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The Bartlett Development Planning Unit

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Overseas practice engagements

Each year, our Building and Urban Design in Development MSc students gain hands-on experience of using the skills, concepts, theories and techniques of urban design in a developing context.

About our overseas practice engagements

The overseas practice engagement forms part of our 'Spatial Design Practice' module, which is a core aspect of our students' learnings and journeys to become better development practitioners. Each year, our Building and Urban Design in Development MSc students focus on social development challenges and opportunities in an urban area of the Global South and engage in an action-learning project that brings out the core concepts and concerns of our master's course, and provides our students with practical research skills, such as engaging with issues raised by partners and communities in a local context. To date, we have engaged with partners and communities in Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand, India, Turkey, North-Cyprus, Jordan, Jamaica, Sri Lanka, Malta, Cuba, Cyprus, India, Pakistan. 


Our previous overseas practice engagements

Discover where we've worked and the organisations we've partnered with in previous years:

2023: Moravia, Medellín

Building and Urban Design in Development MSc students during fieldwork in Moravia

Our 2023 overseas practice engagement proposed living archives as a decolonial methodology to re-centre life to imagine forms of living heritage based on relational forms of thinking and being, accounting for the everyday interactions, the polyphony of (hi)stories and the multiplicity of spatial practices often silenced.

We proposed two intertwined strategies of co-creation: 1) gendering the archive and weaving (hi)stories of reclamation to reframe a repository of urban memory, and 2) living heritage into a process of collective imagination to counteract the existing enduring eviction threats.

Our aim was to co-create a living archive for Moravia, Medellín, using collective mapping for imagining gendered urban futures, textile practices, audio-visual material, and historic photos. Our living heritage approach reveals processes and practices of memory transmission in Moravia, which builds upon years of partnership and collaboration with the Centro de Desarrollo Cultural Moravia (CDCM). 

Discover the outputs from our 2023 practice engagement

2022: Sheffield, United Kingdom

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, we situated our practice engagement in the United Kingdom and partnered with Resolve Collective on our project titled 'Sheffield Otherwise: Counter-mapping Living Heritage of Diaspora and Queer Communities'. Through Resolve Collective we formed an alliance with several local organisations in Sheffield including Sadacca and Gut Level.

Discover the project website, 'Sheffield Otherwise'.

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Discover the outputs from our 2022 practice engagement

2020 to 2021: Medellín, Colombia

Moravia in Medellín was our site of inquiry where we situated our overseas practice engagement 'Living Heritage Atlas' and engaged with living heritage through the dimensions of urban memories, care, recycling landscapes, and community connections, emphasizing the migratory movements that have taken place towards, into, and from the neighbourhood territory.

Discover the project website, 'Partimonio Vivo' ('Living Heritage').

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Read the student reports from our 2021 practice engagement
Discover the outputs from our 2020 practice engagement

2017 to 2019: Myanmar 

Transformation in a time of transition

Discover the outputs from our 2019 practice engagement
Discover the outputs from our 2018 practice engagement
Discover the outputs from our 2017 practice engagement

2014 to 2016: Cambodia

Transformation in a time of transition

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Read the student reports from our 2016 practice engagement
Discover the outputs from our 2015 practice engagement
Discover the outputs from our 2014 practice engagement

2013: Thailand

Transformation at the Citywide Scale

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Discover the outputs from our 2013 practice engagement

2011 to 2012: Bangkok

Co-production of housing at scale

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Read the student reports from our 2012 practice engagement
Discover the outputs from our 2011 practice engagement

2010: Istanbul

City of islands

Read the report from our 2010 practice engagement

Report - Istanbul: City of Islands


2009: Dharavi, Mumbai 

A Case of Contested Urbanism

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Discover the outputs from our 2009 practice engagement

2008: Istanbul 

Stories Behind the Wall: A Development Plan Connecting People and Heritage

Discover the outputs from our 2008 practice engagement

2007: Istanbul

Placing Sulukule: Towards an Alternative Proposal to conserve the Living Heritage of Romani Culture

Discover the outputs from our 2007 practice engagement