The Martin Centre Research Seminar - Ruchit Purohit and Zhuozhang Li

The Martin Centre Research Seminars - Lent Term Seminar 3

We are delighted to welcome Dr Ruchit Purohit and Dr Zhuozhang Li who will give a talk titled:

Community Consultation for Quality of Life/ The Cambridge Urban Room

Abstract:

Dr Ruchit Purohit and Dr Zhuozhang Li will present findings from the AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) funded research project Community Consultation for Quality of Life. The project repurposed places in in each of the four countries of the United Kingdom to act as an Urban Room, testing new digital tools in a face-to-face environment, social value mapping, and questioned the terminology used during consultation processes. In this current setting, it is vital to question how the current system of Community Consultation can be made more useful and effective across the diverse policy contexts of the UK, and empowering to build community resilience. These learnings are now incorporated in setting up the new Urban Room in Cambridge.

Bios:

Dr Ruchit Purohit is a researcher, architect, urban designer, and development practitioner. Ruchit has previously worked on projects ranging from social value mapping, community led regeneration, community led heritage, and community led design. Areas of interest include critical analysis of the current understandings of Heritage, participatory decision-making, tools for participation such as codesign and coproduction, transdisciplinary research in built environment, and urban commons.

Ruchit graduated with a PhD in Design Research Planning from the Kingston University London, a Master’s degree from the University College London in Development Planning: Building and Urban Design in Development, and a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Mumbai.

Dr Zhouzhang Li is Research Associate, Department of Architecture, University of Cambridge, working on the Cambridge Room project with local communities and groups. Zhuozhang Li’s research is established at the intersection of urban studies, visual cultural studies and critical theories. He completed his PhD at CAVA, University of Liverpool in 2022. By highlighting Hong Kong urban cinema as an archive of descriptions of how the city is being lived and practised, his thesis developed a cinematic urban tectonic study to discover the hidden thread fabricated by multiple pieces that all relate to the production of everyday urban space. In 2016, he graduated with an MA (distinction) in Urban Design and the 50th Anniversary Alumni Prize at the University of Sheffield and completed a BEng in Urban Planning at the Northwest University (China) with a First-Class Scholarship in 2014.