Urban Lab Visits the Caribbean School of Architecture

UCL Urban Lab Director Professor Clare Melhuish was invited to speak to graduate students at the Caribbean School of Architecture (CSA) by Head of School Jacquiann T. Lawton. The school is based at University of Technology, Kingston, Jamaica, and accepts architecture students from across the Caribbean and internationally. During her visit, Clare was responding to research investigations into models of ecological urbanism by graduate students on the school's Sustainable Urban Studio Programme.

Speaking about this important area of research, Clare comments: "Caribbean coastal cities are highly vulnerable to the impacts of the climate crisis, and emerging generations of architects and urbanists can lead the way in exploring new approaches to analysing, re-imagining and visualising models of Caribbean progressive urbanism for the 21st century which tackle the often negative impacts of construction and development."

During her time with the students, Clare discussed some historical context and ideas from London, such as National Park City and London Urban Forest, which critique conventional understandings of the separation between the urban and the natural embodied in the term ‘built environment’, and participated in discussion focused on creative concepts from and of the Caribbean. The visit is connected to Urban Lab’s Global Urbanism MASc Cities Studio module, which introduces Kingston as a case study city, with the participation of Jacquiann T. Lawton.

The visit was supported by Grand Challenges, UCL's flagship cross-disciplinary initiative, responding to the challenge of Sustainable Cities, with a view to promoting future research collaboration in this field.

Image: CSA students investigate water contamination in the drag-line, Falmouth, Jamaica, as part of their urban study of the coastal town, which is also affected by its development as a cruise port.