Spatial Practices CSM

How to mend Privately Owned Public Spaces (POPS)? A panel discussion. Tuesday 28 April 5:30-7pm LVMH E003 Theatre Central Saint Martins Open to all UAL / CSM staff and students (no need to book) External guests : book your spot via link in bio Join Adriana Cobo-Corey @nanacobo , Senior Lecturer in Ethical Practice, and guest speakers for a panel presentation and discussion in celebration of Adriana’s recently published book ‘Mending Privately Owned Public Spaces: Works on Taste and Spatial Practice’ (Routledge, 2026). Her book is motivated by a simple observation: Privately Owned Public Spaces are overlooked sites when it comes to explore the subject of taste in architecture and urban design. With a focus on collaborative practice and temporary interventions on POPS, the panel will address questions such as: why don’t we talk about taste in socially engaged practice today? Does a focus on aesthetics pose an ethical dilemma between superficiality and depth in the face of persistent social inequity? On the panel: Manijeh Verghese, CEO of Open City and a Mayor of London Design Advocate. Anna Minton, Journalist, writer and academic. Author of Ground Control: Fear and Happiness in the Twenty-First Century City (Penguin, 2009) Carl Fraser, Co-founder of Counter Mapping, designer, researcher and lecturer in architecture. Shumi Bose, Curator; Chief Editor of KoozArch, Subject Leader on Contextual Studies, CSM, UAL Adriana Cobo Corey, Writer and academic. Author of Mending POPS (Routledge, 2026). Subject Leader on Ethical Practice in Design, CSM, UAL

LINK IN BIO What might the forest make visible in times of ecological breakdown? Forest School is a platform and network out of the S (systems) school at Central Saint Martins. It closely considers the forest as a way of understanding the causes and implications of climate and ecological emergency. As part of UAL’s Earth Week and in response to the Fault Lines theme supported by @climate_emergency_network , the Forest School will convene a panel discussion including: Dr. Alemayehu Wassie is a forest ecologist who has spent the past decade on a mission to preserve, document and protect Ethiopia’s church forests. Andreas Lang is Reader in Situated and Ecological Design Practices and co-founder of public works, a non-profit critical design practice that occupies the terrain between art, architecture and research. Carlotta Novella is an artist, architect, teacher, experimental cook and host. Carlotta will explore her rural school in Italy, @the_school_of_filo , a knowledge exchange and cultural project which takes the form of a diffused network of classrooms. Catalina Mejia Moreno is a Senior Lecturer in Climate Studies at CSM. She is a spatial practitioner and architectural historian interested in practices of resistance, situated and critical spatial practice, environmental, racial and spatial justice, feminist and decolonial/anticolonial practice and thought. Judith Van De Boom is a design researcher, educator and practical idealist working with ecosystems through situated practice. As Course Leader of MA Regenerative Design at CSM, she develops activated cohorts focused on regenerative practice and place-based transformation. Imani Jacqueline Brown is an artist, activist, and architectural researcher from New Orleans, based in London. Her work investigates the continuum of extractivism, which spans from settler-colonial genocide and slavery to fossil fuel production, ecological collapse, and climate chaos; traces constellations of solidarity; and imagines paths to ecological reparations. The session will be convened by Rebecca Wright, Dean of S School and design educator, writer on design and co-founder of GraphicDesign& with Lucienne Roberts.

A day in the life of Owen Griffiths @owen_gh_ , a BA (Hons) Architecture student at Central Saint Martins. From research in the library and magazine archive to sketchbooks, collage, model making and drawing development, Owen takes us through how his project evolved using the facilities and workshop spaces at CSM. BA (Hons) Architecture explores the spaces, places and buildings we inhabit, examining the relationships between the built environment, social interaction and material culture. Through live projects, experimentation and making, students are encouraged to rethink architecture beyond traditional disciplinary limits. Owen’s project draws on traditional craft skills, construction methods and material experimentation, developing through concept models, video, CAD and layered drawing techniques. Find out more about BA (Hons) Architecture at the link in bio. @spatial_csm @csmarchitecture

What if soil could become a social network? As part of the Postgraduate Work in Progress Show, MA Narrative Environments student Ioanna Lamprou @ioannalamprouart is exploring how soil might become a living interface for interspecies communication. Her project, World.Wild.Web, imagines a new kind of digital social system between humans and soil. Pushing back against extractive systems in agriculture and social media alike, the work looks to the ground as a narrative machine, asking how digital interaction could be shaped by care, connection and organic growth. The prototype combines a physical soil structure with a digital visualisation controlled by human touch, generating unique imagery and sound through interaction. Explore more from MA Narrative Environments via the link in bio @spatial_csm @narrativeenvironments

