Lucy Bullivant PhD Hon FRIBA, founder/director, Lucy Bullivant & Associates
Short bio
Lucy Bullivant PhD Hon FRIBA
British place strategist, curatorial director and author
Lucy Bullivant PhD Hon FRIBA is a place strategist, curatorial director, award-winning author, a keynote speaker, the founder and Creative Director, Urbanista.org, her webzine on liveable urbanism.
Her consultancy firm, Lucy Bullivant & Associates, has worked for over 35 years with UK and international clients including Central District Alliance, the Centre for London think-tank, the Building Centre, ETH Zurich, Enfield Council, kommune Bydel Bjerke Oslo, the Latvian Investment and Development Agency, ANCB Berlin and Qatar University. From April-Dec 2022 she was Head of Engagement, Oxford Street, Westminster City Council, as a Public Practice Associate.
Lucy served as chair of the Lambeth Design Review Panel from June 2019-Oct 2025. She has been a Trustee of Temple Bar London, the educational trust, since July 2020, when she began curating and chairing the monthly talk series at Temple Bar on Paternoster Square promoting thought leadership shaping the architecture and wider built environment professions. She is a Liveryman, The Architects’ Company (formerly known as the Worshipful Company of Chartered Architects).
She was elected an Honorary Fellow of RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) in 2010, a lifetime honour, for her contribution to architectural culture globally.
Lucy has a PhD from London Metropolitan University’s School of Art, Architecture and Design, ‘From Masterplanning to Adaptive Planning: understanding the contemporary tools and processes for civic urban order’, and an MA(RCA) in Cultural History, from the Royal College of Art.
Her publications include Masterplanning Futures (2012), winner of the Book of the Year award by Urban Design Group in 2014, which will be published in a second edition, significantly updated and adapted, in 2026, as Masterplanning Futures: Agents of Change (Routledge), with the kind support of the Society of Authors, the UK trade union for all types of writers, illustrators and literary translators, which awarded Lucy three tranches of grant funding. She is Guest Editor of 4d Hyperlocal (AD/Wiley, 2017), and has written extensively on architecture and urban design, and judged many competitions includingInspiring Future Generations 2023 (Thornton Education Trust), AJ Architecture Awards, LEAF Awards and ArchMarathon over many decades.
She has curated successful exhibitions including Phoenix Rising: Visions for Rebuilding Ukraine, co-curated with Arthur Kay, and Retrofit 23: Towards Deep Retrofit of Homes at Scale, 2023 (both staged at the Building Centre; Dugnad Days with Alex Furunes, for the Oslo Architecture Triennale (2019); Shenzhen Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture (Remake We Make, 2015-6); Urbanistas: women innovators in architecture, urban and landscape design (Roca London Gallery, 2014) and Kid size: the material world of childhood for Vitra Design Museum; Space Invaders for the British Council, co-curated with Pedro Gadanho, and The near and the far: fixed and in flux, the British Pavilion at the Milan Triennale.
Lucy has given numerous keynotes and chaired many events globally, and is represented by Speakers Associates.
Lucy speaking at: Global EcoCity Summit 2023 panel on retrofitting, June 2023; University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’, and as chair, LEAF Awards 2013, presenting the late Sir Peter Hall with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Lucy’s full length bio
Lucy Bullivant’s consultancy resumé is online here.
Further LB&A project information is available on the Selected Projects page, online at Linkedin, and at lucybullivant.net, an online archive of many of Lucy’s projects to 2018 including Space Invaders (British Council) and The near and the far, fixed and in flux (Milan Triennale).
More information about Lucy
Lucy Bullivant is a London-born place strategist, curatorial director, award-winning author and public speaker with extensive, high level experience in collaborating with the cultural, third, public and private sectors internationally. She conceives and delivers original, top quality content, concepts and outputs – strategies, programmes, publications, exhibitions, conferences, engagement and brainstorming workshops, seminars and videos of demonstrable public value.
Through her specialist niche consultancy firm, Lucy Bullivant & Associates, Lucy has worked nationally and internationally for clients including ETH Zurich’s Department of Architecture, as a speaker and author for the ‘Designing Urban Imaginaries in Colombia’ forum (2022) and Colombia Urban Transformation Program publication (Architangle, 2026), and a speaker at Days of Architecture Sarajevo 2023; Enfield Council’s Place Department, for whom she is author of the Meridian Water Placebook (2018); Qatar University, as speaker, editorial director and publisher for the Sustainable Urbanism New Directions international workshop (2016/18); the Latvian Development and Investment Agency (2018); Roca, London and Barcelona (2014); the 3rd Nordic Urban Forum; ANCB Berlin; and the Tallinn Architecture Biennale 2017.
