As the organizers of the Geo Promotion Conference, we are thrilled to announce that this year’s event will be held at Martiniplaza, the biggest event location in the northern Netherlands. With all amenities in-house, Martiniplaza is the perfect venue for the Geo Promotion Conference, offering multiple workshop rooms, a plenary hall, and a comfortable atmosphere.

PROF. DR. IR. TERRY VAN DIJK

Terry van Dijk (1975) is an Associate professor at the University of Groningen Faculty of Spatial sciences. Terry is mainly involved in teaching courses with a heavy emphasis on design. His main curiosity is how interactive design and visionary thinking can be a platform for a more engaged, better informed way of decision-making and high quality urban spaces than deliberation by words alone.
During his time as a Post Doc at Wageningen University, Van Dijk became a coordinator and senior researcher for an NWO-funded research programme “Re-inventing Landscape Planning in MetroLand”. This interdisciplinary research programme resulted in many publications on open space planning, in particular the edited volume “Regional Planning of Open Space” published by Routledge, London.
His extensive portfolio has led Van Dijk to become a well-rounded scholar with international experience in planning practice. Moreover, this year, Geo Promotion is collaborating with professor Terry van Dijk for Design Challenge! – a multi-day project where students from the university of Groningen work in teams to tackle a real-life spatial dilemma through design solutions.

PROF. DR. IR. HENNES DE RIDDER

Hennes de Ridder is a former professor emeritus Integral Design at the TU Delft university and has decades of experience in the work field as a project manager and researcher at international firms. Hennes de Ridder is specialised in sustainable buildings and building development.

His talk will discuss the evolutionary process that is required in order to tackle the housing crisis and to combine it with smart green infrastructure. What will this process look like? Join the talk during the Geo Promotion conference to learn more!

FRANCIEN VAN SOEST

Francien van Soest is specialised in spatial quality and landscapes: as a former professor at the faculty of spatial sciences, she has now put her knowledge to use as a leading architecture and landscape expert at the province of Groningen. She is in charge of a team of spatial designers that advise the province on large spatial issues.

The pressure on the different land uses is one of the biggest challenges for the regional government of the province of Groningen. Francien will discuss how the province deals with the pressure of different functions on the land use and how the province creates plans. She will further dive into her expertise and explain how they foster spatial quality and nature inclusive solutions in their projects.

IR. (MSC) NANCO DOLMAN

Nanco Dolman is a lead expert in Water Resilient Cities at Deltares, the Netherlands, with wide experience in integrated (urban) water and spatial development projects. Nanco has worked in various water and adaptation strategies for delta cities in Thailand, the Netherlands, USA, Bangladesh and China.

Dolman has also been involved in several international ‘blue-green cities’ research studies, as an applied researcher and field expert, such as the EU Interreg NSR – CATCH project (2017–2022): ‘water sensitive Cities: the Answer To Challenges of extreme weather events’. From 2021 Nanco takes part in Redesigning Deltas (RDD): a research-by-design study which aims for a new Dutch condition in Delta Urbanism. One of the RDD designs is Rotterdam Sponge Water City 2100. Since 2020, Nanco has been a member of the editorial team for IWA’s Journal of Water and Climate Change.

On March 7th, Nanco will dive into the topic of Water-Sensitive and Sponge City concepts. He will cover the topic of the day from the ‘smart green-blue infrastructure’ perspective.