Rita Lambert is a teaching fellow at the Development Planning Unit, UCL, where she is primarily engaged in the planning and delivery of the practice module of the MSc in Environment and Sustainable Development. She is also a researcher on the DPU project ‘The Heuristics of mapping urban environmental change’ (http://www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/dpu/portlets/dpu/mapping-environmental-change). Originally from Ethiopia, she undertook her university studies in Edinburgh and London. She graduated from the Architectural Association in London, where she later taught for 4 years in the final years of the Diploma in Architecture.  In 2009, she studied in the MSc in Environment and Sustainable Development, at the Development Planning Unit , UCL.Prior to joining the Development Planning Unit, Rita has worked as an architect for 8 years for several leading international firms in New York and in the UK. During that period she was involved on a number of large scale regeneration projects,as well as several public and private buildings. She has also acted as a consultant, for a number of non profit organisations on the planning and delivery of development projects in Ethiopia and Zimbabwe. Her particular interest lies in mapping, as a tool which can be adopted by ordinary citizens to navigate institutional barriers and expand the room for manoeuvre towards environmentally just urbanisation.