Highlights from Urban Laboratory activities in 2017 featured in The Bartlett Review

Among Urban Laboratory projects featured include our trio of symposia on situated practice in contemporary arts, architecture and urbanism (read: 'Life on the edge'). Guided by the principle that 'edge' is an area that sits between the known or privileged and the unknown or ignored, the series brought together practitioners and thinkers to consider creative place-making, arts-led urbanism and the use of interstitial spaces, across three locations that can be understood through historic, contemporary and emerging debates on edge - Bloomsbury/King's Cross, Hackney Wick, and Folkestone.

In the Essays section, Dr Ben Campkin and Laura Marshall write an essay highlighting our research last year which confirmed more than half of LGBTQ+ venues in London have closed since 2006. The findings illuminate the distinctive diversity of the capital's LGBTQ+ nightlife and the important contributions that venues make to neighbourhoods and community life, wellbeing, culture and the night-time economy (read: 'Night vision').

Dr Clare Melhuish also contributes to Review with a co-authored essay with The Bartlett's Professor Alexi Marmot that considers how educational environments are integral to effective learning and safe, healthy, and sustainable cities. It comes as The Bartlett sets up a new Global Centre for Learning Environments, which will consider the spatial and design issues linked to the provision of education (read: 'Space for education').

Featuring short reports to in-depth features and essays from across the Faculty of the Built Environment, The Bartlett Review explores the stories behind some of the groundbreaking thinking and research to have emerged from The Bartlett in 2017 - and its impact on the world.

UCL Urban Laboratory is a cross-faculty initiative at UCL, with core funding from The Bartlett, UCL Engineering, and the UCL Faculty of Social and Historical Sciences,

Further links:

• The Bartlett Review 2017