Close
Building Bloomsbury 2025: A Transformative Hackathon Experience for the Bartlett
This project delivered a four-day Hackathon, Building Bloomsbury 2025, to reimagine the future of Bloomsbury camps in support of UCL's Vision 2050.
26 June 2025
This ChangeMakers project brought together UCL students from across disciplines to reimagine the future of the Bloomsbury campus in support of UCL’s Vision 2050. Organised by the Bartlett Urban Planning Society (BUPS) with support from staff at the Bartlett School of Planning, UCL Estates, and SustainableUCL, the four-day Building Bloomsbury hackathon invited students to form multidisciplinary teams and develop proposals to improve connectivity, sociability, and sustainability on campus. Participants attended expert-led sessions, collaborated on strategic urban masterplanning ideas, and presented their final proposals to a panel of external and internal judges. The project showcased the potential of student-staff partnerships, empowered students to engage with real-world planning challenges, and strengthened links between students, professional stakeholders, and the wider UCL community. The outputs have been shared with UCL Estates and Camden Council and praised by both external partners and members of other departments for their insight, creativity, and professionalism.
What did you set out to do and why was this project important?
We aimed to involve students from across UCL in rethinking the Bloomsbury campus and contributing to UCL Vision 2050 through a design hackathon. The event was built around collaboration, inclusivity, and exposure to real-world planning challenges.
How did it go?
The four-day event exceeded our expectations. Sessions were well-attended, and multidisciplinary groups worked effectively to deliver creative, well-informed proposals. The diversity of participants enriched every discussion and judges/stakeholders from UCL Estates, SustainableUCL and Camden Council were pleased with the output.
What was the outcome of the project? What difference has this made to staff or students?
Outputs were shared with UCL Estates and Camden Council. Students reported learning new skills and building networks. A poster was displayed at the Bartlett School of Planning Expo, and the project gained visibility across UCL.
Students received praise from external partners as well as members of other UCL departments. The image presented of the Bartlett School of Planning was overwhelmingly positive, reinforcing the value of student-led initiatives within the faculty.
What was involved in terms of approach, logistics, time or resources?
The project was delivered by a team consisting of one staff partner, three core student organisers, and three additional student volunteers. The timeline spanned from November 2024 to March 2025 and followed a series of structured phases:
- Nov–Dec: Refining the initial concept, gathering interest, and securing funding.
- Jan–Feb: Engaging stakeholders (including UCL Estates), confirming speakers, securing room bookings, and drafting the project brief and event schedule.
- Feb: Marketing the event and recruiting participants.
- Feb–Mar: Running the hackathon and publishing student findings online.
One of the most challenging and time-consuming aspects was managing communication between stakeholders and participants. This required frequent — sometimes daily — meetings to navigate differing staff availabilities, respond to queries, and adapt the scope of the hackathon accordingly. Despite starting early, the project brief was only finalised a few days before the event due to the evolving nature of these conversations and the range of collaborators involved.
From a staff perspective, a key challenge was responding to frequent student queries at very short notice, while also offering constructive feedback and guidance as challenges arose. This was especially important when advising on how best to approach and secure support from a diverse range of external professionals, ensuring that outreach was both appropriate and respectful. In parallel, it was also essential to help the team navigate internal support — particularly in terms of involving PGTAs — and to ensure that their contributions were acknowledged and, where possible, fairly compensated or recognised, even when direct remuneration wasn't feasible.
Another major difficulty was navigating the administrative process required to get students paid via Unitemps — a system that proved unexpectedly time-consuming and complex, especially for such a small level of funding, requiring repeated follow-ups and coordination across multiple teams.
ChangeMakers projects are intended to support students and staff working in partnership. How did this aspect of the project go?
It was essential. Staff helped refine the brief, understand challenges and limitations, connect us with external experts, and amplify our reach. The student-led effort was fully backed by institutional knowledge and support.
What was your specific role in the project? What did you learn as a result of being involved?
As student organisers, we gained skills in project management, stakeholder engagement, and cross-disciplinary collaboration. We also better understood planning processes and professional opportunities.
What, if any, are your next steps for this project?
We hope this becomes a recurring event or feeds into longer-term campus planning initiatives.
As a staff partner, I am hoping to secure continuation funding to develop a toolkit for other departments, ideally shared via the Bartlett Careers and Employability Working Group as well as support the students to present their work more widely within and outside UCL.