.
Speakers: Prof Susan Parnell (University of Bristol), Prof Fulong Wu (UCL), Dr Gautam Bhan (Indian Institute for Human Settlements), Prof Raquel Rolnik (University of São Paulo). Chaired by Prof Jennifer Robinson (UCL)
At the frontiers of the urban: Plenary 2
A panel exploring how shifting processes of urbanisation challenge the territorial, political, and theoretical limits of the urban, prompting a rethinking of governance, boundaries, and urban theory.
Speakers: Prof Christian Schmid (ETH Zürich), Prof Partha Mukhopadhyay (Centre for Policy Research), Prof Philip Harrison (University of the Witwatersrand), Dr Michelle Buckley (University of Toronto). Chaired by Dr Pushpa Arabindoo (UCL)
At the frontiers of the urban: Conference introduction
An international UCL Urban Lab conference supported by the Making Africa Urban project, exploring new frontiers in urban theory and practice beyond Euro-American contexts. It examined how land, finance, law and everyday life are reshaping cities, and how challenges such as climate change, housing and inequality are redefining urban futures.
Speaker: Prof Christoph Lidner (UCL)
COVID and the Urban: cross-disciplinary perspectives on emergency, Part one
An interactive discussion examining infrastructures of risk and recovery through examples from Latin America, Asia and the UK. Speakers explore how Covid reshaped notions of urban expertise, vulnerability and equity, and how infrastructural systems – from climate to health – are being repurposed for long-term recovery and resilience.
Speakers: Mehrnaz Ghojeh, Head of City Finance Facility at C40 Cities; Simon Marvin, Director of the Urban Institute, the University of Sheffield; Austin Zeiderman, Associate Professor of Geography, LSE. Chaired by Clare Melhuish, UCL Urban Laboratory.
COVID and the Urban: cross-disciplinary perspectives on emergency, Part two
A closing session bringing together experts in literature, jazz and early warning systems to explore crisis through improvisation and dialogue. It asks whether emergencies are constant states of being, how they are racialised or 'whitewashed', and how to reframe them as human – rather than purely technical or environmental – issues.
Speakers: Carina Fearnley, Associate Professor in Science and Technology Studies, Director, UCL Warning Research Centre; Ajay Heble, Professor, School of English and Theatre Studies, University of Guelph, Director, International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation; Kasia Mika, Lecturer in Comparative Literature, Queen Mary University of London. Chaired by Ilan Kelman, Professor, UCL Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction and UCL Institute for Global Health
Urban Laboratory Annual Lecture 2012: Margit Mayer
Margit Mayer delivers the 2012 CITY Journal/UCL Urban Lab annual lecture, analysing how globalisation has redefined the urban question and sparked new forms of urban resistance.
Speaker: Margit Mayer
Urban Pamphleteer: Issue 01. Future & Smart Cities
This issue critically examines 'smart' and 'future' city agendas, questioning who defines them and who benefits. It calls for more democratic, transparent approaches to urban innovation that prioritise citizen participation and social equity.
Contributors: Muki Hacklay, Alan Penn, John Bigham-Hall, Mike Crang & Stephen Graham, Susan Collins, Antoine Picon, Sarah Bell, Christoph Lindner, Briang Dixon, Laura Vaughan, Regner Ramos, Yvonne Rogers, Licia Capra & Johannes Schoening
Photography competition by UCL Urban Laboratory and UCL Institute of Advanced Studies inviting creative and critical reflections on waste in urban contexts. Part of a year-long multidisciplinary programme, it explored waste as material, social category and spatial condition, from infrastructure and disposal politics to environmental and bodily impacts.
Judging Panel: Dr Pushpa Arabindoo (Co-Director, UCL Urban Laboratory), Nicola Baldwin (UCL Creative Fellow), Prof Tamar Garb (Director, UCL Institute of Advanced Studies), Rachna Leveque (EngD Researcher in Urban Sustainability & Resilience, UCL CEGE), Dr Clare Melhuish (Director, UCL Urban Laboratory)
At the frontiers of the Urban: Thinking concepts and practices globally
Opening reception of UCL Urban Laboratory’s international conference At the Frontiers of the Urban, themed Thinking London from Elsewhere. Held at The Bartlett, it featured talks by Ben Campkin, Suzanne Hall, Rebecca Ross, and Myfanwy Taylor, exploring how London’s global connections can inform transnational and comparative urban theory.
