Building on its successful continuing education course on stone materials for architects — the eighth edition of which will be held in Verona, Italy, in early October during the Marmomacc stone exhibition — Veronafiere is launching an online version
Building on its successful continuing education course on stone materials for architects — the eighth edition of which will be held in Verona, Italy, in early October during the Marmomacc stone exhibition — Veronafiere is launching an online version of its course. This first segment, “An Introduction to Sourcing Dimensional Stone: The Example of Verona, Italy, as a Materials and Processing Center,” provides architects with basic information required to play an active role in stone selection for a project.

The free course is hosted by AEC Daily, Veronafiere’s partner in this online venture. The course provides one Learning Unit for American Institute of Architects (AIA) Continuing Education and state credit, which also qualifies as an HSW credit. To learn how to take the course, architects can visit: http://www.aecdaily.com/sponsor/veronafiere.

“Given the increasing importance of distance learning for continuing education, we have decided to put an introduction to our course online,” said Janina Mathiasz, head of Veronafiere’s Foreign Department. “We hope that this course will expose a greater number of architects to the basics of stone selection and spur them to come to Verona to take the full course and visit Marmomacc, the world’s best source for stone materials.”

As Tom Leib of Arrowstreet Architects in Somerville, MA, commented after participating in last year’s intensive four-day course in Verona: “Total immersion works. Even though I’ve worked with stone importers in the U.S., I learned much new information about how the industry relates to architecture.”

Veronafiere, one of Italy’s leading trade fair companies, is an AIA CES provider and member of the Marble Institute of America. Only 15 U.S. architects are accepted each year for its course, which was recently recognized as a “Best Practices and Trends” program by the AIA. Architects compete for scholarships that cover tuition, meals, hotel accommodations and local transportation. Each participant is responsible for their own transportation between the U.S. and Verona as well as a small administrative fee.

The course, co-sponsored by Stone World and recognized by the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada and the Royal Institute of British Architecture, will be offered again during the next Marmomacc, which will be held from October 5 to 8, 2006. More information can be obtained by contacting the U.S. coordinator, Julie Buss at jbuss@cig-dc.com.