2023Ambassadors

Urban futures explored

We launched Ambassadors, a new researcher development programme, in 2023 to help aspiring built environment professionals develop formal skills for enquiry into the social issues surrounding the built environment. Our two inaugural Ambassadors joined us as researchers-in-residence for six weeks, attending a series of workshops on best-practice research strategies and working alongside a team of mentors from the FSF to develop an original research question each into a full project with a written and creative output.

At the end of the programme, our Ambassadors formally presented their research to the FSF, and engaged in a discussion on their findings and processes. Read more about their projects below.

Our ambassadors

Cecilia is a final-year Master's student at the Manchester School of Architecture specialising in the integration of social, technical and sensory elements in the built environment. She’s currently working under the PRAXXIS atelier on her final-year design thesis, a future-based adaptive re-use of Cold War technological infrastructure – a topic informed by interdisciplinary study incorporating urban planning and computer science that she undertook on Erasmus+ Exchange at Politecnico di Milano.

For her Ambassadors project, Cecilia used archival research, news analysis and first-person interviews to consider the relationship between established music venues in London and the encroachment of nearby residential development. Along with a paper exploring planning policy in relation to a landmark case study on this topic, she produced a sound collage that combines fieldwork recordings of artists, managers and proprietors associated with the venue at the centre of the case study. Her research highlights the complexities of preserving cultural heritage amid urban transformation, and offers insights for policymakers, stakeholders and urban planners in safeguarding historic venues while ensuring liveability for neighbouring residents.

Sound and (Di)vision research paper

Sound collage

Yasmin is an aspiring built environment professional with a focus on accessible, sustainable architecture and ways to build community through design. A final-year Master’s student at the Manchester School of Architecture, she has previously worked as an architectural assistant at HTA Design in London and recently completed a semester at Politecnico di Milano as part of the Erasmus+ Exchange Programme.

Yasmin’s Ambassadors project sought to dispel emerging concerns around the 15-minute city by conceiving a new cartographic depiction of the concept. Her mixed methodological approach involved ethnographic interviews that asked participants to hand draw maps of their local neighbourhoods – drawings Yasmin went on to weave together into a physical tapestry that blends diverse materials to offer a fresh perspective on the topic, including potential correlations between cartography and agreeability. She complemented this creative output with a research paper that considers academic definitions, historic visualisations and contemporary political interpretations of the 15-minute city.