UDP Travel Bursary 2026: Varvara Barbinova

This year, the School of the Built Environment offered students (studying Urban Design) the opportunity to apply for an Urban Design and Planning Travel Bursary to help cover travel costs for their Dissertation fieldwork. Three students were awarded the UDP Travel Bursary and here is the second report on how the bursary was used from Varvara Barbinova... 

The UDP Travel Bursary gave me the opportunity to undertake fieldwork in Margate, the case study for my undergraduate research project exploring how culture-led regeneration shapes the everyday inclusion of young adults and affects their sense of belonging. Margate is a brilliant example of neighbourhood regeneration driven by the establishment of the Turner Contemporary gallery, and visiting the town gave me valuable insights into the everyday life of local residents, their engagement with the cultural institution and their perceptions of the social and economic transformations that have taken place over the past 15 years.

I was able to visit Margate twice for my research. The first trip was primarily dedicated to conducting interviews, while the second focused on on-street observations of the town’s public spaces. I explored different parts of Margate, walking through the places people use most frequently and speaking to residents who were willing to share their experience. I also documented the physical characteristics of public spaces to evaluate how the regenerated areas function in practice.

The most impactful part of the experience was the importance of engaging directly with the community. Before the fieldwork, I faced a lot of rejections and ghosting while trying to recruit participants online. People were not engaging with a stranger on the internet, and I almost lost hope. However, once I arrived in Margate, I met so many wonderful people who were happy to learn about my research, share their experience, and become part of my project.

The bursary also strengthened my confidence as an independent researcher. Organising interviews in person, conducting field observations, meeting local residents and discussing my research pushed me outside of my comfort zone. But I am grateful that I had this opportunity, as I enjoyed the experience much more than if I had simply stayed behind my laptop.

I am extremely grateful that I was given this support that made this research possible.

For more information about our courses in Urban Design, click below:

BA Sustainable Urban Design and Planning

MA/PGD Urban Design

UDP Travel Bursary 2026: Rehma Saeed

This year, the School of the Built Environment offered students (studying Urban Design) the opportunity to apply for an Urban Design and Planning Travel Bursary to help cover travel costs for their Dissertation fieldwork. Three students were awarded the UDP Travel Bursary and here is the first report on how the bursary was used from Rehma Saeed... 

I applied for the UDP Travel Grant 2026 because I believed it would enhance my dissertation research on the importance of climate-adaptive urbanism in the UK, with a specific focus on London, by allowing for trips to London to conduct site visits and interviews in person rather than relying solely on secondary sources.

I was awarded £90 towards this travel. While the panel initially suggested some interviews could be conducted online, I discussed this with my supervisor, and we agreed that an in-person site visit and interview would provide stronger and more contextually grounded data.

My interview with Kristen Guida (Head of Climate and Community Resilience at GLA).

The site visit allowed me to observe conditions directly relevant to my research, including areas of London affected by overheating and surface-water flooding. This gave practical context to the risks discussed in policy documents and the London Climate Resilience Review and clarified how climate vulnerability is unevenly distributed across the city.

The interview component was central to the value of this trip. I met with the Head of Community and Climate Resilience at the Greater London Authority at her office, and she provided practitioner insight that would not have been accessible through documentary analysis alone. Visiting her office was valuable not only for the research itself but also as a student in this field; being shown around and seeing how things operate in practice was an experience I genuinely cherish.

Her perspective on the institutional and cultural barriers to climate adaptation in Britain has directly informed several arguments in my analysis chapters. Overall, the bursary enhanced my data collection process and was a genuinely valuable addition to my research, giving it a level of practical grounding that secondary sources alone could not have provided and I am grateful for this opportunity.

Dense tarmac and concrete surfaces with minimal tree canopy,
illustrating urban heat island (UHI) vulnerability
directly outside the interview site at Palestra House.

Riverside walkway near Blackfriars Bridge consisting of a tree-lined path
and vertical greening on adjacent buildings, contrasting with the
tarmac-dominated conditions on Blackfriars Road and illustrating
small-scale mitigation efforts within London’s blue-green infrastructure strategy.

