Research projects and funding

The Centre for Urban and Built Ecologies (CUBE) hosts a range of active interdisciplinary researchers who are engaging in research projects focusing on environmental, social and cultural ecologies of cities.

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Research projects

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Healthy Hospitals

The ‘Healthy Hospitals’ Management Knowledge Transfer Project will embed an urban designer into the hospital management structure at Newham University Hospital.

(Re)Making. Craft-Design and Women’s Empowerment in the Global South

Around the world, women’s craft-design groups operate quietly but effectively across many areas of making from ceramics and textiles to beadwork and basketry.

(De)Centering Architecture in the Debate on Repatriation of Artefacts to West Africa

This project examines the role of architecture in the debate on restitution and the repatriation of artefacts to West Africa.

Archway Cultural Commons - Implementing development of Creative Enterprise Zone (CEZ) from the botto

Archway Cultural Commons is a 4 year research project in partnership with London Borough of Islington and The Architectural Association.

London Afropolitan: Worlding Blackness and Diasporic Urban Imaginaries

In his “African-world-to-come”, political theorist Achille Mbembe anticipates an ‘Afropolitan future’.

Women Work for Access to Land – Partnership with School 21 (Monika Szolle)

Designing the Cultural Commons – East London

It is a community-led, socially engaged initiative that aims to protect and expand neighbourhood assets and civic space through the principles of the commons.

Map of Beirut showing the location of Beit Beirut (Christian Frost)

Architecture and Cultural Continuity

The aim is to highlight the significance of 'cultural continuity' to architecture, in both festival contexts and as a part of everyday life.

Archival material from the Association of Building Technicians (ABT) archive held at Warwick University (Claire Jamieson)

From Public Service to Private Practice

Over the years, there has been a significant change in the role of the state and the private sector in shaping the built environment, impacting how architects practice.

London: Urban Jungle

London: Urban Jungle combines design research with storytelling and emerged from the award-winning Rewild My Street urban-rewilding campaign and an MIT Post-COVID-19 City Direct-Action.

Transforming Architecture in Development

Unequal power dynamics in international development have sparked discussions about decolonising development, aid, and peacebuilding to dismantle discriminatory structures.

Aural Histories: Coventry 1451–1642

The interdisciplinary and collaborative project aims to recreate the experiences of musicians and audiences in this period.

An illustration of a fox and a squirrel on top of a fence and two bees flying

Wild Ways

Wild Ways aims to understand and influence urban-rewilding behaviour with a focus on adaptations to private residential gardens in London.

Spaces of Birth and Death

Spaces of Birth and Death aims to expand philosophical attention to the beginning and end of life by investigating the spaces in which we encounter these transitional moments.

Afropolitan Architecture

The event series "Afropolitan Architecture: Imagining the African Urban Future by Design" emerged as a collaboration between Mokena Makeka and Matthew Barac.

After the Arrival City

The project seeks to understand how a city without an existing model for rented social housing can adapt to find new ways to support and accommodate people in displacement.

Crossing Cultures

Developing an innovative pedagogical model that facilitates intercultural relationships and group learning.

System of Localised Common Good Objects: Cultural Commons in Neighbourhoods

This research aims to explore the potential of a commons sphere (citizen agency/community) to strengthen socially engaged art, design, and citizenship.

Housing Space Use in the Pandemic and After: The Case for New Design Guidance

Covid-19 shone a spotlight on UK housing injustice.

Mapping Social Infrastructure

Bringing together scholars in the fields of architecture, urbanism, sociology and public policy, to generate place-based tools and methods for mapping civil society networks.

Designing Inclusion

The project is set within the European context and centres on migration as a key component of urbanisation.

The Living Memory of Cities

Through a series of seminars organised running from Nov. 2020 to April 2023, the project facilitates knowledge exchange between practitioners, planners, academic, students and public.

Freetown School of Architecture by Joe Davis

Lines through the City

This project draws from the combined networks, expertise and track-record of the applicants to consolidate the work that ARCSR has done to date in Freetown.

Urban Depth and Autonomy

Global cities are becoming bigger and more diverse, and it is key to elaborate a greater understanding of how we can build better, more inclusive cities.

