Project

This open access educational tool is designed and produced by David Roberts, and curated by Jane Rendell. An outcome of a collaboration between the Bartlett Ethics Commission (2015-2022) and Knowledge in Action for Urban Equality (KNOW 2018-2022), it is a co-produced work and includes the research and writing of over 30 contributors, including guides by Jens Kandt, Ariana Markowitz, Catalina Ortiz, Emmanuel Osuteye, Yael Padan, David Roberts, Tania Guerrero Rios, and Alejandro Vallejo.

KNOW was an ESRC-funded research project based at the Bartlett’s DPU, led by PI Professor Caren Levy, seeking to deliver transformative research and capacity for innovation in policy and planning to promote and strengthen pathways to urban equality, Rendell led the work package, ‘The Ethics of Research Practice,’ supported by Research Associate, Dr Yael Padan. 

The Bartlett Ethics Commission was a Bartlett Faculty-funded project exploring the sensitivities of ethical issues in built environment research and professional practice, led by Professor Jane Rendell and supported by Dr David Roberts as Bartlett Ethics Fellow. The Bartlett Ethics Commission worked alongside the Bartlett Ethics Working Group, chaired by Rendell and Professor Mike Raco, from 2015–8, and so benefitted from the input of Martin Austwick, Claire Colomb, Helen Dougal, Helen Fisher, Efrosyni Konstaninou, Rowena Lamb, James O'Leary, Niamh Murtagh, David Roberts, Steve Ridge and Hedley Smyth but in particular Jens Kandt, Mike Raco, Michelle Shipworth, and Michael Walls. The project has been supported educationally and economically by the Bartlett Faculty, and its Deans, Alan Penn and Christophe Linder. 

The research has received three awards: A UCL Provost’s Award for Education in 2018, a commendation in the category of Ethics and Sustainability in the RIBA President’s Awards for Research in 2018, and in 2022 a RIBA President’s Award for Research in the category Ethics and Education.

We will be updating the website with new entries once a year on Global Ethics Day (the third Wednesday of October of each year). So if you would like to contribute please contact us on practisingethics@protonmail.com for more information.

Biographies

Jane Rendell (BSc, DipArch, MSc, PhD) is Professor of Critical Spatial Practice at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, where she co-initiated the MA Situated Practice and supervises MA and PhD projects. Jane has introduced concepts of ‘critical spatial practice’ and ‘site-writing’ through her authored books: The Architecture of Psychoanalysis (2017), Silver (2016), Site-Writing (2010), Art and Architecture (2006), and The Pursuit of Pleasure (2002). 

Her co-edited collections include Reactivating the Social Condenser (2017), Critical Architecture (2007), Spatial Imagination (2005), The Unknown City (2001), Intersections (2000), Gender, Space, Architecture (1999) and Strangely Familiar (1995). Working with Dr David Roberts, she leads the Bartlett’s Ethics Commission; and, with Dr Yael Padan, ‘The Ethics of Research Practice’, for KNOW (Knowledge in Action for Urban Equality).

Dr David Roberts is a Lecturer in Architecture at the Bartlett School of Architecture, and Research Ethics Fellow for the Bartlett Ethics Commission led by Professor Jane Rendell, seeking to raise awareness, expand understanding, and collectively develop approaches of ethical practice specific to built environment researchers and practitioners.

Ariana Markowitz is a member of the Women Doing Fieldwork Network and also co-administers a private Google group for researchers and practitioners working on violence and other sensitive topics to share resources, collaborate, and support each other.

Dr. Emmanuel Osuteye is a Research Fellow at The Bartlett Development Planning Unit, University College London (UCL). His research focusses on studying how the interplay of formal and informal planning structures, policies and practices affect disaster risk management in urban Africa. As well as exploring innovative participatory processes for community engagement in sustainable development policy and practice in Africa.

Dr Yael Padan is a Research Fellow at The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London (UCL), working on the Knowledge in Action for Urban Equality (KNOW) research programme. Her work is situated in the interface of architecture, planning, cultural studies and sociology. Within the KNOW programme, her research focuses on the ethics of urban research practice.

Site in progress

Practising Ethics is a work in progress, we are sharing materials in draft form so there are currently typographic errors which we will correct. If you wish to offer any feedback, please feel free to contact us at: practisingethics@protonmail.com.

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