The original concepts and editorial content Lucy creates are supported by her thorough empirical research, and well structured for the needs of specific reader groups. For many of her projects she assembles first rate specialists in architecture, urban design, landscape architecture, participatory and graphic design, and copy editors, to meet the client’s needs.
Lucy has successfully authored and delivered over 12 full length publications on innovative architecture, urban design, adaptive masterplanning and creative placemaking including the Meridian Water Placebook for Enfield Council (2018-), and the 313 page book Masterplanning Futures, for Routledge, 2012, which won the Urban Design Group Book of the Year Award, 2014; Recoded City: Co-creating urban futures, with Thomas Ermacora (Routledge, 2016); New Arcadians: emerging UK architects (Merrell, 2012), and Anglo Files: UK architecture’s rising generation (Thames & Hudson, 2005). She has been editorial director for over 30 publications including 4D Hyperlocal: a Cultural Toolkit for the Open-Source City (Wiley/AD), Home Front (Wiley/AD) on new public housing. Lucy’s publications are based on her original international research, including field trips to locations such as Chengdu; Queensland; Copenhagen; NYC; Mexico City; São Paulo; Rio; Istanbul; and Tokyo, as well as across the UK.
Nordhavn, Copenhagen, featured in Masterplanning Futures: Agents of Change, the second edition of Lucy’s award-winning book for Routledge, 2026.
Lucy is the founder and creative director of Urbanista.org, her webzine on liveable urbanism, created in 2013 to fill a gap in high quality specialist media analysis of urbanist tools and processes. She has published a number of articles in the leading UK industry titles New London Quarterly, Architects’ Journal, Architectural Review and Architecture Today, and, over three decades from 1987-2017, a wealth of others for specialist architecture and design magazine titles globally including The Guardian, The Financial Times and The Scotsman, drawing on her own extensive international research trips. During this period Lucy’s magazine clients have included: AD (UK), RIBAJournal (UK), RocaGallery.com (on architecture and design, the future and the sustainable world), Landscape (UK), World Architecture (UK), Blueprint (UK), Building Design (UK), Harvard Design Magazine (US), OculusAIA (US), Architectural Record (US), Metropolis (US), Archis (NL), Volume (NL), Domus (IT), Platform (IT), The Plan (IT), Design Report (DE), A+U (JP), Indesign (AUS) and Habitus (AUS).
As an artistic director Lucy has curated, directed and delivered hundreds of successful and innovative creative projects of different scales of public value for international clients, cultural organisations, academia, publishing and medical and cultural charities, meeting goals on time and on budget.
Focusing on architecture, urban and interactive design and the visual arts, these include more than 30 popular and groundbreaking exhibitions internationally, including Phoenix Rising: Visions for Rebuilding Ukraine, co-curated with Arthur Kay (Building Centre, 2025-26)’ Retrofit 23: Towards Deep Retrofit of Architecture at Scale (Building Centre, 2023); and the 2015 exhibition Urbanistas: women innovators in architecture, urban and landscape design she curated for Roca Design Gallery, London, which was successfully staged at the venue and at the Core, Science Central, Newcastle, in collaboration with Northern Architecture, developers Igloo and Creative Space Management.
Urbanistas: women innovators in architecture, urban and landscape design, the exhibition Lucy curated for Roca London Gallery, 2015 (above), which toured to the Core, Science Central, Newcastle, and was designed by Feix and Merlin Architects.
Space Invaders: new British architecture, the exhibition she co-curated for the British Council with Pedro Gadanho, Director of the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon, toured globally for 3 years (2001-3). The major exhibition Kid size: the material world of childhood she co-curated with Vitra Design Museum, Germany, toured globally to museums and galleries for 8 years (1997-2005), accruing significant levels of revenue she generated in close collaboration with fellow team members from participating venues. Lucy was Commissioner and Curator of ‘The near and the far, fixed and in flux’, the UK pavilion for the XIX Milan Triennale, 1996 (pictured below).
Lucy has scouted out and managed the participation of many innovative global creative talents in architecture, urban design, landscape architecture, art, interactive media arts, film, cultural history, economics and sociology in the numerous events she has curated globally.
Lucy fosters debate and reflection on many interrelated aspects of liveable urbanism through her writings, exhibitions, talks and chairing of events. Her webzine Urbanista.org on liveable urbanism features several special thematic issues she has created, from sustainable urbanism to participatory placemaking. As part of these, she has written essays as well as commissioned other writers to contribute to. Urban Manifesto, her series of talks curated and chaired with urbanist Prathima Manohar – a global village of lively debate on the future of the city was livestreamed throughout the pandemic. In an interview for Forbes in summer 2018 she discusses new community-led models for planning and architecture addressing the UK housing crisis.