Speakers: Prof Ben Campkin (UCL), Dr Suzanne Hall (London School of Economics (LSE), Dr Rebecca Ross (Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London), Dr Myfanwy Taylor (University of Leeds), , Welcome and Introduction:, Dr Clare Melhuish (UCL Urban Laboratory, Conference Co-convener), Prof Jennifer Robinson (UCL Geography, Conference Co-convener). Photography: Ondre Roach, Mediorite
Unmoored Cities: Radical Urban Futures and Climate Catastrophes
Unmoored Cities was a symposium exploring imaginative and radical futures for urban life in the face of climate change. Bringing together perspectives from architecture, anthropology, art, geography and fiction, it examined speculative design and cultural storytelling as tools for rethinking adaptation beyond technical solutions.
Speakers: CJ Lim (Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL), Maggie Gee (Author), Rachel Armstrong (Newcastle University), Viktoria Walldin (White Arkitekter), Thandi Loewenson (Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL), Rob La Frenais (Curator and Writer), Sasha Engelmann (Royal Holloway, University of London), Shaun Murray (University of Greenwich), Matthew Butcher (Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL), Robin Wilson (Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL)
Vertical Horizons, a film and exhibition by Tom Wolseley, created during a Leverhulme Trust residency at UCL Urban Laboratory and UCL Geography, reflects on life in the shadow of The Shard. Combining film, photography and research, it examines how iconic architecture embodies political ideologies, capital flows and changing urban purposes.
Contributor: Tom Wolseley
Global Urbanisms, Situated Specificities
Held on 16–17 May 2016, Global Urbanisms, Regional Specificities was a symposium organised by Jenifer Robinson and Tamar Garb, co-hosted by UCL Urban Laboratory and the UCL Institute of Advanced Studies. Bringing together leading urban scholars, it examined how urban theory can reconcile universalist approaches with regionally specific experiences shaped by history, geography and globalisation.
Contributors: Pushpa Arabindoo (Topic: Regional Specificity and Planetary Urbanisation), Tariq Jazeel (Topic: Translation and Post-colonialism), Debby Potts (African perspectives; history and livelihood studies in rural and urban Africa), Christian Schmid (Sociology, Architecture, ETH Zurich – Comparative Investigations of Planetary Urbanisation), Tuesday 17 May – Thinking (the urban) with the Global South, Abdou Maliq Simone (What has happened to the black city?), Fulong Wu (Emerging Chinese Cities: Implications for Global Urban Studies), Miguel Kanai (A more cosmopolitan urban (global) field? Reflections based on bibliometric evidence)
Urban Lab+ Symposium 2015 abstract images
Album of abstract photographs exhibited at the UrbanLab+ Symposium on Global Urban Higher Education (London, 16–17 September 2015), offering a visual counterpart to discussions on international, interdisciplinary approaches to urban education.
Cities Methodologies Bucharest
First international edition of UCL’s Cities Methodologies (Bucharest, 28 Oct – 5 Nov 2010), showcasing experimental approaches to urban research through an exhibition, workshops, and talks. Organised with Galeria Nouă and the Association for Urban Transition, it explored Bucharest’s post-socialist transformations, segregation and abandoned spaces, while fostering cross-disciplinary methodological exchange.
Contributors: Ger Duijzings (UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies; Co-founder of Cities Methodologies), John Aiken (UCL Slade School of Fine Art; Co-founder of Cities Methodologies), Rastko Novaković (Curatorial assistance, first London edition), Sabina Andron, Dr Ben Campkin, Marcus Willcocks, Prof Lorraine Gamman, Prof Shane Johnson, Dr Lee Bofkin (associated through wider Cities Methodologies collaborations). Partner organisations: UCL Urban Laboratory, Galeria Nouă, Association for Urban Transition (ATU), National University of the Arts of Bucharest (UNA), Funders/supporters: UCL Slade School of Fine Art, UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies, UCL Grand Challenges, UCL Urban Laboratory, Polish Cultural Institute
(En)Visioning Justice: Citizens’ Assemblies and Energy Futures in the Global South
Two interlinked projects led by researchers at UCL and collaborators in the MENA region advance energy justice through academic debate and citizen assemblies, testing democratic methods for imagining equitable urban energy transitions in Lebanon and beyond.
Lead researchers: Ala’a Shehabi (UCL European & International Social & Political Studies), Muzna Al Masri (UCL Urban Lab), Dana Abi Ghanem (independent researcher), Mariam Daher (independent researcher)
Making Africa Urban: The transcalar politics of large-scale urban development
This project investigates how the future of African cities is being shaped by transnational processes based on sovereign, developmental and private investment in large-scale urban developments in Accra (Ghana), Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and Lilongwe (Malawi).
