Luca Bertolini

This postdoctoral project at the University of Amsterdam focuses on how conflicts around street transformation can be turned into opportunities for more inclusive public spaces. The work is embedded in the European TURNIPS project, which studies how political, social, economic, and ecological tensions around changing city streets can be translated into negotiation, co-creation, and more just urban environments. The researcher will contribute to the development and testing of agonistic street experiments : temporary street arrangements designed to bring different views of the street into direct contact and discussion. The project uses interdisciplinary, comparative, and participatory approaches and combines qualitative and quantitative methods with computational tools and practical experimentation in the public realm. Amsterdam and Haarlem are the main test locations within a wider set of Urban Living Labs across Europe. The postdoc will work closely with Luca Bertolini and Marco te Brömmelstroet and will be based in the Urban Planning research group within the Department of Geography, Planning and International Development Studies (GPIO). The role is also connected to the Amsterdam Institute of Social Science Research (AISSR) and the Centre for Urban Studies (CUS), placing the researcher in a strong interdisciplinary environment with international collaborators and policy partners. Day-to-day work includes mapping the state of the art on mobility transitions, street transformations, participation, and contestation; designing, running, monitoring, and evaluating street experiments with municipalities; helping organise consortium meetings and workshops; and contributing to publications, policy outputs, and public-facing events. The project offers a research setting focused on urban justice, mobility change, and the contested making of public space.