For more information about our courses in Urban Design, click below:

BA Sustainable Urban Design and Planning

MA/PGD Urban Design

Urban Design End of Year Show 2026: EVOLUTION

 

For 2026, the theme of the Urban Design End of Year Show was: EVOLUTION. 

Students from MA Urban Design and the BA (Sustainable) Urban Design and Planning have explored the idea of evolution in the built environment. I went along a few days after it opened to take some photos...

Find out more about our courses here:

MA Urban Design 

BA (Sustainable) Urban Design and Planning 

Letters from the Street: Bringing Fine Art Methods into Urban Design Teaching

Letters from the Street: Bringing Fine Art Methods into Urban Design Teaching

By Dr Laura Novo de Azevedo, Associate Professor, Oxford Brookes University

As many of you know, I am someone who learns by doing, thinking, making, questioning, and being in dialogue. Learning is not something I ask only of my students, it is something I ask of myself. This year, I decided to take up a new challenge and began the MA in Fine Art at Brookes, and I am absolutely loving it.

As an educator with a long-standing interest in creativity, collaboration, and public life, it feels entirely natural to bridge the worlds of urban design and contemporary art. I hold academic responsibilities in the Faculty of Health, Life and Technology, yet I now also walk, sketch and think alongside artists in the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.

This crossing of boundaries is purposeful. I am part of a group leading a transdisciplinary teaching and learning project, alongside colleagues Emma Skippings, Esra Kurul and Lucy Turner, exploring how learning transforms when we bring two or more modes of knowing into contact, the technical and the intuitive, the analytical and the poetic, the city and the studio.

From Lecture to Making: Two Ways of Knowing

The workshop I recently led with our MA Urban Design students was structured in two parts:

Part One - Technical Learning

I delivered a lecture on the configuration of the public realm, exploring street typologies, human scale, ecological responsiveness, movement patterns and spatial organisation. This grounded students in specialist knowledge: vocabulary, frameworks, and design method.

Part Two - Intuitive & Embodied Learning

We then shifted the mode of thinking. The aim here was to translate technical learning into lived, felt understanding. Because the most compelling designers are those who combine both: clarity + sensitivity; analysis + empathy; structure + imagination.

Students were asked to bring a photograph of a street they considered fantastic - a street that works well for people and for the environment. Using watercolours, pastels, ink, collage and stitching, each student created an A4 page consisting of:

• their street image, annotated or altered
• and a handwritten letter addressed to someone they care about, written as if they were physically on that street. Inviting this person to join them there to experience all the good things that place had to offer.

To open the emotional register, we looked at a painting by Portuguese artist Carlota Flieg, as a prompt to think of the street not only as a spatial configuration, but as a “delightful place to be”.

At first, students were hesitant, uncertain about stepping into a more poetic mode. Then slowly, something shifted. Chattering started, shoulders loosened. Pages filled. The room became warm and conversational. We moved from drawing streets as plans to relating to streets as places to be.

Why This Matters

Urban design education often privileges clarity, precision, and measurable outcomes. These are essential. But streets are not just geometries - they are places of relation: places where encounters unfold, where life circulates, where ecologies, communities, and species meet.

To design truly humane, and more-than-human, public realms, we must learn to:

• sense atmosphere
• recognise belonging
• notice gesture, rhythm, and tempo
• listen to how spaces feel, not only how they function

Teaching through both technical knowledge and intuitive, embodied practice helps students understand that designing a street is not only a question of alignment and width, it is a question of care.

This workshop was a reminder that the future of urban design is not only in the drawing, but in the listening.

Every student’s page will now be assembled into a single accordion-fold artist book titled:

Letters from the Street: Poetics of the Future Public Realm.

From this, I am distilling a collective manifesto about what makes streets inclusive, generous, and alive.

The book will be exhibited at the Oxford Brookes Urban Design End-of-Year Show later in May 2026 for all to see.

To find out more about the MA Urban Design click here.

