Giulio Verdini
Verdini, G., Dean, C. (forthcoming), ‘Climate urbanism in the post-pandemic world: Mapping vulnerabilities and exploring community activism in East London’. In: Giorgi et al., Design for Vulnerable Communities, Springer.
Video presented at ‘Youth 4 Climate’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-Ix63EO0Nw
This project aims to understand potential future avenues to rethink a climate resilient post-pandemic city. By exploring the case of the River Lea in East London, a group of students interviewed local people involved in a number of projects of community engagement along the river. The video shows their initiatives to actively use the green and public spaces of this neglected part of the city, in the aftermath of the second lockdown.
The video is an outcome of the Year 2 BA Designing Cities ‘Climate Urbanism Studio’ run by Giulio Verdini and Corinna Dean. It was featured at the ‘Youth for Climate’ event at the Pre-COP 26 in Milan in September 2021, titled ‘Youth and Communities for Climate Change Challenges’, and during the Sustainability Month organised at the University of Westminster in October 2021 ahead of COP26 in Glasgow.
The theoretical underpinnings of the video derive from the SCUE-funded project: De-colonising urban and architectural curricula to enable effective climate actions (2019-2021), with the aim to tackle together climate concerns at city level with issues of inclusion of affected communities. The final report of the project was presented at the IPCC / UN-HABITAT / GCoM Innovate for Cities Conference, in the panel session ‘Climate justice in urban pedagogy and practice: Towards an inclusive and context-sensitive green recovery for cities’ (14 October 2021), chaired by Giulio Verdini with guests from USA, Tanzania, Morocco, Albania, Australia, South Africa.
The River Lea in East London
