Eleni Katrini

Dr. Eleni Katrini is an architect and academic with expertise in strategic and participatory design, as well as research in urban commons and urban ecology.

She has approached the city through various guises, as an architect in Greece and the United States, conducting research and teaching at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Sheffield (UK), and recently through her participation in the local government of England. Between 2019 and 2021, as a Senior Regeneration Manager in the department of urban regeneration of the London Borough of Newham, Eleni was responsible for putting together strategic design plans for the local shopping centers.

The borough of Newham is one of London’s most multicultural municipalities, albeit with scarce resources. For several decades, the local shopping centers have not benefitted from any state funding or regeneration. The recent pandemic has further worsened their operation and their local businesses. In this context, Eleni has devised the Newham High Streets program, which aims to the creation of strategic plans, based on the data collection and the active participation of the residents and the local businesses.

In the framework of the program, the Newham Co-create online participatory platform was created and in October of 2021, the municipality managed to secure a government funding of up to 20 million pounds (Levelling Up Fund), to realize part of the early strategic plans. As of November 2021, Eleni has returned to Greece to start a new research program as a postdoctoral researcher and Marie Curie fellow at the School of Architecture of the National Technical University of Athens. The program is titled Places of Togetherness and research will focus on the issues of public space and social cohesion in the area of Nikaia, the Athens district she grew up.