Celebrating Two Decades of Innovation at Virginia Tech’s Center for Design Research 

For over two decades, the Center for Design Research (CDR) at Virginia Tech’s School of Architecture has been a beacon of innovation, creativity, and excellence in the fields of architecture, design, and technology. Directed by Robert Dunay, FAIA, Joe Wheeler, AIA, and Nathan King, with a vision to integrate cutting-edge research with practical application, the CDR has consistently pushed the boundaries of what is possible, earning recognition and acclaim on both national and international stages. 

It’s also been a beacon for the profession in the Commonwealth (and beyond) for converting curiosity into impact, a key generator of ideas for firms and a vital skill for students to learn, no matter which pathway they take to practice. 

“‘Experiential learning’ is about expanding what’s possible by refining and reformulating the studio, creating a context for both students and faculty to thrive,” says Dunay. “There’s a competitive side and there is a side to it that’s about troubleshooting under unpredictable circumstances, which is a team dynamic you’ll find in architectural practice. We teach everyone to think in alternatives.”

Let’s take a closer look at the impressive range of achievements that have marked the journey of the Center for Design Research.

Pioneering Solar Decathlon Success (2002-2018)

CDR’s journey began with the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon Competition. In 2002, the CDR’s entry, “The Art of Integration,” garnered the BP Award for Most Innovative House. This success set the stage for a string of victories, including a first-place win in the Architecture category at the 2005 Solar Decathlon with “No Compromise,” and CDR continued its winning streak, culminating in the first-place award at the International Solar Decathlon Competition in Madrid, Spain, in 2010, with the groundbreaking design of LumenHAUS and first place in the 2018 Middle East International Competition in Dubai, UAE.

Global Exhibitions and Collaborations (2003-2019)

Beyond competitions, CDR has showcased its work on prestigious platforms worldwide. Invitations to exhibit at renowned events such as the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York City, the Cologne Furniture Fair in Germany, and the Milan Furniture Fair in Italy underscore the international recognition of the Center’s contributions to design and technology. Notable exhibitions include “The Urban Garden: Innovative Building Skins, Industrialized Processes” in 2012, “F.A.B.R.I.C.A.T.I.O.N.: Technological Material Transformations” in 2015, and “Technology and Tradition: Explorations at the Intersection of High-Tech and High-Craft” in 2017.

Impactful Community Initiatives (2007-2015)

CDR’s commitment to social impact is evident in its involvement with projects like the Extreme Makeover/Home Addition in Blacksburg, Virginia, where the team designed a house and led hundreds of volunteers during construction in just six days. The Center’s reach extended globally with initiatives like the Portable Laboratory on Uncommon Ground (PLUG) in Tanzania, Africa, facilitating research on communicable diseases. The Mzuzu University Library in Malawi, designed with a team of graduate and undergraduate students, is now under construction. Working with MASS Design Group, CDR faculty and students helped with the development of the Gheskio Cholera Treatment Center in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and the African Design Centre in Kigali, Rwanda. Closer to home, the Eco-Park Learning Center Research Project in Prince William County, Virginia, showcased the CDR’s dedication to sustainable architecture and community engagement.

Recognition and Awards (2011-2018)

The Center’s contributions have not gone unnoticed, with prestigious awards and honors validating its innovative approach to design. The AIA National Honor Award for Architecture recognized LumenHAUS as one of the world’s nine best works of architecture in 2012. Further recognition came after the first-place win at the International Middle East Solar Decathlon when FutureHAUS was invited back to Dubai in 2020 to the World Exposition as the only representative from the U.S.

Forward into the Future (2019-2023)

As the Center for Design Research enters its third decade, it continues to push the boundaries of design innovation. Exhibitions in Times Square, New York City, and participation in world expos in Dubai underscore the Center’s ongoing commitment to showcasing its groundbreaking work on a global stage. A clinic designed by Virginia Tech students was recently constructed in Entebbe, Uganda, and has served thousands of patients in the community as the hub for distributive healthcare activities to rural villages in the area on Lake Victoria. Presently, the CDR is working with an NGO called Transcend Institute International to design a prototype academic and trade high school to help revive public education throughout Liberia. Collaborative initiatives like the series of workshops titled, “Democratizing Design Technology,” a grant to increase research collaboration with other universities, demonstrate the Center’s dedication to fostering interdisciplinary partnerships and advancing the field of design research.