Urban Design 2024: first year competition

Laura Novo de Azevedo recently organised an 'in module' competition for the first year module 'Cities in Historic Contexts'. The brief was: create and Illustrate your idea of a good place which reflects the learning in the module. You will use any means that you'd like to explore such as AI, collage, photography, physical model, sketchup or video to visually show what a good place looks like from your professional perspective. Describe the qualities of this place in max 100 words (or use voice recording if creating a video). 

And the results: it was a very interesting exercise where students could quickly explore concepts around placemaking with the use of creative methods. AI seemed very powerful in providing quick sketchy responses whilst the use of video added a personal dimension that we didn't see in the AI submissions. it was very good to have a selection of different media. Congratulations to everyone that took part and especially to the following...

Overall winner: Eliza Allen 

2nd place: James Rumble

3rd Place: Gabriel Sankersingh

And...honourable mention for creativity: Lucas Pimentel

See all the entries on Padlet.

Click here for more information about the BA Urban Design, Planning and Development at Oxford Brookes. 

Urban Design End of Year Show 2024: CO-DWELLING WITH NATURE

For 2024, the theme of the Urban Design End of Year Show is: CO-DWELLING WITH NATURE. 

Students from MA Urban Design, the MArchD Urban Design and the BA Urban Design, Planning and Development have explored the idea of co-dwelling with nature in the built environment. The show is open until 5 July from 10am to 4pm each day and is located on the second floor of the Abercrombie Building on our Headington campus. Come and take a look!

Click here for further details.

I went along a few days after it opened to take some photos...

Don't forget to visit! The show is open until Friday 5 July from 10am to 4pm each day and is located on the second floor of the Abercrombie Building on our Headington campus. 

Urban Design@OBU 50th Anniversary Self Guided Walking Tour of Oxford

Looking southwest over Frideswide Square by Chaz2041 via WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

While you're in town for the 50th Anniversary celebrations, take a look at what's happened in the town since you were here.  We've put together a self-guided walking (cycling) tour past a range of new buildings and spaces in Oxford including: Frideswide Square, the Observatory Quarter, Broad Street, Weston Library, the Castle Quarter, Westgate and more.  In all likelihood, the route will also take you past some of your old haunts so it's also an opportunity to meet with old colleagues and catch up.  Some members of current staff will be doing the circuit in the afternoon of the 4th, starting about 13:00 at Frideswide Square. Link to 50th Anniversary Self Guided Walking Tour of Oxford - take a trip back and see what's new...

Follow Urban Design and Planning on Instagram @obuudp

 

You can now follow Urban Design and Planning on Instagram - click here - and see what's happening!

Urban Design at Oxford Brookes: 50th Anniversary Event on 4 November 2023

50 years of Urban Design at Oxford Brookes University 

Come back and look forward 

Urban Design staff and students are proud to invite you to celebrate fifty years of Urban Design education at Oxford Brookes University on the 4th of November 2023. With more than 2000 postgraduate, undergraduate and research Alumni, we want to celebrate our collective achievements: teaching and putting the teaching into practice. Please join us to mark this important milestone, meet former and new staff and colleagues and discuss our collective futures. 

The celebrations will include an Alumni Exhibition, Drinks and Dinner (and possible free fireworks).

Follow us on Instagram @obuudp

UD@OBU 50th Anniversary on 4th November 2023: Details..

Alumni Exhibition and Drinks 

From 17:00 - 18:00  at The Terrace, John Henry Brookes Building, Headington Campus. Connect, reconnect and view the Exhibition. Cost: £15 per person.  Pay here at the online shop   

Alongside the Exhibition, there will be a series of pre-dinner talks given by practising design professionals about their latest work in masterplanning, urban design, architecture, sustainability and community engagement. Confirmed speakers include Hawkins\Brown Architects, Gen Two Real Estate, David Lock Associates, PLACE by Design and edge Urban Design.