🚨 Ɛdan Spatial Studios 🚨 MA Cities lecturer and alumni Carina Tenewaa Kanbi recently launched Ɛdan Spatial Studios in Accra, Ghana. Ɛdan, drawn from the Akan word for ‘home’ and the Scottish Gaelic for ‘little fire’, was conceptualised by Carina in 2022, through her MA Cities work, to create equitable, community-led creative spaces that shape the city. The Studio aims to address the gap in affordable spaces for making within the creative and craft sectors, while contributing to the building of more equitable African cities. “At Ɛdan, Cities are understood as living archives. They hold the stories, labours and quiet negotiations that shape how people move and make space." "Creativity is not an addition to the city, it is part of its structure. It carries forward ways of seeing, making, and imagining that allow us to navigate what exists while building space for what might still emerge.” @carinatenewaa 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 Find out more on @edanghana or edanghana.cargo.site

💃🕺 Always in formation. ‘Pixel Planet’ is a participatory installation that renders the S School* community as a constantly shifting collective image. It brings together snapshots of teaching, learning and activity across S School with a live feed of passers-by and local performers, all reinterpreted through pixels created by the community itself. These custom pixels replace standard RGB, forming a shared visual language. As people move through the space and new pixels are introduced, the image continuously reorganises, never settling. Discover ’Pixel Planet’ in the Window Galleries, just outside the entrance to Central Saint Martins. *S School is a cluster of courses at Central Saint Martins that are concerned with the complex systems that support and shape our world. Spanning graphic communication and product design, architecture and built environments, business innovation and creative enterprise, S School interrogates and proposes how different forms of designing can challenge and change the systems that surround us. (📸 Joe O’Connor)

The @lethabygallery ’s new show, ‘ A Common Thread’ celebrates craft processes and material experimentation through the work of students, staff and graduate practitioners from Central Saint Martins. Highlighting how craft and tactility remain central in the contemporary creative space, the exhibition explores hands-on processes across diverse disciplines, from the preservation of ancestral practices to experimentations with emerging technologies. The exhibition showcases work from @csmarchitecture student Amlyn Evans and @csm_architecture_march graduate Alys Hargreave. A Common Thread On now - until 26 April 2026 Lethaby Gallery, Central Saint Martins Head to link in bio for more details and opening times.

PRACTICE TALK Wednesday 24.02. at 17:00 Judith Lösing, Director at East, will share insights from her practice spanning architecture, landscape and urban design. She conceived and edited London Arboretum, a book exploring the role of trees in urban design. The publication marks the culmination of the Architecture Foundation’s inaugural research fellowship. All CSM students are welcome! Join us in the LVMH Lecture Theatre (E002) @judithloesing @east.architecture.land

Tuesday 24 February 2–5pm CSM STUDENTS ONLY In collaboration with Worthing Museum and Art Gallery, 3D Make Technician Victoria King and her creative partner Mahal de Man will guide students through a hands-on exploration of Neolithic stone tool artefacts from the museum collection. Working with the objects both physically and digitally in the Photogrammetry Lab, students will develop photogrammetry skills while thinking through how stone tools have shaped human cognition – making, thinking, and perception over time. @victoriakinglondon is a London based jeweller and designer-maker whose practice explores material innovation, storytelling, and technology. @mahaldeman is artist-in-residence at Research Art Lab on Orford Ness – a collaboration between the National Trust and University of Suffolk. Sign up in bio

Thursday 26 February 6pm–7.30pm Betti Marenko with guest speaker Matthew Fuller This session reflects on plasticity beyond material substance, approaching it as a form of techno-adaptability across technological, cultural, and embodied systems. The evening opens with a contribution from Shaheer Tarar, artist, geographer, and TiQ member, followed by our guest speaker Matthew Fuller and Betti Marenko, who leads TiQ. They will look at artists who see databases as a context in which to intervene and invent, as a site of sociability, and a space of counter-investigation. Work to be discussed includes: Kristoffer Gansing and Linda Hilfling Rittasdatter; Tomas Percival; Yoha; Pad.ma; Forensic Architecture; Rybn.org. The event will be held onsite at Central Saint Martins for UAL students & staff only. External attendees can watch the event broadcast live on YouTube. Booking link in bio

This week, join us at Central Saint Martins’ Postgraduate Work in Progress Show to see early ideas, prototypes, tests, and in-development projects from final-year postgraduate students across six courses. 🔭Thinking about applying to postgraduate study at Central Saint Martins? Join us on Tuesday 17 February, 6pm GMT, to speak with course teams, ask questions, and get inspired as you consider your own next steps. Search “Work in Progress Show, Central Saint Martins” on the UAL website to book your place. 🎟️ And on Wednesday 18 February, 6pm GMT, visitors from industry and related fields are warmly invited to explore emerging concepts, ask questions, and share perspectives with our students. Follow the link in @narrativeenvironments bio to book your place. Exhibiting courses: MA Biodesign @mabiodesign MA Design for Industry 5.0 @csm_madi MA Graphic Communication Design @csmgraphics MA Industrial Design @csm_maid MA Material Futures @materialfutures MA Narrative Environments @narrativeenvironments ‼️ UAL students and staff do not need to book to attend. Just drop by!

A selection of work from MArch Yr2 Design for planetary care interim review. @spatial_csm @csm_news Photo credit @benrosen15 @melisahamzaoglu @selenakalin_architecture @miabizard_