We are delighted to announce that Ben Campkin’s Remaking London has been shortlisted for RIBA’s President’s Award.

Promoting the innovation and insight that emerges from excellent research, the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) annual research awards exist to promote the innovation and insight that emerge from excellent research.

Shortlisted for the Outstanding University-located Research, Ben Campkin’s Remaking London: Decline and Regeneration in Urban Culture provides a lucid and stimulating historical account of urban regeneration, exploring how decline and renewal have been imagined and realised at different scales.

Focussing on present-day regeneration areas that have been key to the capital’s modern identity, Campkin explores how these places have been stigmatised through identification with material degradation, and spatial and social disorder. Drawing on diverse sources – including journalism, photography, cinema, theatre, architectural design, advertising and television – he illuminates how ideas of decline drive urban change.

The winner will be announced in October with the prize-giving taking place in December at RIBA’s building in Portland Place.

Visit the RIBA website for further details about the awards.

Ben Campkin is Director of the UCL Urban Laboratory and Senior Lecturer in the Bartlett School of Architecture. He is co-editor (with Rosie Cox) of Dirt: New Geographies of Cleanliness and Contamination.