CDR has carved out a legacy of innovation, excellence, and social impact over the past two decades. From pioneering solar-powered housing solutions to exhibiting at prestigious international events, and from a research outpost built by students in Blacksburg, and deployed in a remote research post in Tanzania to a robotic, 3D-printed NASA space habitat proposed for Mars, the CDR’s achievements reflect its unwavering commitment to pushing the boundaries of design and technology. As it looks to the future, the Center remains steadfast in its mission to drive positive change through collaborative research, visionary design, and sustainable practices, leaving an indelible mark on the world of architecture and design.

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What’s so radical about transparency? 

By William Richards

Last year, VMDO’s Michelle Amt, FAIA, wrote about the firm’s commitment to “radical transparency” on the road to 2030. She was reflecting on the prior year’s achievement: VMDO’s sixth time of reporting its project performance data to the AIA’s 2030 Design Data Exchange (DDx), whose results, she said, “contain victories and defeats that remain untold—untold because we are not even close to hitting our 2030 goals portfolio-wise.”

It seems potentially damaging to a business like VMDO to admit, “Hey, we’re not hitting our marks, even if we believe we’re doing the right thing.” But, Amt’s rationale was simple and compelling: let’s agree that the road to success is paved with failures, and if we can’t talk openly about those setbacks—and why they occurred—we won’t rise to the urgency of decarbonization. We won’t learn from each other if we keep secrets. 

Radical transparency isn’t anti-business, Amt contended. It’s actually pro-business development. 

In today’s architecture world, where performance data and the optics of practicing sustainably form a heady blend, firms that are serious about decarbonization must leverage both to differentiate themselves in a competitive market. The AIA and the U.S. Department of Energy launched DDx in December 2014 with 132 firms reporting project-level information about energy performance. Now it features a decade’s worth of data from 500 firms, which represents a potentially vital data set for the 2030 Commitment’s evolution. 

“The 2030 Commitment has spurred discussions about our role and responsibility when it comes to climate action, resilience, equity, and health [and] after three years of not seeing our firm-wide percent reduction number move significantly, we discussed whether we wanted to focus our business development efforts solely on clients who were already interested in or actively asking for climate action,” said Amt in 2023. “This made us look deeply at how we measure success and impact beyond the DDx.”

What’s so radical about transparency? Well, for one thing, it doesn’t just shine a quick light on data that was once considered, at the very least, uncouth for an employer to reveal about not hitting goals. In a company that practices radical transparency, advocates say it ensures everyone has the ability to shine that light. 

Once you consider net zero benchmarks and an earnest desire to hit them, it’s not too long before you consider the other dimensions of transparency that can push a firm forward.

That includes salaries, long the elephant in the room, but now more and more visible as the crucible of pay inequity between workers who do the same job, as well as between men and women who do the same job. Just Google “gender pay gap in architecture” and see what you come up with.

WPA’s Mel Price, FAIA (once the chair of the AIA Small Firm Exchange when she spoke about the principles of openness in an AIA National interview) has been a tireless advocate of transparency as evidenced by her Norfolk firm, co-founded in 2010 with Thom White, AIA—and an open-office plan pairs well with an open-books plan.

“Back then [in 2010], the economy was shaky and the recovery from the Great Recession was slow-going. It maybe wasn’t an ideal time to try something radical when it came to company finances, but in that moment of uncertainty it was critical to create a culture of trust,” says Price about WPA’s founding.

Today? The firm’s approach to openness appears to be both prescient and also sustainable. 

“The recent business climate hasn’t changed our approach to transparency at all and I really can’t imagine any economic situation that would,” she says. “I think the kind of trust between staff and management that true transparency creates is critical in the current moment as well. I can’t say if transparency is right for every firm all the time. But I do believe that if more firms tried, they would see what we have seen and they wouldn’t go back.”

Radical transparency in companies has been popularized in recent years as a function of equity—openness and visibility in organizational processes, decision-making, and communication. 

Advocates say, in the pro column, radical transparency fosters trust and accountability, and provides employees with a clear understanding of the company’s goals, strategies, and performance metrics. When employees feel informed and involved, they are reportedly more likely to take ownership of their work and hold themselves and their colleagues accountable for outcomes.

