A Wrap-up of Our March 2025 Conference in St. Augustine, FL
The Traditional Building Conference Series 2025 kicked off with its first of three yearly events in Historic St Augustine, Florida, March 25-26.
Architects, custom builders, general contractors, restoration/renovation specialists, building artisans, craftspeople and building owners came from across the U.S. to historic St Augustine for two-days of education, architectural tours and networking for the Traditional Building Conference at the Casa Monica hotel.
St. Augustine proved to be the perfect living laboratory for learning, with architecture and materials that span four centuries, including Spanish, English, French and American. From the Colonial to Gilded Age, the ‘oldest city in America’ has multiple layers of history and building methodology to explore.
Explore indeed! After spending the mornings in the classroom, conference attendees had a choice of architecture walking tours including the Flagler College campus, a Spanish Renaissance, National Historic Landmark, built originally as a hotel in 1888; the Governor’s mansion with a discussion of its coquina building material; Castillo de San Marcos built to defend the city by the Spaniards 1672-1695; the Oldest House built between 1720-1760 and adapted later by both the English and the French; a “Layers of History” architectural history tour of the village and a Plein Air Sketch tour of St Augustine’s most significant traditional buildings.
Both the tours and morning seminars delivered AIA Continuing Education Credits, twelve in all, over two days including several HSWs. CEUs for contractors were available too. Classroom sessions covered topics ranging from climate resilience to classical design, the adaptive use of an old mill building; fenestration design and specification and how artisan clay roof tile is made.
Traditional Building Conference speakers were an all-star cast of experts and practitioners: urban planners and preservationists Steve Mouzon NCARB and Jenny Wolfe, AICP; classicist and architects Richard Sammons, MA, Cliff Duch, AIA and Nick Henninger, AIA; materials and methods experts Linda Stevenson PHD, AIA, Russ Oliveri, Laurie Wilson and Dan Harris; and architectural historians Paul Weaver and Jill Leverett.
The Traditional Building Conference Series is underwritten by sponsors whose technical knowledge augments the education program and whose materials provide solutions for historic restoration/renovation and new traditional building.
The next Traditional Building Conference in the 2025 series takes place in Colonial Williamsburg Virginia, June 10-11. This event features the annual TRADITIONAL BUILDING magazine Palladio Awards ceremony.
