Throughout 2024, I was closely involved in developing a Women’s Safety Audit methodology for TfL and the Mayor of London, led by We Made That. As Advisory Board member, I supported the design of participatory methods — including safety audits, mapping, and multi-sensory walks — and helped train 60 community researchers across pilot sites in Brixton, Brent, Uxbridge, Paddington and Waltham Forest.

I advised on the development of the Community Researcher Handbook and ‘How To’ Guide, and contributed to policy exchange with local authorities as well as public events that shared insights from the project. The work aimed to ensure that community voices shape safer, more inclusive public spaces for women and gender-diverse people in London.

Listen to podcasts about the work: Holly Lewis on The Urbanist and myself on the The Bartlett Review podcast.

Funded by Transport for London and the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime.

Between 2018 and 2021, I was part of a group of academics and designers who led a participatory planning process in the refugee-hosting town of Bar Elias in Lebanon. First, hosts and refugees jointly investigated how infrastructural arrangements exacerbated local vulnerabilities. Then they proposed solutions to make public space more accessible and inclusive. Two years after the changes were implemented, they evaluated the impact of the spatial intervention. Find more details in this report and on the website of the design studio that led the process, Catalytic Action.

Funded by the British Academy’s Cities & Infrastructure programmes