AIA Continuing Education Credits

DACIT 022 || 2.5 LU|HSW

A Guided Tour of Duomo di Orvieto & the Orvieto Underground

Course Description:

Join APDesign’s experienced guides on a journey through Orvieto, Italy, learning about the Duomo di Orvieto and the Orvieto Underground.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this course, participants will be able to:

1. Describe the use of regionally specific materials from different periods of history at toured sites.
2. Compare preservation, rehabilitation and restoration efforts of Etruscan, medieval and Renaissance structures.
3. Identify the deployed materiality, use and rituals embedded in visited historical structures.
4. Study the relationship between the city’s urban fabric and the fragile tufa cliff, identifying how ancient excavation methods and modern stabilization efforts protect the safety and welfare of the public against landslides and seismic activity.

DACIT 035 || 1 LU|HSW

Tour of Via Stefano Porcari 33

Course Description:

Tour Via Stefano Porcari 33; complete a programming exercise aimed at determining facility compatibility with the needs of APDesign’s Italian Studies Program; and understand structure rehabilitation requirements of this unique structure.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this course, participants will be able to:

1. Summarize property damage as a result of time and earthquakes.
2. Identify necessary remediation steps required to secure the property’s historic structure.
3. Investigate the functional and historic preservation design objectives associated with adapting the existing facility to house an international study program.
4. Identify accessibility and life safety issues to be addressed during renovation.

DACIT 036 || 1.5 LU|HSW

Etruscan Architecture & Museography: The Faina Collection

Course Description:
An exploration of the Museo Claudio Faina brings Etruscan architecture to life through its collection and evaluate how these historical approaches inform contemporary standards for durability and human-centric design.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this course, participants will be able to:

1. Identify key Etruscan architectural elements and their relationship to environmental context and material performance.
2. Analyze how artifacts and reconstructions communicate spatial and construction strategies.
3. Evaluate the challenges of adaptive reuse by analyzing how a 19th-century residential palazzo accommodates the structural and environmental needs of an archaeological collection.
4. Relate historical architectural approaches to contemporary considerations of durability, safety, and user well-being.

DACIT 037 || 1 LU|HSW

Experience The Mancinelli Opera Theatre

Course Description:
An in-depth study of the Teatro Communle, rebuilt in 1853 by Vespignani.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this course, participants will be able to:

1. Identify the process deployed to obtain the excellent acoustics of the theatre.
2. Examine sightlines and stage configuration relative to performance types hosted in the theatre.
3. Compare the relationship and scale of prefunction and parlor spaces used before, after and during intermission.
4. Understand the importance of the theatre’s location and public face on the Corso Cavour.

DACIT 027 || 1 LU|HSW

Rehabilitation of an Italian Farm as a Modern Winery & Culinary Facility

Course Description:

Learn viticulture traditions since the Etruscan times and the sustainable practices used throughout the rehabilitation efforts of a meticulously renovated 19th century barn and renovated modern culinary facilities.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this course, participants will be able to:

1. Identify techniques deployed to insert a modern culinary preparation and services spaces within a villa rustica.
2. Describe land management techniques as it applies to modern viticulture including modern irrigation techniques.
3. Explain the adaptive reuse techniques used to transform a rustic 19th century barn as a center for viticulture and sustainability efforts deployed by Cantine Neri to reduce carbon emissions.
4. Understand preservation and constructional techniques of medieval and Etruscan cellars connected to the winery’s barn.

DACIT 025 || 2 LU|HSW

Inhabited Topography: Exploring the Architectural Significance of the Antorni Winery

Course Description:

This guided course and facility tour examines the architectural, cultural, and environmental significance of the Antinori Winery in Bargino, Tuscany, designed by Archea Associati. The winery is an exemplary case of how contemporary architecture can integrate seamlessly into a historic landscape, embody functional innovations in winemaking, and promote sustainability while elevating visitor experience. Through on-site exploration of its subterranean integration, material strategies, and spatial sequencing, participants will gain insight into how design can bridge industry, culture, and environment.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this course, participants will be able to:

1. Analyze how the Antinori Winery’s architectural design integrates with the Tuscan landscape and preserves cultural heritage.
2. Evaluate the use of local materials, thermal mass, and subterranean sitting in achieving sustainability and energy efficiency.
3. Explain how architectural form and circulation support the gravity-flow principle of winemaking and optimize industrial processes.
4. Discuss the role of architecture in creating a cultlural destination, balancing industrial utility with public engagement through spatial storytelling.

