This four-week summer program will be based in Civita di Bagnoregio, an Italian hill town settled during
Etruscan times and continuously inhabited for over 2,500 years. The program will focus on Civita’s urban
history and the preservation, architectural conservation and stabilization challenges faced by the town and
other hill towns in the region, ranging from geotechnical instability and natural erosion to changes in their
social and economic infrastructure which have exacerbated the loss of their historic fabric and the
abandonment of their traditional way of life. The program will include visits to hill towns in Lazio,
Tuscany, and Umbria, as well as to a materials testing laboratory in Rome. The students will have
individual assignments and a group final project.