1) Conservation & Adaptive Reuse

Eugen Vaida is an architect at Asociatia Monumentum, which has been a member organisation of Europa Nostra since 2019. He is a graduate of the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Architecture and Urban Planning „Ion Mincu”, in Bucharest. Among his many projects, Eugen coordinated the Daia Heritage Valorization Plan, developed by the Global Heritage Fund in 2017-2018, and is currently coordinating The Ambulance for Monuments project, which won an Award and the Public Choice Award at the European Heritage Awards / Europa Nostra Awards 2020. He had a defining role in the development of the summer school movement in Romania which has its key
mission in educating young architects and students. He is a Member of the Advisory Group for the European Commission on heritage policies, the Founding member and president of The Federation for Transylvanian Heritage and advisor for the Romanian Ministry for Culture and National Identity. Eugen Vaida published numerous literary works on cultural heritage, including “Saving the culture of the other” (Alţîna, 2021) and “The Architectural Guidebook For Contextual Planning in the Saxon Area” of the Order of Romanian Architects (RURAL Working Group). Eugen Vaida became an Ashoka Fellow in November 2021, benefitting from a lifetime bursary to continue his work in the field of heritage from the world’s leading social entrepreneurship organisation. For it’s dedicated efforts in the education of the public of all generation, Asociatia Monumentum, lead by Eugen Vaida, was knighted by The Romanian Presidency in 2021.

Klimis Aslanidis studied architecture at the National Technical University of Athens (1998) and specialised in architectural conservation, obtaining the title of MA in Conservation Studies at the University of York (2000). His PhD thesis, submitted at the University of Patras and published by the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, examines the evolution of Byzantine architecture on the island of Naxos. He has participated in the design and supervision of numerous conservation projects for ancient, medieval and modern monuments in Greece, including churches, among which are the Athens Cathedral, monasteries, castles and houses. He has also worked for several years at the conservation
works of the Greek Ministry of Culture on the southern slope of the Acropolis, where he was mainly responsible for the restoration of the auditorium of the ancient theatre of Dionysos. He is currently Assistant Professor at the School of Architecture of the Technical University of Crete. His research and teaching focuses on architectural design and the conservation of historic buildings and sites. As a member of the Laboratory for the Documentation and Conservation of Historic Buildings and Sites, he participates in conservation projects throughout Greece and he is co-editor of the periodical “Notebooks of Architectural Conservation”. Klimis Aslanidis is a member of the Council for Architectural Heritage of Elliniki Etairia, the country representation of Europa Nostra in Greece.

Yonca ERKAN is a professor of Built Heritage at University of Antwerp since 2022. She is the UNESCO Chair on the Management and Promotion of World Heritage Sites: New Media and Community Involvement (since 2015) at the Kadir Has University, Istanbul. In 2018, she worked as senior consultant at the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, as the HUL/World Heritage Cities Programme Coordinator. Currently, she is coordinating the EU research project within the Horizon2020 Marie-Sklodowska Curie – RISE Program titled “Sustainable Management of Industrial Heritage as a Resource for Urban Development” (2021-2025). Yonca Erkan also coordinates a funded project titled “In the context of urban-rural continuity, Web-GIS based Integrated Site Management Model for historic cities: The Case of İznik” (2021-2024). She received her PhD Degree in Architectural Conservation from Istanbul Technical University (2007), Master of Science Degree in Architecture Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1998), Master in Architectural Conservation, Yıldız Technical University (1996) where she also got her Bachelors Degree (1993).

Architect from the Polytechnic School of Madrid since 1974. Expert in vernacular architecture and construction systems. For more than 45 years she has managed 2 proprietary studios and has developed more than 1,500 projects for private clients. A very important part of his professional development has been in the field of architectural restoration and rehabilitation, especially in civil architecture. 1991/1994 Architect responsible for the EU LEADER I Program of Portodemouros (Spain) – A depressed rural and agrarian territory is recovered through the recovery and enhancement of vernacular architecture 1991/1994 Projects and works of the Rio Lor Association with European funds in the Caurel region (Lugo) A depressed rural and agrarian territory is recovered through the recovery and enhancement of vernacular architecture.
Life member of Europa Nostra since 2001. 2002 Europa Nostra Award Torre do Monte MANOR (Padron/ Spain) Prolific critical columnist on architecture and built heritage. Lectures on vernacular architecture.
From 2003/2009 she restored in Santiago de Compostela, with her own family funds, the biggest paper factory of Galicia dated from 1792. Since 2009 The industrial building has been converted into one of the best hotels in Spain and is part of the Relais & Chateaux Network. It has created more than 50 permanent jobs and A Quinta da Auga is a benchmark for its meticulous and careful rehabilitation.