She is an engaging public speaker on topical aspects of architecture and urban design extensive global experience. Lucy regards public talks as an ideal way to convey current thinking and ongoing international research to wider audiences, and a valuable opportunity to advocate for best practice. She has recently made presentations as part of EcoCity World Summit – Connecting Communities, 2023 (Barbican Centre, London) – Three Approaches to Retrofit panel, Days of Architecture Sarajevo (2023), Post-COVID Cities: Reinventing World Cities, staged by AIA NYC (2021), and at the Architectural Association, London (2022 and 2023).
She has given talks at the London Design Biennale 2018 as part of Latvia Day, for the Latvian Embassy; a keynote at 3rd Nordic Urban Lab2018; at Qatar University, Sustainable Urbanism New Directions Workshop 2016; the World Cities Culture Shanghai Symposium 2016; AIA NYC Center for Architecture (Masterplanning Futures: Adaptive Planning in the 21st Century); ANCB Berlin; the Moscow Urban Forum 2016; Strelka Institute, Moscow (see image below); Smart City Forum, Barcelona and Casablanca; COAC and IAAC, Barcelona; Amsterdam School of Creative Leadership; Pakhuis de Zwijger, Amsterdam, and de Baak (Dutch public sector management organisation); Venice Architecture Biennale; TEDx Vienna; Second Nature, the Datum: KL International Architectural Design Conference staged by the Institute of Malaysian Architects, Kuala Lumpur (2010); Royal Society of Arts; Barbican Centre, London; Lime Wharf cultural innovation hub, London; RIBA, London; Royal College of Art; Architectural Association, London; University of Westminster; UCL London; University of Plymouth; Yorkshire Forward; Syracuse University, NY; UCLA, Los Angeles; University of Houston; ETH Zurich (Territorial Encounters, Future Cities Laboratory, 2012); University of Rome; Swedish Association of Architects; University of Tampere; National Council of Architecture, Finland.
She has chaired numerous roundtables, most recently Dugnad Days – Sletteløkka, at the Oslo Architecture Triennale (2022). Her chairing includes the Temple Bar London online talks series (2020-22) and in-person talks at Temple Bar; the Urban Manifesto online series (2020-2021) with Prathima Manohar, and two international conferences, Softspace at Tate Modern, and Spaced Out at the ICA London supported by Arts Council England.
She continues to regularly review a wide range of buildings, building types and urban plans nationally and internationally in the course of her consultancy work and for the specialist media. Read her discussion of the award-winning planning project Rectory Farm in Hounslow by Carmody Groarke and Vogt Architects in the April 2018 issue of Architectural Review here, and her critical analysis of Grenfell for Roca Gallery, Sept 2018 here.
Lucy is a judge of international design competitions including the Inspiring Future Generations Awards (Thornton Education Trust); the AJ Architecture Awards, RIBA London Awards, ArchMarathon and the LEAF Awards 2013. She provides extensive specialist guidance to clients nationally through her work as chair, Lambeth Design Review Panel, as a member of the Enfield Place and Design Quality Panel, and formerly as a member of the London Legacy Development Corporation Quality Review Panel (2012-13), Brent Design Review Panel (2016-18); Expert Specialist for the Design Council (to 2024); Scientific Committee of the Institut pour la Ville en movement, Paris (2012-16), and as a Renaissance Advocate for Yorkshire Forward, Leeds (2007-10). She has worked as a professor for Syracuse University’s London branch (Architecture Department) and been a guest critic for numerous academic juries nationally and internationally.
Lucy spoke at Second Nature, the Datum: KL International Architectural Design Conference staged by the Institute of Malaysian Architects, 2010.
Both independently and together with Norwegian architect Alex Furunes (founder, Eriksson Furunes Architects), Lucy stages brainstorming and making workshops to promote awareness and skills in participatory design among community groups, local authority staff, developers, students and academic teachers. Together they developed Dugnad Days, a community placemaking project based in a suburb of Oslo selected to be shown as an exhibit at both the Oslo Architecture Triennale 2019 and 2022.
Lucy was elected an Honorary Fellow of RIBA in 2010, a lifetime honour, for her contribution to architectural culture globally. She has a PhD from London Metropolitan University’s School of Art, Architecture and Design, ‘From Masterplanning to Adaptive Planning: understanding the contemporary tools and processes for civic urban order’, and an MA(RCA) in Cultural History from the Royal College of Art.
Further LB&A project information is available on the Selected Projects page, online at Linkedin, and at lucybullivant.net, an online archive of many of Lucy’s projects to 2018, including the Space Invaders exhibition (2001-3) she curated for the British Council with Pedro Gadanho, and The near and the far, fixed and in flux for which she was UK Commissioner and curator, at the Milan Triennale (1996).