It also enhances communication. Transparent communication channels facilitate the exchange of ideas, feedback, and concerns among employees and leadership. By encouraging open dialogue, companies can identify and address issues promptly, leading to improved decision-making and problem-solving.

To Price’s point, it enhances learning and professional development, too. Transparency exposes employees to different aspects of the business, allowing them to gain insights into various functions and roles. This exposure fosters continuous learning and skill development, empowering employees to take on new challenges and expand their expertise.

On the cons side of the page, many observers see privacy concerns as the biggest entry. Radical transparency may infringe on individuals’ privacy, particularly when it involves sharing personal or sensitive information. Employees may feel uncomfortable with the level of exposure, leading to distrust of managers and bosses, and disengagement with the company whose Oz-like revelations are simply just too weird for most people because it’s such a different sort of experience to the vast majority of workplaces. 

It can also lead to misinterpretation of information. Transparent communication can sometimes backfire if not executed carefully. Employees may misinterpret information or jump to conclusions, leading to rumors, misunderstandings, and conflict. Effective communication strategies, such as providing context and clarification, are essential to mitigate this risk. If that weren’t enough, it can lead to the dissemination of information that puts companies at a disadvantage. n highly competitive industries, radical transparency may inadvertently reveal sensitive business strategies or proprietary information to competitors. While transparency promotes trust internally, companies must carefully balance transparency with the need to protect intellectual property and maintain a competitive edge.

Cons aside, at the heart of transparency is a propensity for sharing around the office, which extends beyond pay to more fully define collaboration for the benefit of the project teams. It’s the kind of “silo-buster” that organizations and companies strive, but often fail, to implement. 

For Price, that’s an attractive proposition for prospective employees. 

“Pay transparency has been an excellent recruitment tool. We have had many applicants who say they were attracted to WPA because of our open books policy and those who learn about it during the hiring process are intrigued,” she says—and it even extends to internal company outlooks about ownership. In 2020, WPA went from two owners to eight and, recently, upped that number to 13. 

“We found early on that our open books policy was resulting in an ownership mentality throughout the firm and it seemed only fair to reward that mentality with ownership,” says Price. “That ownership benefit is powerful and helps keep people invested for the long term.”

If you’re reading this and you are a firm owner or employee, what should you take away from WPA’s experience? 

Set salary aside for a second and focus first on the benefits of openness: When employees have access to diverse perspectives and data, they can generate creative solutions to complex problems and drive organizational progress. That holds for any firm across the Commonwealth or, really, anywhere. 

Companies known for their transparency and openness can be seen as desirable employers. Potential recruits are drawn to organizations where they feel valued, respected, and informed about the company’s direction and culture. Radical transparency, it stands to reason then, can help companies attract top talent and retain skilled employees.

Then consider salaries—not as an extreme version of transparency, but as a way to accelerate a real quality of equity within your firm. Once you do that, it’s hard to imagine why radical transparency is the exception and not the rule. 

“We don’t believe anyone in this industry should be underpaid,” says Price. “Firms that are transparent help build awareness around compensation in a way that makes it more likely that architects are being paid what they are worth.”

Page + Miller Hull’s gambit for Niger

The U.S. Embassy Campus in Niamey, Niger, was completed in 2022, mere months before the country’s president, Mahamed Bazoum, would be jailed by a military junta. It was one of seven recent coups d’état in the Sahel, a 2,300 square-mile region that includes ​​Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, as well as Niger, which is now nominally governed by Bazoum’s jailers, the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland—an organization that just this week called for America’s ouster from the country. Needless to say, there are a lot of eyes on the U.S.’s presence in the region focused in a physical sense on the 34,000 square-foot LEED Platinum embassy campus designed by Miller Hull with Page Southerland Page, and a 2023 AIA Virginia Award of Honor recipient. 

Page has lots of secure embassy work in its portfolio, too, working for more than three decades with the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations to design, maintain, upgrade, and preserve embassies and consulates in 100 countries. As you would expect, the campus includes state-of-the-art security features for its new chancery, recreation hall, and pool, and a residence hall addition for stationed Marines. The amenity-rich design for the American diplomatic corps, State Department employees, soldiers, and families, is also about bolstering infrastructure—not always the glitziest of pursuits, and yet the Miller Hull and Page teams elevated everyday architecture to be more than connective tissue—an entry pavilion for the adjacent American International School, a warehouse addition, a utility pavilion, and a service access pavilion. 

