Bianca-Maria Nardella
Lecturer (teaching) and Module coordinator for the MSc specialism on Planning for Historic Cities
Bianca-Maria Nardella is an architect, urbanist, researcher and educator with expertise in urban design and planning, advancing methodologies for reflective practice in urban conservation. She has over twenty years of international experience across academia and professional practice. She teaches urban design at the BSP since 2011 and currently leads the MSc specialism on Historic Cities, providing a critical and interdisciplinary perspective to equip students with both the intellectual and practical tools for a more complex, reflexive, urban design and planning practice, where cross-cultural understanding is key for both professional practice and research.
More about me
Bianca Maria’s academic experience includes research, teaching and administration at undergraduate and masters level (course design, teaching and coordination, policy analysis research) for British and American universities (UCL, MIT, RWU). Her professional practice focuses on historic cities transformation, urban design and cultural heritage conservation projects aimed to valorise the built fabric and sustain the quality of life of local communities. As international consultant, she worked as project manager and field expert in 'heritage and sustainable development’ projects funded by the World Bank, EuropeAid and the Inter-American Development Bank (tendering, projects design, implementation and reporting).
Bianca Maria’s doctoral research at the Bartlett Development Planning Unit (UCL) is framed as a case of reflective practice to investigate the pitfalls of international policy narratives joining public spaces, urban rehabilitation and socio-economic development in the postcolonial context of the historic city of Tunis. She’s educated in Italy, the USA and UK, has travelled the world and speaks English, Italian, French and Spanish.
Research Focus and Interests - urban design and ethnography of public spaces (specialism on Muslim communities around the Mediterranean); reflective practice in urban design and conservation: methodologies and approaches; urban conservation planning: theory, practice and pedagogy; urban heritage conservation in sustainable development (practice and interpretive policy analysis); urban history and morphology.
Profiles
From - Italy
Favourite Place - Rome, Italy
FUN FACT: If you were stranded on a desert island and you could only bring 3 things, what would they be?
Pen and paper to meditate, music to be transported elsewhere, and a Swiss knife as it could be handy!
