Henk Hartzema was the first professor of Design in Urbanism at the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture in 2009 and 2010. In this context, the international research “StreetWorks - pattern in urbanity” was started. Since the basis of the road is always and everywhere the same, a linear space with two walls, a beginning and an end, is ideal for study.
No road seems to be the same. Vary the width, how the street begins and ends, and how buildings are placed on the street. The street functions as a means for students to think about context in their project. Together with students of architecture, urban planning and landscape architecture and their teachers at the Academy, he studied the function of the street in the European cities of Amsterdam, Brussels, Edinburgh, Helsinki, Porto and Zagreb.
The focus of StreetWorks was on the constraining function of the city street: the study of linear space, orientation within the city and environment, and the role of architecture within this urban context. The research focused on understanding the stratified urban reality of the street – meaning, history, functions and perception – shifting attention to the traditions and ideological visions of other parts of Europe.