Case-in-point, the photovoltaic array—a 700 kilowatt solar energy farm that generates more than the campus’ needs. For comparison’s sake, a capacity of 700 mW is about the size of the “community-solar” operations you find in large rural towns like Bristol or Merrifield (both with populations just under 20,000. (The National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s “Sharing the Sun Community Solar Data Project” maintains a reasonably current list of community solar farms throughout the U.S., which you may search by production capacity, state, utility that services it, and other criteria.)

Miller Hull and Page rightly surmised that an arid climate with tons of sun is ideal for a photovoltaic array. It’s a practical move—to create a self-sustaining power grid that doesn’t rely on the local infrastructure—and it’s also a strategic one, as well—to demonstrate independent energy leadership in a 2,300 square-mile region amid Chinese, French, and Russian economic influences. 

The future is uncertain for Americans in NIger, however. In April, U.S. military officials announced it would withdraw 1,000 troops at its two bases. This month, the diplomatic corps continues to negotiate an agreement with junta leaders to leave behind some troops, and a CNN reported on May 10 that a delegation recently arrived to iron out the details. This embassy project’s function will be tested far quicker and more rigorously than anyone imagined as last-ditch diplomatic efforts unfold, and Miller Hull and Page’s work will surely take center stage in the process. 

Architecture Firm/Architect of Record: Page Southerland Page, Inc.
Design Architect: Miller Hull Partnership
Owner: U.S. Department of State
Contractor: BL Harbert International, LLC
Geotechnical Engineer: Schnabel Engineering
Civil Engineer: KPFF Consulting Engineers
MEP Engineer: Mason & Hanger
Structural Engineer: Ehlert Bryan Consulting Structural Engineers
Blast Engineer: Weidlinger Associates, Inc.
Photographers: Amber Renee Design and Kevin Scott

Q+A: Alex Shifflett on her first decade of practice

Architect Alex Shifflett, AIA, is an associate principal at KGD Architecture who says good design is not just good for communities, but great as a teaching tool for young designers hoping to make a difference. “I’m lucky enough to work on projects that matter because it suits the way I work and think,” she says. Inform recently spoke with Shifflett about her experiences over a decade of practice and what it means for the next generation of architects.

Inform: Did you think you’d be doing projects like the types of mixed-use, community-forward projects you work on now when you decided to be an architect?

Alex Shifflett: I’ve been at KGD since I graduated from school and, at that time, we were doing office buildings—then residential projects when the market changed, and then combined multi-use projects, which have become more prevalent in the industry. It’s something KGD does really well. Being responsive to the market and being diverse is a natural exposure for me at KGD. The pride I have in my projects and my firm—I feel so lucky. [KGD’s] Tom Donaghy, AIA, and I have been working on large, mixed-use projects centered around public private partnerships for over a decade. We are excited about these types of developments and would love to do more mixed-use projects locally or across the nation because of how impactful they are. It makes me feel good as an architect, and it makes the people that live and play there feel good as well.


Inform: How do you think about the scale of the difference you can make as an architect?

AS: For a long time, we’ve been a local firm, but we now have a lot of projects elsewhere—and being able to spread out has been awesome. The exposure has been great for me personally. I’ve lived here in this area my whole life, and this is what I know, but I’m enjoying thinking about how far we can go in terms of making a positive difference—townhomes in Arizona, hospitality in Colorado, and so on. I’m learning things every day. 

Inform: How should someone who is an emerging professional think about their opportunity now?

AS: Be present in your experiences—make the most of those opportunities, learn as much as you can on your own. You come out of school and you don’t know how to do anything, but being curious and interested is enough. You gain so much more knowledge by investigating things yourself than if you wait for answers. Right now, there’s a lot of multifamily going on—and so get into it. Find out what you can learn, and make a difference. Critical thinking is hugely important when so many firms are running thin and fees are tight, so you have to think of ways of being more efficient and productive, and it’s a creative process to think that way. We all ask the same questions when we graduate, and we all have to figure out the answers. Every day, I am still learning new things and doing research. That’s what an architect does. Learning never stops.

Inform: If I have recently graduated from school and I come to tour a project, what am I going to realize about it? 

