A new multimedia exhibition highlighting built environment research that has shaped London and influenced daily life has been curated by the UCL Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment, as part of UCL’s bicentenary celebrations.
Spanning more than sixty multimedia exhibits, London Intersections showcases how built environment imagination, collaboration and innovation have influenced aspects of the capital. It reveals the changes that London has undergone over time, across places, periods, disciplines, and communities.
Members of the press are invited* to register for a special preview of the exhibition on 25 March, with a special opening night celebration from 18:30 to 21:00 on 25 March. Located in the Lobby Gallery at The Bartlett School of Architecture at 22 Gordon Street, the exhibition opens to the public on 26 March 2026 and runs until 15 May 2026. Admission is free and no bookings are required.
The exhibition invites visitors to witness often-invisible processes that influence daily life, and showcasing how researchers and their collaborators work as policy shapers, climate strategists, storytellers and public practitioners.
Exhibition curator Dr Sylwia Serafinowicz (UCL Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment) said: “London Intersections embodies The Bartlett as a place that prioritises human experience over speculation. It is a community of researchers and practitioners who are forging societal and environmental wellbeing in the capital and beyond. My hope is that the exhibition will serve as a platform to learn from this legacy while asking critical questions about the future of the built environment.”
- The Smell of St Paul’s Cathedral Library & The Smell of the Rover P5B by Dr Cecilia Bembibre Jacobo (UCL Bartlett School Environment, Energy & Resources) explores how smell and odours inform cultural experiences. She and her team from the UCL Institute for Sustainable Heritage created an exhibit where visitors can experience the smells of the Wren Library at St Paul’s Cathedral and the inside of Queen Elizabeth’s Rover car by smelling gold funnels attached to glass flasks. St Paul’s scent was developed in 2018 in partnership with perfumer Sarah McCartney and evokes ‘worn leather, chocolatey vanilla, smooth wood and tobacco.’ The Queen’s car scent was recreated drawing on historical research, chemical analysis and interviews with classic car collectors and captures aged leather, polished wood and the intimate atmosphere of a well-used royal vehicle.
- The London Building Stock Model, whose development was led by Steve Evans (UCL Bartlett School of Energy, Environment and Resources), is an interactive digital model of all buildings in Greater London. The searchable interactive 3D map contains detailed data on each building’s floor areas, heights, numbers of storeys, age, materials of construction, roof type, energy efficiency, and the activities within. It was commissioned by the Greater London Authority in 2019 to help the GLA, London Boroughs, and property owners get their buildings to net zero.
- The exhibit by Joseph Cook (UCL Institute for Global Prosperity), Citizen Science in Camden: A Collaborative Research Map, highlights the UCL Citizen Science Academy’s local projects in Camden. The laser cut cork board map is a teaching tool for training residents to become ‘citizen social scientists’ and a base for displaying their work at exhibitions and community events across the borough of Camden. It includes depictions of work by the UCL Institute for Global Prosperity on Universal Basic Services and upcoming Euston Prosperity Index.
- The Drones4Good Workshops have been teaching young people to design, build and fly mini drones for ten years. Developed by Richard Milton (Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis at UCL), the hands-on workshops use custom 3D-printed, bio-inspired airframes to help spark conversation about drone ethics and “drones for good.”
- The exhibition also draws from the archives, including an exhibit dedicated to groundbreaking architect Gertrude Leverkus, who in 1918 became the first woman to graduate with a BA from the Bartlett School of Architecture. An early advocate of women-centred spaces, in 1923 she was tasked with the conversion of 62 Ladbroke Grove into eight flats for Women’s Pioneer Housing, the first of many such projects of hers to provide single women with safe, independent and good quality accommodation.
Professor Ben Campkin (The Bartlett School of Architecture) said: “London Intersections offers visitors a multitude of ways to grapple with the many layers, contradictions and atmospheres of the capital, and its global connections. Provoking us to think across different sites, scales, materials, media and periods, the exhibition shows how new knowledge about London emerges through imagination, experimentation and collaboration – vital components in addressing challenges with optimism for fairer future cities.”
Professor Jacqui Glass (Dean, UCL Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment) said: “London is a fascinating, dynamic city with numerous facets that are always changing and evolving. The London Intersections exhibition explores the numerous, intriguing ways that the environment and people within it shape the capital, and how the UCL Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment has been at the centre of so much of it through its interdisciplinary research and collaboration.”
The exhibition is being held in conjunction with UCL200, a celebration of UCL’s 200th anniversary. As London’s oldest and largest university, the institution is celebrating throughout the year with a range of events and exhibitions highlighting its contributions to London, the UK and the broader world.