Architect born in Mostar 30th April 1975.

She is a founder and curator of ADA, Center for Architecture, Dialogue and Arts in Mostar. She studied in Morocco (Rabat), Sarajevo and Denmark (Horsens) and she holds MA and MSc from the Faculty of Architecture at the Sarajevo University.
Senada is PhD candidate at the same University with the thesis „Urban reconstruction in continuity“.

She has worked in the post war reconstruction and rehabilitation of the Mostar historic city core. From 2000 until 2004 she worked within Foundation of Aga Khan Trust for Culture (Office in Mostar) and City Institute for protection of
cultural heritage.

Currently she works as Senior Adviser within Urban Planning Department of the City of Mostar. She speaks English, French, Italian and Spanish.

Adam is Care of Churches Team Leader at the Diocese of Gloucester, UK. He is passionate about conservation management, building conservation and adaptive reuse of historic buildings. He holds a BA in History of Art with Material Studies, and an MA in Principles of Conservation, both from UCL. Adam is a Fellow of the International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (IIC) and a full member of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation (IHBC).

Since studying ethnology, her work has been focused on cultural heritage. Her master at Ethnology was based on an internship in World Heritage Center, UNESCO, in Paris. She wrote about the criteria for world heritage. Following her master’s degree, she worked as a consultant at UNESCO. After UNESCO, she worked in Europa Nostra at the Secretariat in The Hague.
Following Europa Nostra, she led communication for the Danish Royal Household – an example of living cultural heritage. Since 2008 her focus has been the role of museums in protecting and raising awareness of cultural heritage, first at the Danish National Agency for Culture and currently as Head of Collections of the National Museum of Denmark. A key focus is classification, repatriation and sharing the cultural heritage – through loans or digitalization. She grew up on a farm, is married, and has two sons.

Michiel Purmer studied Human Geography, specialising in Historical Geography at Utrecht University. In 2000, he began working for Natuurmonumenten, a Dutch NGO that manages more than 100.000 HA of nature reserves, including a broad array of cultural heritage: archaeology, country estates, historical buildings and cultural landscapes. As senior heritage specialist he is an advisor on cultural heritage for this society in the field of landscapes, archaeology and parks and gardens. Michiel Purmer also represents Natuurmonumenten in the broad field of cultural heritage in The Netherlands, working, for example, with other nature conservation organisations, the Dutch Heritage Agency and universities.
Michiel Purmer defended his PhD thesis at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in 2018. The thesis, entitled Het landschap bewaard (The landscape preserved), studied Natuurmonumenten as an heritage organization, with focus on historical cultural landscapes in historical perspective.
Michiel Purmer guest lectures at universities and previously held a position at Groningen University. He regularly publishes on heritage and landscape, but also on other fields of interest like numismatic and clay pipes.
He is member of the National Consultation Panel on Heritage of the Netherlands, member of the Committee Landscape History of the Limburgs Geschiedkundig en Oudheidkundig Genootschap (LGOG), board member of the Dutch Network Historic Cultural Landscape (Netwerk Historisch Cultuurlandschap), chair of the Numismatic Study Group of the Amsterdam Museum.

Architect (IUAV) PhD in Conservation of Architectural Heritage (Milan Polytechnic), he was for a long time an official architect at the ABAP Superintendency for the Municipality of Venice and its Lagoon, where he took on various coordination roles, such as that for the UNESCO site “Venice and its Lagoon” and was in charge of the restoration of important public buildings in Venice like Marciana National Library, Gallerie dell’Accademia, the Jesuit Church and the bell towers of Venice.

Since 2021 he has been RTD B researcher at IUAV in Venice and now he is assistant professor in Architectural Restoration. He carries out teaching activities at IUAV and at the Cà Foscari University of Venice. He carries out study and research activities on historical buildings in Venice, Cultural Heritage and climate change. He has participated in international conferences and is the author of several scientific publications. He sits on numerous scientific committees of journals and is a member of associations dealing with Cultural Heritage, such as Green Building Council Italia and ICOMOS Italia.

She has been working as an architect 40 years, running her own studio since 1997 and been teaching at different universities since 1999 with a professor’s post from 2006. She has been working internationally as well, for almost 10 years in Bosnia Herzegovina with restoration of war-damaged monuments and with the establishment of The Commission to Preserve National Monuments, as stipulated in the Dayton Peace Agreement.
At the moment, she is teaching both at Dalarna University where she also participates in some applied research projects, as well as at Chalmers University in Gothenburg. Otherwise she runs her architect’s studio where she has mainly been occupied with restoration projects of listed buildings, state monuments such as Örebr castle and all buildings on Skeppsholmen, the island in front of the Royal Palace in Stockholm.