DACIT 028 || 2 LU|HSW

Guided Tour of the Basilica of Saint Francis and Walking Tour of Assisi

Course Description:

Tour the Basilica of Saint Francis, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and other significant sites in the City of Assisi.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this course, participants will be able to:

1. Identify the notable sectional site design elements of the vertically layered basilica.
2. Describe the complex and extensive effort to reinforce the structure of the building in response to past, and in anticipation of future, seismic activity.
3. Discuss the challenges encountered with the materials used in the creation of the basilica’s frescos and the structural reinforcement and microclimate control efforts implemented in preservation techniques.
4. Describe how Assisi represents a unique example of continuity of a city-sanctuary within its environmental setting and the incorporation of Roman structures in its public and religious spaces.

DACIT 029 || 2.5 LU|HSW

Layers of Resilience: Continuity and Contrast in Assisi

Course Description:

Assisi is a city of layers, where the spiritual and the structural are inextricably linked. This course explores the architectural dialogue between the ancient Roman foundation and the Franciscan monuments built upon it while analyzing how the city's Roman grid and Baroque shells were designed to protect the fragile and the sacred—balancing the vast scale of a global pilgrimage site with the intimate, human-centric spaces at its heart.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this course, participants will be able to:

1. Evaluate the Roman retaining structures beneath the Piazza del Comune to understand how ancient civil engineering manages soil pressure and hydrostatic loads to provide public Safety for the modern piazza.
2. Identify the thermal mass and ventilation strategies of the Roman underground areas, discussing their role in providing a "health-focused" stable interior environment compared to the external urban climate.
3. Examine the relationship between the Porziuncola and the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli.

DACIT 024 || 2.5 LU|HSW

The Architecture of Power & Preservation: Human Factors in the Medici Complex

Course Description:

A walking tour exploring the San Lorenzo complex-the Medici Chapels, the Basilica of San Lorenzo, and the Laurentian Library-through the lens of structural innovation, psychological well-being, and historic preservation while also examining the technical challenges of maintaining 15-centure masonry and modern life-safety requirements involved in managing high-volume cultural heritage sites.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this course, participants will be able to:

1. Identify how Michelangelo’s manipulation of classical orders in the New Sacristy and Laurentian Library creates "architectural tension," and discuss the impact of monumental scale on the emotional and cognitive well-being of visitors.
2. Examine the load-bearing masonry and dome construction of the Princes' Chapel to understand the evolution of structural stability and the seismic retrofitting required for long-term occupant safety.
3. Evaluate the use of clerestory lighting and material reflectivity in Brunelleschi’s and Michelangelo’s designs, focusing on how natural light optimization contributes to visual comfort and energy-efficient illumination in historic structures.
4. Discuss the challenges of integrating contemporary egress, accessibility (ADA-equivalent), and fire suppression systems into Grade-I listed Renaissance monuments without compromising historical integrity or public welfare.

DACIT 026 || 4 LU|HSW

Iconic Villas of Lazio

Course Description

A comparative analysis of renaissance Italian villas’ response to site, urban sequence and materiality; specifically, between Villa Farnese and Villa Lante.

Learning Objectives

At the end of this course, participants will be able to:

1. Describe the urban response and the manipulation of site deployed at each site, including the use of cryptoporticus in addressing hillside terrain.
2. Compare the urban sequence at each villa and the inter-dependencies of urban life and villa rituals.
3. Understand the role that each property plays as a part of the urban social sequence, and how the programmed activities, historic, and contemporary; interact with their adjacent municipalities.
4. Understand the employment of local materials and expression of form-spatial and building, as interpretations from classical precedent. Particular attention to the unreinforced cantilevered construction of the grand spiral stair Scala Regia at Villa Farnese. Also, Tommaso Ghinucci's hydraulic engineer designs for the hydraulics of Villa Lante.

