public interventions is an interdisciplinary, collaborative critical design practice exploring the social, cultural and political dimensions of urban space through participatory spatial interventions.

Catalina Pollak Williamson PhD

I am an urban researcher, architect and academic, and the founder of Public Interventions. My research explores the relationship between play, participation and democracy, questioning established power relations and experimenting with more democratic ways of experiencing and shaping cities.

Through Public Interventions, I develop collaborative projects with communities, institutions and local organisations that explore these questions in practice. Central to this work is an understanding of participation as civic learning: a process through which knowledge co-production, creative engagement and collective experimentation create opportunities for people to question existing conditions and build collective agency to shape their environments.

I am also the founder of Civic LAB, a not-for-profit civic design-research lab and consultancy focused on developing tools and methods for situated knowledge co-production, connecting community knowledge with urban planning and public decision-making. Through Cartogrammm, a digital participatory mapping platform, this work explores how everyday experiences of place can be documented, collectively interpreted and mobilised as civic evidence.

I am a Senior Lecturer at the School of Architecture, University of East London, where I bring these critical and experimental perspectives into teaching, encouraging students to engage with the social and political dimensions of design.

Publications:

· Pollak Williamson C (2026) Prefiguring the City of Care: On Radical Play as a Situated Urban Practice. Special Edition Urban Imaginaries and Urban Futures. Urban Studies Journal (SAGE). https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980261460621

· Pollak Williamson C (2027) Spaces of Participation, Playgrounds for Democracy. The February Journal.

· Pollak Williamson C (2025) Radical Play: Participatory Tactics and Pedagogies for Urban Transformation. PhD. University College London.

· Pollak Williamson C (2023) Migrating Proverbs: A Cross-disciplinary Approach to Cultural Integration. In Settlements and Displacement in Turkey, Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781003365686-8

· Pollak Williamson C (2022) ‘Fountain’, from Public Necessity to Modern Inconvenience: Contesting the Death of Public Toilets. Urban Studies (SAGE). DOI: 10.1177/0042098021994705

· Pollak Williamson C (2021) ‘Things We Hold Dear’: Mapping Immaterial Value in Urban Regeneration. Airea, 3(3). DOI: 10.2218/airea.5616

· Pollak Williamson C (2015) Outsider: Public Art and the Politics of the English Garden Square. Common-Editions. ISBN: 978-0993156335