GMD New Staff Profile

Introducing Umi Lovecraft, who has recently joined GMD as a Lecturer in Responsible Design.

I’m a maker, activist, architecturally trained designer with specialist design expertise in community and planetary centred design. Through pedagogy and practice I’ve discovered that my highest purpose lies in co-creation, particularly as a means to develop radically inclusive design :). Part of my mission with this is to decolonise and diversify design industries and education in the process. In practice, this happens through insider-outsider, the studio I founded focusing on working with marginalised communities and through decosm, the decolonial city-making research and design collective I co-founded with Neba Sere in 2020. We exist to be part of building a world we actually want to live in, creating inclusive spaces that serve, inspire and support the marginalised, the excluded, and the often unrepresented ecological systems essential for sustaining people and the planet.

I have more than 13 years experience working in design industries and education. Since 2020 I have served as a Design Council Expert for the UK’s national strategic advisor specifically surrounding community led design and place shaping. I’ve recently joined as a Lecturer in Responsible Design at London College of Communication teaching across undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. Prior to this, I’ve taught and lectured at MIT, Central Saint Martins, Goldsmiths University, the Royal College of Art, Sheffield University, Teesside University and various other institutions.

My academic journey has been enriched by interdisciplinary approaches ranging from Fine Art to Architecture: I hold an undergraduate degree in Fine Art from the Slade UCL, Masters in Architecture (ARB/RIBA Part 2) from the Royal College of Art  and ARB/RIBA Part 3 from the Architectural Association. I’ve previously held design roles at RIBA Stirling Prize award-winning design practice de Rijke Morgan Marsh Architects (dRMM), the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design (HHCD), and Public Practice.

I’m very excited to meet you all and hopefully co-create something together!”

www.insider-outsider.io
www.decosm.world
https://www.designcouncil.org.uk