DACIT 030 || 3.5 LU|HSW

Architecture as Urban Healing

Course Description:

Rome is a city of impossible constraints. This walking tour follows a path through the dense Roman core to see how Baroque masters solved urban density challenges using the timeless toolkit of geometry, infrastructure, and light.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this course, participants will be able to:

1. Evaluate Borromini’s use of complex geometry at San Carlino to create a sense of infinite movement within an impossibly small footprint.
2. Examine Bernini’s use of the ellipse at Sant’Andrea al Quirinale to redirect the occupant's gaze, understanding how architecture can be used as a tool for "storytelling."
3. Analyze the relationship between Piazza Navona, the Fountain of the Four Rivers, and Sant’Agnese to understand how public space is designed as an "interior" for the city.
4. Compare the light-filtering "nested domes" of Sant'Ignazio (and its famed trompe l'oeil) with the singular oculus of the Pantheon, evaluating the shift from structural honesty to visual illusion.

DACIT 034 || 1 LU|HSW

Tour of the Colosseum, the Ellipse of Power

Course Description:

Tour the world’s most famous amphitheater, the Colosseum. Explore the most iconic ancient Rome site and immerse yourself in the amazing architecture of the past.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this course, participants will be able to:

1. An early masterclass in standardization and off-site fabrication, participants will observe the use of consistent modules in a repeatable system to create efficiencies in construction.
2. Examine the vertical transition of materials—from heavy Travertine at the base to lightweight Tuff and Brick at the top—to understand how gravity loads were mitigated for seismic stability.
3. Evaluate the design of the 80 numbered entrances and the radial corridor system to understand how ancient architects achieved a safe egress for 50,000+ occupants.
4. Analyze the subterranean infrastructure focusing on the health and safety challenges of managing massive mechanical loads and animal/human waste in a confined subterranean space.

DACIT 032 || 2 LU|HSW

High-Performance Heritage: A Tour of the Vatican Museums

Course Description:

Amidst the vast opportunity to view world-renowned art history, an exploration of how the world’s most visited museum survives and breathes, offering timeless solutions for the structural resilience, occupant safety, and environmental health challenges we face in contemporary practice.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this course, participants will be able to:

1. Draw direct parallels between 16th-century architectural solutions and contemporary HSW standards.
2. Evaluate the masonry buttressing and tensioning techniques used to stabilize high-span vaults, applying these principles to modern historic preservation and seismic retrofitting.
3. Critique the use of indirect daylighting and high-albedo finishes in restricted urban sites to improve visual acuity, reduce glare, and enhance psychological well-being.
4. Identify the "Thermal Flywheel Effect" in thick masonry envelopes and explain how passive design reduces the need for mechanical HVAC while maintaining occupant comfort.

DACIT 033 || 5 LU|HSW

Ostia Antica and the Tiber: Architectural Insights into Rome’s Ancient Port City

Course Description:

Explore the architectural and urban legacy of Ostia Antica, Rome’s principal ancient port, and understand the critical role of the Tiber River in shaping commerce, infrastructure, and city planning. This tour will highlight Roman engineering innovations, construction techniques, and urban design principles that allowed Ostia to thrive; and experience the Tiber River though a cruise to gain a deeper understanding of Roman architectural strategies, urban planning, and material innovations, as well as modern conservation and restoration.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this course, participants will be able to:

1. Analyze the architectural typologies of Ostia Antica and their functions in Roman urban life.
2. Understand Roman construction techniques, including brickwork, concrete, and vaulted structures.
3. Evaluate the relationship between urban planning and riverine infrastructure in ancient Rome.

DACIT 031 | 1 LU || HSW

Design Intent & Structural Resilience in St. Peter’s Basilica

Course Description:

Tour the world-renowned St. Peter’s Basilica and partake in its offering of timeless lessons in balancing ambitious design intent with the professional duty to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the public.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this course, participants will be able to:

1. Evaluate the structural logic of the double-shell dome, understanding how Michelangelo’s aesthetic desire for a soaring profile necessitated innovative masonry "rib" engineering to manage lateral thrust.
2. Critique the floor plan and the Baldacchino’s placement not just as art, but as a "Navigation Anchor" that manages occupant flow and egress logistics in a high-occupancy assembly space.
3. Analyze Bernini’s elliptical colonnade as an "Urban Foyer," evaluating its role in managing the Safety and Welfare of mass crowds through controlled egress and sightlines.
4. Understand the 18th-century "forensic" intervention of Giovanni Poleni, who used mathematical modeling to save the dome—marking the historical transition where "Design Intent" became supported by "Calculated Safety."