Starting on Monday 25 January – and running 1pm weekly – the lunchtime talks - organised by the School of Architecture and Design's Early Career Researcher Group and supported by the university's Centre for Spatial, Environmental and Cultural Politics - will cover a range of cutting-edge international topics across the fields of architecture, urbanism, interiors and design. Talk titles include: City of Ladies: Remodelling Christine de Pizan’s proto-feminist illuminated manuscript; Black Markets: Transnational architectures of Care; and Empire and Materiality in Interwar Britain.
Among the highlights of the public lectures, speculative architect (Tomorrows Thoughts Today, Unknown Fields and SCI Arc) will reflect on the spaces between design, fiction and futures on 18 February. Described by the BBC as ‘the man designing our futures’, his visionary films provide extraordinary images of tomorrow and urgent examinations of the environmental questions facing us today.
On 25 February, Ricardo Flores and Eva Prats () will talk about their work in social housing, rehabilitation, urban public spaces and neighbourhood participation. And on 11 March, Gurmeet Sian (Office Sian Architecture + Design) will explore concepts of 'home' and what ‘community architecture’ actually means.