Special Rate for Students and Grads (from 2022 and 2023)

Join us for drinks and networking from 17:00 - 18:00  at The Terrace, John Henry Brookes Building, Headington Campus. Connect, reconnect and view the Exhibition. Cost: £5 per student/grad 2022/23. Pay here at the online shop  

Dinner 

From 18:00/18.30 - 23:00 at The Terrace, John Henry Brookes Building, Headington Campus. Cost for Dinner (including Exhibition and Drinks): £100 per person or £85 for OBU staff/students*. Details of the menu to follow. Bookings for Dinner are now closed. 

Dress code for the Dinner is SMART CASUAL.

*staff includes former OBU staff and student rate includes current students and recent graduates (graduating in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023)

Exhibition and Sponsorship

We invite urban design practices and individuals to showcase their previous and current work and ideas for future directions and innovative projects. Sponsorship is open to practices and individuals. Sponsorship recognition is through inclusion in the Alumni Exhibition and the Anniversary brochure. Funds from sponsorships will go towards supporting current and future students through:

• Sponsoring students to attend the event
• Student recognition awards
• Scholarships

The levels of sponsorship are as follows:

PLATINUM - £500
Includes two A1 exhibition boards or vertical banner and/or a video up to three minutes together with a whole page in the Anniversary Brochure

GOLD  - £350
Includes one A1 exhibition board for exhibition and/or a video up to two minutes together with a half page in the Anniversary Brochure 

SILVER - £ 250 
Includes exhibition video up to two minutes and a quarter page in the Anniversary Brochure

BRONZE - £150
Includes one line and logo in the sponsorship recognition page of the Anniversary Brochure 

For more information on the Exhibition or Anniversary Brochure, please contact Regina Lim at rlim@brookes.ac.uk. To sponsor the event/book exhibition space register your interest and pay here

Optional Day Activities (on 4th November 2023)

Self Guided 50th Anniversary Walking Tour - take a trip back and see what's new...

While you're in town for the 50th Anniversary celebrations, take a look at what's happened in the town since you were here.  We've put together a self-guided walking (cycling) tour past a range of new buildings and spaces in Oxford including: Frideswide Square, the Observatory Quarter, Broad Street, Weston Library, the Castle Quarter, Westgate and more.  In all likelihood, the route will also take you past some of your old haunts so it's also an opportunity to meet with old colleagues and catch up.  Some members of current staff will be doing the circuit in the afternoon of the 4th, starting about 13:00 at Frideswide Square. The Walking Tour is here.

Headington Campus Tour from 16:00 - 17:00: a guided tour of the redeveloped Headington Campus buildings and spaces.  Meet at the Piazza, London Road at 15:50.

Parking and Accommodation
There is limited parking at the Headington Campus so, we will practise what we preach and recommend using Park and Ride.  The closest is Thornhill, off the A40.  The 400park&ride/U1  bus stops in front of the Brookes London Road Piazza.  If you get the train, the buses from the station/Frideswide Square to the Headington Campus are the 280 and 400/U1, You might also park in town (Westgate, Gloucester Green or Worcester Street) and catch the 400/U1, 8 or 280 from the High Street.

Suggested overnight accommodation in Oxford

• Premier Inn, the Westgate - £91 pp per night
• The Dial House, 25 London Road - £89-£99 per night
• Red Mullions, 23 London Road - £90-110 per night

Urban Design End of Year Show 2023: Experimentation

“Without the possible, the desirable is little more than a dream. Without the desirable, the possible is boring” (Jacob F, Of Flies, Mice and Men, 1998).

For 2023, the theme of the Urban Design End of Year Show is: EXPERIMENTATION. 

Students from MA Urban Design, the MArchD Urban Design and the BA Urban Design, Planning and Development have explored experiments and visions to improve the material and immaterial organisation of built environments. The show is open until Sunday 9 July from 10am to 4pm each day and is located on the second floor of the Abercrombie Building on our Headington campus. Come and take a look!

Click here for further details.

I went along a few days after it opened to take some photos...

Don't forget to visit! The show is open until Sunday 9 July from 10am to 4pm each day and is located on the second floor of the Abercrombie Building on our Headington campus.