Architecture, Nature and Experience in the New Climate Regime

The research brings together an interdisciplinary team of experts in architectural history, architectural practice, environmental philosophy, cultural geography and sustainability.

Research funding

2023-24

Transforming Architecture in Development, Arts and Humanities Research Council, 2023–26: £177,881 to envision, test and disseminate how architectural Non-Governmental Organisations can meaningfully respond to the decolonising development agenda.

Partners: ASF-UK (Architecture Sans Frontières-UK)

Principal Investigator: Dr Beatrice De Carli
Transformation Fund 2023–24, London Metropolitan University: £10,000, to support the knowledge exchange activities of research centres CUBE (Centre for Urban and Built Ecologies) and CREATURE (Centre for Creative Arts, Cultures and Engagement).

Principal Investigators: Prof. Matthew Barac and Prof. Wessie Ling
Transformation Fund 2023–24, London Metropolitan University: £5,000 to develop the project: System of Localised Common Good Objects – Cultural Commons in Neighbourhoods.
Partners: Clarion Housing Association, London Borough of Islington.
Principal Investigators: Dr Torange Khonsari
Transformation Fund 2023–24, London Metropolitan University: £3,000 to support the ongoing After the Arrival City initiative.
Principal Investigator: Dr Bo Tang
Rescaling Fund 2023–24, London Metropolitan University: £2,500 to support the knowledge exchange and impact-related activities of Transforming Architecture in Development.
Partners: ASF-UK (Architecture Sans Frontières-UK)
Principal Investigator: Dr Beatrice De Carli
Rescaling Fund 2023–24, London Metropolitan University: £3,000 to host an event titled ‘Design in Democracy’ exploring post-1994 South African design.
Partners: The Africa Centre
Principal Investigator: Dr Harriet McKay

2022-23

Aural Histories: Coventry 1451–1642, Arts and Humanities Research Council, 2022–25: to explore the civic and ecclesiastical music and ritual in Coventry from the Reformation to the English Civil War.
Partners: Birmingham City University, Birmingham Conservatoire, Newcastle University, University of Birmingham.
Principal Investigator: Prof. Jamie Savan
Co-Investigators: Prof. Christian Frost and others.
Transformation Fund 2022–23, London Metropolitan University: £9,298, to support the knowledge exchange activities of research centres CUBE (Centre for Urban and Built Ecologies) and CREATURE (Centre for Creative Arts, Cultures and Engagement).
Principal Investigators: Prof. Matthew Barac and Prof. Wessie Ling
Transformation Fund 2022–23, London Metropolitan University: £20,817, to support the knowledge exchange activities of the AAD Projects Office.
Partners: Acrylicize, Lacuna, London Festival of Architecture and Streets of Growth.
Principal Investigator: Jen Ng
Transformation Fund 2022–23, London Metropolitan University: £3,600, to support the research underpinning the paper ‘Studio South: Co-creating Architecture Education through Residencies in Calabria’, as part of the ongoing initiative Crossing Cultures.
Partners: La Rivoluzione delle Seppie, Orizzontale, Ex Convento and Comune di Belmonte Calabro.
Principal Investigator: Sandra Denicke-Polcher
Transformation Fund 2022–23, London Metropolitan University: £19,800, to support the knowledge exchange and grant writing activities of a new research initiative, Mapping Social Infrastructure.
Partners: University of Nottingham, GLA Culture and Community Spaces at Risk programme, Latin Elephant , Social Life and The Brixton Project.
Principal Investigator: Dr Beatrice De Carli and Prof. Louise Ryan (GDI)
Rescaling Fund 2022–23, London Metropolitan University: £4,691, to co-host the event series ‘Afropolitan Architecture: Imagining the African Urban Future by Design' at Venice Architecture Biennale 2023, as part of the Afropolitan Architecture project.
Partners: The Africa Centre, British Council, Dalberg Advisors, FLOW (Future of Living for One World).
Principal Investigator: Prof. Matthew Barac
Rescaling Fund 2022–23, London Metropolitan University: £3,580, to host two workshops as part of the ongoing Spaces of Birth and Death initiative.
Partners: University of Glasgow and University College London.
Principal Investigator: Dr Jane Clossick
Rescaling Fund 2022–23, London Metropolitan University: £8,345, to support the ongoing After the Arrival City initiative.
Principal Investigator: Dr Bo Tang
Rescaling Fund 2022–23, London Metropolitan University: £1,250, to support the ongoing Wild Ways initiative.
Partners: Kusuma Trust and Oxford Brookes University
Principal Investigators: Sian Moxon and Dr Justin Webb