AS: Specifically for the large mixed-use projects, one will notice the scale and the complexity of them. When you see how the structure works and all the pieces that we had to invent and design to fit all the required program into the building, the whole thing is like a Swiss watch. One thing I push for internally is to gain exposure and experience during construction. It’s my favorite stage of the process, because you can find out if your design is going to work. The general contractor and the owner have a different role during that time, and things become real for the architect—so giving junior staff exposure to that, for our firm, is important.

William Richards is a writer and editorial consultant based in Washington, D.C., whose books include 2022’s Together By Design: The Art and Architecture of Communal Living (Princeton Architectural Press).

Ted Flato: Exploring smarter, better, easier, cheaper at Design Forum XVI

What is the future of practical technologies that make design easier, as well as the future of how architecture is made? Can large language models (LLMs) transform materials specification for the better? For the greener? Does empathy differentiate humans from machines? Does it matter? How will future technologies change the studio culture of firms? What does craft mean these days, anyway? These and other questions are up for debate this year at Design Forum XVI (Apr. 5-6, in Richmond) under the banner of “[Un]Certainty: Reflections on Craft at the Cyber Frontier.” 

Ted Flato, FAIA, of Lake|Flato, the 2024 AIA Gold Medal recipients, has a few answers to those questions—and more. ”The topic of this year’s Design Forum is great,” he says, “and for me, it’s about making buildings, and the camaraderie that architecture and craft can create. Some of these speakers are great friends.” Here’s a preview of some of the things he’ll raise at Design Forum XVI. 

Inform: How do you frame technology and craft as mutually beneficial dimensions of design?

TF: Architecture is a technological field and it’s forever trying to leverage science to elevate what we do. For David Lake and I, that began when we worked at an architect’s office in San Antonio, and that’s where craft began for us. O’Neil Ford was the guy in Texas who, early on, established a brand of modernism rooted in regionalism. Our first projects as a firm, Lake Flato, were in the country—and we like to say that style took a back seat. We really had to focus on materials and what we call “ranch technology,” or building with fewer things and adapting to dramatic changes in weather. Remote locations meant you couldn’t afford to ignore local craft. 

Inform: How did that dual pursuit between regionalism and technology help you scale up as a firm?

TF: We were able to hone the science of what was intuitive environmentalism, and we became more purposeful about it—going deeper in our analyses, and we wanted our buildings to perform well. We’d always be asking about new opportunities—and building systems became a focus for us, too, as we established our firm. Now, today, for us—we’re still looking at systems like mass timber or prefabricated systems. 

Inform: What are you working on now with mass timber?

TF: One of the more recent mass timber projects we’ve done—and we’ve done them in hotels and office buildings and university buildings—but the latest one that was joyful for me, personally, was working on O’Neil Ford’s Trinity University. He did it in a modern method or style in the beginning because it was less expensive, and as the campus evolved—and it’s a kind of Louis Kahn modernism, as brick buildings—we renovated a couple of his original buildings, and added a new one to the campus. They were “lift-slab” rather than “tilt-wall” and it means you could free-up the corners, which was a wonderful opportunity for us. So, mass timber made the most amount of sense. 

Inform: How did working in that margin between technology and craft influence your residential portfolio? 

TF: Smarter, better, easier, cheaper—those were the things we’ve been trying to explore in our residential portfolio. We started something called the “porch house,” or projects in remote locations designed as a series of rooms, creating less conditioned indoor space and more opportunities to be outdoors, and we developed a prefabricated system that allowed us to do that—ordering some bedrooms and some living rooms and connecting them using these “porches.” 

Flato has a lot more to say, so don’t miss out! Join him and a blue-ribbon group of panelists including Billie Tsien, AIA, of Tod Willams Billie Tsien Architects; Rick Joy of Studio Rick Joy; and Dwayne Oyler, co-founder of Oyler Wu Collaborative at this year’s Design Forum XVI (Apr. 5-6) focused on “[Un]Certainty: Reflections on Craft at the Cyber Frontier” at the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU in Richmond. Register now

William Richards is a writer and editorial consultant based in Washington, D.C. From 2007 to 2011, he was the Editor-in-Chief of Inform Magazine. 

