Legacy of Cultural Exchange

Due to public health concerns, The Civita Institute is rescheduling our Continuing Education Seminars that were scheduled to take place in Seattle prior to our Annual 2020 Legacy of Cultural Exchange from March 21 to a future date to be announced.

We will be in direct contact with everyone who has pre-purchased tickets. We regret any inconvenience this may cause, and we appreciate your understanding. We look forward to seeing you all at our rescheduled Legacy event at a date to be announced soon. If you have any questions, please email us at info@civitainstitute.org

2020 Continuing Education Seminars: 
The following Continuing Education Seminars will be presented in the afternoon (11:30 am–5:00 pm) prior to our evening 2020 Annual Fundraiser. CE Sessions will be held at the at the Seattle offices of the DLR Group located at 51 University St, #600, in Seattle. Approved seminars will display the AIA logo and note the type of Learning Unit to be earned. All Italophiles and designers will enjoy learning with this year's fantastic array of presenters. 

Afterward, we invite you to join us at our evening Annual Fundraiser celebrating a Legacy of Cultural Exchange. Read more here about the evening event. 

11:30 am–12:30 pm

Bill LaPatra, AIA

Sensitive Modern Design for a Historic Neighborhood: A Case Study—

The Weyerhaeuser Building 

Pioneer Square, Seattle’s Nationally Landmarked neighborhood, has a number of empty sites that are open development. As pressure grows within Seattle to create more space for working and living, there is pressure within neighborhoods, like Pioneer Square, to develop and grow. Additionally, Pioneer Square is in need of some economic stimulus to create diversity and vitality. How can this new building and new tenants help enliven the neighborhood, Occidental Park and be a catalyst for additional development? The design challenge was how to fill an empty prominent site adjacent to Occidental Park, considered the heart of the district, with a new mixed-use development.
 
12:40–1:40 pm

Laura Bartunek

Thirteen Stories I Cities of Civita Di Bagnoregio

"It is not the voice that commands the story, it is the ear"—words spoken by the narrator Marco Polo in the tale Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. How do our desires influence how we perceive place? Can impression and anecdote better describe reality, or do we rely—place more value on—a site’s physical constraints?

This talk will examine two worlds: the world as described by Marco Polo for the Emperor’s ear and the world of Civita di Bagnoregio. Through the lens of Invisible Cities we will study the town of Civita as a collection of nonsensical realities depicting a different understanding of place. Our goal will be to look inside the tale of Invisible Cities and examine how our narrators, Marco Polo and the Emperor Kublai Khan, reconstruct the concept of city. This talk will be a collection of visual stories that explore how we illustrate the things unseen—stories demanded by my own ear as a means of understanding this seemingly simple town.
Download PDF with Presenter Bio and Learning Objectives

2:15–2:45 pm

Jean Hicks

Textiles, Cats and Dyes: Civita Institute Fellowship 2019

Jean’s Civita Institute Fellowship pursued an area of interest that has been intertwined for many years and through many types of engagement into her creative work as a milliner, felt-maker, and educator. She will delight us with the tactile results of her study into native dyes and share her explorations into: Tuscan textile history; fiber trail; dyeing in Civita; and cats of Civita.
Download full PDF with Presenter Bio and Learning Objectives
 

2:50–3:50 pm

Taehyung Kim

Haptic Reading of Civita

In this presentation, Taehyung Kim considers how we can intimately experience the built environment. Through explorative research based on the medieval city of Civita Bagnoregio, he investigates the human relationship to spatial conditions as it relates to our body. Drawings and exercises integrate a wide range of ideas from neuroscience to dance, to suggest haptic engagement as a tool to increase our spatial awareness, and a method to strengthen spatial memory. We will take a look at how lived-experience can be incorporated as empirical data in the site contextual analysis and its potential to discover design opportunities, and push the design beyond the ocular-centric observations.
Download PDF with Presenter Bio and Learning Objectives
 

4:00–5:00 pm

Stephen Day, AIA

Synergisms: Historic Buildings, New Architecture, and Connections Across Time

How can modern design and historic architecture complement and give meaning to one another? How can new architecture not only acknowledge its historic context but go beyond that to reveal the underlying principles in both old and new design? In the best examples, architects have created a meaningful dialogue between past and present, illuminating connections acrostime. Historic architecture can be seen as a resource, as a cultural “found object” that can be mined for meaning. Engaging with, adding to, and re-defining existing buildings is one of the most effective tools in creating a more sustainable built environment.

This session includes a summary of the evolution of design attitudes towards historical architecture and preservation over the past 200 years, an overview of the National Register and opportunities to use historic tax credits in restoration, and a selection of design principles to consider when approaching these modern interventions in historic contexts.
Download PDF with Presenter Bio and Learning Objectives