2021-22

Transformation Fund 2021–22, London Metropolitan University: £24,150, to develop a partnership between Architecture of Rapid Change and Scarce Resources and UN-Habitat, to develop interpretive mapping as an aid to urban practice and investigation in Northern Kenya.

Partners: UN-Habitat

Principal Investigator: Dr Bo Tang
Rescaling Fund 2021–22, London Metropolitan University: £7,550 to host a two-day research event bringing together scholars and practitioners working on the urban commons across the arts, humanities and social sciences.

Partners: Urban Commons Research Collective; University of Sheffield.
Principal Investigators: Dr Beatrice De Carli, Dr Torange Khonsari
Rescaling Fund 2021–22, London Metropolitan University: £8,878 to complete Phase 1 of the Wild Ways study: a scoping review of the existing literature on urban rewilding behaviour, coded using the COM-B behaviour model.Principal Investigators: Sian Moxon, Dr Justin Webb

2020-21

Transformation Fund 2020-21, London Metropolitan University: £19,800 to connect, extend and amplify the place-based research conducted over the last 12 years by Prof Maurice Mitchell, Dr Bo Tang and Architecture of Rapid Change and Scarce Resources (ARCSR), and by Dr Beatrice De Carli and Architecture Sans Frontières–UK (ASF-UK), in transitional settlements in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
Partners: University of Sierra Leone; The Water Trust; Sierra Leone Urban Research Centre, Njala University; ASF-UK (Architecture Sans Frontières-UK); Community Empowerment Support Organisation.
Principal Investigators: Prof Maurice Mitchell, Dr Bo Tang, Dr Beatrice De Carli
Transformation Fund, London Metropolitan University: £9,945 to transform and expand AAD Cities into a centre for knowledge exchange, adding entrepreneurial and impactful capacity to its existing research production through robust online infrastructure.
Principal Investigators: The Cities Research Group – (lead),
Transformation Fund, London Metropolitan University: £5,815, to support the first phase of a multi-stage project, ‘The Living Memory of the City’, conceived by the Ecological, Architectural and Civic Humanities in Design (EACHiD) research group.
Partners: Architecture Foundation; Eric Parry Architects; Academy of Urbanism, London; Gulbenkian Foundation; Stiftung Bibliothek Werner Oechslin Einsiedeln.
Principal Investigator: Prof Nicholas Temple
Transformation Fund, London Metropolitan University: £13,886, to enhance the competitive capabilities and impact of our and research centres, enabling a meaningful contribution to the public good; to consolidate links to University partners; and to extend existing networks in Tower Hamlets in line with the Empowering London agenda.
Principal Investigator: Dr Matthew Barac
Rescaling Fund 2020-21, London Metropolitan University: £1,869 to support Crossing Cultures, an international collaboration with the Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria.
Partners: City University; University of Warwick.
Principal Investigators: Sandra Denicke-Polcher, Prof Maurice Mitchell
Strategic Priorities Fund 2020-21, London Metropolitan University: £4,500 to develop a partnership between Architecture Sans Frontières–UK and the Royal Institute of British Architects to support and newly accredit ASF-UK’s Challenging Practice course.
Principal Investigator: Dr Beatrice De Carli
Transformation Fund, London Metropolitan University: £9,945 to transform and expand AAD Cities into a centre for knowledge exchange, adding entrepreneurial and impactful capacity to its existing research production through robust online infrastructure.
Principal Investigators: The Cities Research Group – (lead),
Strategic Priorities Fund, London Metropolitan University: £4,983, for the project, Housing Space Use in the Pandemic and After: The Case for New Design Guidance.
Principal Investigators: Dr Matthew Barac and Dr Frances Holliss