Op-Ed: CODE Charlottesville improves an unloved corner of Halprin’s masterpiece

The LEED Platinum Center of Developing Entrepreneurs, known as the CODE Building, opened in Charlottesville in 2022 to acclaim, both as a work of interdisciplinary design and as a sensitive intervention in the downtown pedestrian mall—sacred ground to be sure. Designed by EskewDumezRipple+ working with Charlottesville’s Wolf Ackerman, the CODE Building is a multi-use coworking, office, and retail complex that clocks-in at 215,000 square feet with a show-stopping public plaza designed by Gregg Bleam Landscape Architects. There is no shortage of metaphors to describe CODE’s role in the Lawrence Halprin-designed cityscape positioned, as it is, at the western end adjacent to the Omni Hotel—anchor, gateway, hub, and wedge all come to mind. But, it’s the design team’s responsiveness to a symbolic site and a higher bar for sustainability than most locales that set it apart. 

Halprin’s plan for the mall is legendary—the culmination of three years of public workshops titled “Take Part” and design iterations for the handful of blocks that defined the city’s original main street. Coming off the urban renewal years of the 1950s and 1960s that saw, among other bad ideas, the destruction of the nearby Vinegar Hill neighborhood, Charlottesville needed something for the win column to resuscitate its municipal core. Amid the pedestrian mall boom years between the 1950s and the 1980s, Halprin’s scheme that elevated the pedestrianization strategy to an art form. It’s also one of few in the country that have remained standing. As an economic gambit, the 1976 downtown mall eventually proved successful, and as a social experiment, it proved transformational. Later additions eked out another few blocks to create its current footprint. 

EskewDumezRipple+ and Wolf Ackerman’s contribution to that history is laudable. Replacing an old skating rink, the design team fought two related battles: one in massing and elevation between the dramatically shifting urban scales from Water Street to East Main, and one in plan to reimagine a rather unceremonious entrance to the mall between a skating rink and a hotel’s glass canyon wall. The new arrangement is finally the entrance the mall sorely needed, not because of a deficiency in Halprin’s plan, but because it had become underutilized for so long. Entering at Water Street behind the Federal Court Building, CODE steps down in height to bring us down to the pedestrian scale, offering an esplanade rather than an access road. If you’re headed the other direction and planning to exit the mall, CODE’s public plaza tucked underneath CODE invites us in—a fitting rejoinder to the mall, and also not a bad strategy if the point of the building is to entice workers and shoppers. 

Section courtesy EDR+ and Wolf Ackerman

The LEED Platinum project possesses all of the qualities you’d expect, from green roof terraces to decisions about site, orientation, and massing that drive down energy consumption to ventilation that doubles the usual flow of fresh air to water conservation and reuse systems. Operable windows and a 40 percent window-to-wall ratio also offer the optimal balance between light and energy efficiency. It’s part of the upper echelon of green buildings in and around Charlottesville that offer a test-bed for any number of strategies from Cradle to Cradle to mass timber to passive house. But, that’s all architecture nerd-speak. To the eyes of the mall dwellers in Charlottesville—somewhere between central casting for a Steely Dan song and central Virginia’s Horse & Hound set—CODE is a handsome building that appeals to the eye and seems, inarguably, just right. 

William Richards is a writer and editorial consultant based in Washington, D.C. From 2007 to 2011, he was the Editor-in-Chief of Inform Magazine. In 2005, he wrote “On Architecture,” a weekly column for Charlottesville’s free paper The Hook.

Traditional Building Conference focuses on Rotunda restoration, resilience

The Traditional Building Conference, now in its eighth year, rolls into Charlottesville on Mar. 26-27 with a blue-ribbon set of speakers covering a range of topics. Keynoter Nakita Reed, AIA, an associate at Quinn Evans Architects in Washington, DC, will talk about resilient regeneration at the intersection of the global climate crisis and social inequity. “Existing places harbor enormous value in the form of invested ideas, culture, material, and carbon,” she says, “and every project is an opportunity to understand and work on a unique combination of social and performance issues.”

John G. Waite, FAIA, and Clay S. Palazzo, AIA, will deliver a special talk entitled “Restoring Jefferson’s Rotunda,” covering the ins-and-outs of one of the most watched (and complicated) projects in recent memory, including the advanced conservation measures employed to bring it to fruition. The event also includes visits to area sites and projects including a tour of the new student chapel at the University of Virginia, led by presenters Ethan Anthony, AIA, and Matthew Alderman, both of Boston’s Cram and Ferguson Architects.

Interested? Register today.