Lead researchers: Prof Jennifer Robinson (UCL Geography), Prof Phil Harrison (University of the Witwatersrand), Prof George Owusu (University of Ghana, Legon), Dr Evance Mwathunga (Chancellor College, University of Malawi)
Night spaces: migration, culture and Integration in Europe
A transdisciplinary European research project exploring how migrant communities create, navigate and narrate night-time urban spaces, aiming to inform more inclusive night-time policies across eight cities.
Lead researchers: Professor Ben Campkin (UCL Urban Laboratory), Dr Sara Brandellero (Leiden University)
Connected Spaces, Controlled Movements: Technology, Surveillance, Security, and Cities
Explores how smart technologies and surveillance infrastructures reshape urban boundaries, redefine public-private relations and deepen control in neoliberal cities.
Lead reseacher: Dr Rodrigo Firmino (Senior Research Associate at UCL Urban Laboratory, Associate Professor in Urban Management at PUCPR, Curitiba, Brazil)
Creative City Limits: Urban Cultural Economy in a New Era of Austerity
A research network exploring the limits of the creative city model in the wake of austerity, rethinking the role of culture in urban economic development.
Lead researchers: Dr Andrew Harris, Louis Moreno
The duality of damage (hasar) in a post-earthquake Antioch
- This blog by Erkan Gürsel examines how the Turkish government has used Law №6306 (on Disaster Risk Areas) to dispossess earthquake survivors in Antakya following the February 2023 earthquakes. Gürsel argues that the state’s designation of building damage (hasar) serves not only as a technical assessment but as a mechanism of control, enabling extractive practices and reinforcing power imbalances. He highlights how the law’s use of 'reserve area' further marginalises residents, framing the state's intervention as a form of structural violence.
TS Eliot’s The Waste Land in the Anthropocene
- A UCL Urban Lab roundtable explored the contemporary resonance of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land through the lens of the Anthropocene, examining themes of ecological decay, colonial legacies, and urban temporality. Speakers discussed how the poem’s imagery illuminates today’s environmental and social crises, positioning it as a tool for rethinking waste, extraction and planetary futures.
CLIMATE CRISIS | James Ephraim Lovelock (1919–2022): on cities as world-changing powers
- This piece by Guy Mannes-Abbott reflects on the lasting influence of James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis, which sees Earth as a living, self-regulating system. It explores how this perspective challenges conventional approaches to urbanisation and climate change by positioning cities as key agents in planetary feedback systems. Mannes-Abbott argues for reimagining urban life through Gaian principles of reciprocity and adaptability, seeing the city not only as a driver of ecological risk but also as a possible site of regeneration and planetary care.
Workshop Report: Vertical Urbanism in London and Paris / Urbanités verticales in Paris et Londres
- The 'PhD Life' online workshop, held by UCL Postgrad Urbanists in 2022, offered interdisciplinary PhD students tools and reflections on academic wellbeing, research impact, public speaking, and creative methodologies. Speakers from across the UK and Europe shared personal experiences and practical advice, supporting students’ growth within and beyond their research.
COVID and the Urban: tools for (long-term) crisis response
- A cross-disciplinary event held in March 2021 by UCL Urban Lab and the Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction explored how the COVID-19 pandemic intersects with broader urban crises. Researchers, artists, and practitioners offered perspectives on risk, inequality, visual communication, improvisation and emergency response in cities.
Unmoored Cities: What speculative futures exist for cities in the face of climate change?
- This symposium convened architects, artists, writers, and urban scholars to explore imaginative, interdisciplinary approaches to climate change and urban futures. Rejecting instrumental planning logics, participants presented speculative, participatory, and embodied practices – from floating buildings to airborne habitats – reframing adaptation as an opportunity for just and creative forms of urban transformation.
Folkestone on the border: A dislocated city living “in-between”
- This article reflects on a symposium hosted in Folkestone by UCL Urban Laboratory and the Folkestone Triennial, exploring the town’s complex identity as a ‘border place’ and its regeneration through situated artistic and urban practices. Featuring walks, panels, and local engagement, the event highlighted the value of reactivating marginal and historical spaces through collaborative, interdisciplinary processes.
Connected Spaces, Controlled Movements: notes from a Brazil-UK exchange at the UCL Urban Laboratory
- An account of Dr Rodrigo Firmino’s year-long research sabbatical at UCL Urban Laboratory, exploring the production and control of public space in London. The piece reflects on surveillance, territorialisation, and urban design through engagements with UCL's academic community, curated events and a comparative study of privately owned public spaces (POPS) in London and Brazil.