Urban Rooms and Shared Futures – Roundtable

This roundtable conversation invites important perspectives and research collaborators to engage in dialogue and share experiences within the UCL Urban Room. This event will consider the role and format of Urban Rooms in navigating university-led regeneration programmes and the creation of cultural districts in cities.

The UCL Urban Room curator Kara Blackmore will host a roundtable, chaired by Clare Melhuish, with leaders of other Urban Rooms and initiators of spaces that might be considered urban rooms. It will reflect on the role of Urban Rooms in a university, compared with those Urban Rooms that exist in local council structures, and community spaces that act as spaces to convene knowledge exchange in urban communities in the spirit of Urban Rooms.

Topics to consider:

• Methodology: Is there one or more Urban Room ethos and methodology? How has it evolved, and what precedents and future models can we identify? How does it become a space for researching, gathering and convening conversations on issues concerning urban change, heritage, and the arts?

• Audience: If Urban Rooms are public spaces, who are their audiences? How do audiences use the Urban Room? What modes of co-production are core to its vitality?

• Archive: What role do Urban Rooms play in archiving history and memory. How can they be used to ensure the continuity of living heritage of the places they inhabit?

Dr Sol Pérez-Martínez is an architect, researcher, and educator whose work bridges architecture, education, and public history. After leading an architectural practice in Chile, she pursued doctoral studies at UCL, where she examined the intersections between architecture, pedagogy, and civic engagement. She co-organised Urban Learning (UCL, 2018) and authored Deschooling Architecture (E-Flux Architecture, 2020), a landmark essay on the role of education in reimagining architectural practice. Currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at ETH Zurich’s gta Institute, Sol’s research explores the writings of Latin American women in architecture, revealing alternative epistemologies of design and learning. Her work consistently seeks to bridge disciplinary divides and to re-situate architectural education within broader struggles for equity and collective imagination.

Dr Nicola Antaki is an architect, educator, and researcher whose work lies at the intersection of participatory design, education, and social infrastructure. Her practice-led PhD at UCL examined how children’s spatial learning in Mumbai could inform more inclusive urban design methodologies. She is the author of Designing Educational Space with Children (Antipode, 2023), which articulates a critical framework for engaging young people in co-producing their environments. Nicola has worked with Turner Works and We Made That, where she developed educational and community design projects, and has lectured widely on architecture and learning. Her research investigates how civic spaces, from classrooms to public squares can foster co-creation, curiosity, and belonging.

Dr Kara Blackmore is an anthropologist and curator who specialises in community-driven exhibition-making and the ethics of care in curatorial practice. As Curator of the UCL Urban Room, she leads on developing exhibitions, public programmes, and collaborative projects that connect university research with communities and cultural organisations. Kara has an established track record in fostering partnerships across educational institutions, government agencies, NGOs, and grassroots networks. Her practice is guided by decolonial and participatory methodologies, often working with artists, residents, and educators across Africa, Latin America, and the UK. She brings an ethics of care to her work that is both analytical and practical — looking forward to inspiring students, staff, and partners to experiment with new forms of learning and civic engagement within the Urban Room.

Chair: Professor Clare Melhuish is Professorial Research Fellow in Anthropology of Built Environments at the UCL Urban Laboratory and served as its Director from 2018 to 2024. Her research explores universities as agents of urban regeneration and the spatial politics of higher education, with a focus on the civic and cultural roles of university-led developments. Clare has led interdisciplinary research on heritage, public engagement, and postcolonial urbanism, and co-organised Urban Learning (UCL, 2018) to trace the history and potential of civic schools and urban rooms. Before joining UCL, she held research fellowships at Brunel University, the Open University, and King’s College London, working on architecture, regeneration, and the anthropology of urban space. A former journalist and curator, she continues to bridge academic and public discourse through collaborative, field-based inquiry.

Manifesting is a public exhibition about manifestos through space, sound and text, and is hosted in the UCL Urban Room from 12 March 2026 to 20 June 2026. The exhibition considers the boundaries of disruptive thinking, and asks: Can an institution hold the people it historically excluded? If so, what would its future look like?

Following the many efforts to create places for rest, critique and belonging, this UCL Urban Room project reflects on the guidelines set forth by labouring minds and activist missions… wondering, can a space be a manifesto? If so, what would it manifest?

Installations are bookended by words and held by text, and together with a programme of events invite audiences to look beyond the paper register to consider how sound manifests in space. Creating circles and places to gather invites our bodies to huddle together instead of perch at attention. Using design and interactive installations to connect people in the space, it invites affective responses to how knowledge manifests across generations.

Discover the Manifesting exhibition the UCL Urban Room.

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