Continuing Education

For Design Professionals

The BAC offers several opportunities for you to expand your credentials as a professional. Courses in areas such as Sustainable Design, Historic Preservation, Design Computing, Planting Design, and Advanced Rendering provide valuable skills that can enhance your current career. To assist intern architects with licensure, the BAC offers weekend Architectural Registration Exam (ARE) Preparation courses in both the fall and spring semesters. For licensed architects, the BAC offers the annual CEU Weekend where architects can earn 12 HSW credits in one weekend.

The BAC is a registered AIA (American Institute of Architects) provider for continuing education, and architects can earn continuing education credits through nearly all BAC courses. If you are a member of the AIA, we can report your credits directly to the AIA continuing education system upon successful completion of a BAC course or workshop. To take advantage of this service, AIA members should include their AIA membership number on their registration form.

All active AIA members must successfully complete 18 LUs (learning units) each year, ensuring that at least 8 of the 18 are health, safety, and welfare (HSW) related. As of September 2003, the Massachusetts Board of Registration of Architects requires mandatory continuing education for registration renewal in the Commonwealth. All architects registered in the commonwealth must complete 12 continuing education units each year, ensuring that 8 of the 12 are HSW related. These units must be completed by August 31 each year, and are self-reported on the license renewal form.

ARE Seminars
The BAC offers several Saturday seminars in the fall and spring semesters that are designed to prepare for the Architect Registration Exams (ARE). The courses have been carefully developed to provide designers seeking registration with the most up-to-date information about the exam. See our course schedule for upcoming ARE seminars. BAC degree program graduates registering for ARE Preparation Seminars receive a 10 % discount on tuition as well as Boston Society of Architects (BSA) members when they indicate their BSA member number on the registration form.

CEU Weekends 2008
June 21st & 22nd
Saturday 8:30am to 5:30pm; Sunday 10:00am to 2:00pm

Fulfill your professional development requirements in just two days at the Boston Architectural College's annual CEU Weekend. This convenient weekend program, provides the 12 CEUs required by August 31 for MA state license renewal. At the event, BAC Faculty and Guest Speakers will address critical topics that affect the work of today's design professional. All sessions qualify as Health, Safety, and Welfare (HSW) credit. Space is limited so please register early.

The CEU Weekend is divided into three sessions; Saturday morning (8:30am-12:30pm), Saturday afternoon (1:30pm-5:30pm), and Sunday (10:00am-2:00pm - please note this is a time change from previous years). Each session provides 4 HSW CEUs. Register for the entire weekend for $495. Lunch is provided for Saturday, full-day registrants.

Participant comments:
"The CEU weekend was a very informative experience, and a pleasurable way to comply with obtaining the required number of learning units."

"Thank you for hosting the CEU weekend...it's the most convenient way I've found to meet CEU requirements in one moderately intensive weekend."

CEU Weekends 2008

June 21st, Saturday Morning Session $179
TMC101P - 4 AIA Hrs/LUs
8:30-10:30 Understanding Accessibility Requirements in Massachusetts
Speaker: Deborah A. Ryan
Deborah A Ryan & Associates, South Boston, MA

Description:
In this course we will untangle the confusion as to what accessibility requirements apply to your projects in Massachusetts with a focus on the intricate state requirements which are 521 CMR – the Rules and Regulations of the Architectural Access Board.  We will spend time on jurisdiction, technical provisions, common mistakes and the variance process.

Bio:
Deborah A. Ryan is an accessibility consultant with specific expertise in the Rules and Regulations of the Architectural Access Board.  She was employed at the AAB for 26 years and was the former Executive Director from 1988-2002.  Since 2002 she has been in private practice assisting architects, developers, builders, and building inspectors in understanding accessibility requirements for their projects.  Ms. Ryan attended the BAC from 1982-1990 and is also an Attorney.

10:30-12:30 Overview of the 7th Edition Massachusetts Residential Energy Code
Speaker: David Weitz
Director, Applied Building Science Division
Conservation Services Group, Westborough, MA

Description:
This presentation will introduce attendees to the latest energy code requirements for low-rise residential buildings in Massachusetts. It will cover insulation, windows, air leakage, and heating/cooling equipment requirements for new construction and additions in residential occupancies under four stories in height. The session will end with a brief descriptions of pending changes to the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) which will form the basis of future Massachusetts code revisions.

Bio:
David Weitz is Director of the Applied Building Science Division of Conservation Services Group, headquartered in Westborough, Massachusetts.  The Division develops standards, protocols, and quality assurance procedures for CSG, which over the past 23 years has performed energy evaluations and improvements in over one million homes throughout the US.  Before coming to CSG, David was Executive Director of the Building Codes Assistance Project, a non-profit organization which promotes the adoption and implementation of up-to-date energy codes in states across the country.  David is a voting member of the development committees for both ASHRAE Standard 90.1 and the International Energy Conservation Code, the two national energy codes that serve as models for state adoptions.  He was also Energy Code Coordinator for the Massachusetts Board of Building Regulations and Standards from 1997-2002.

June 21st, Saturday Afternoon Session $179
TMC101Q – 4 AIA Hrs/LUs
1:30-5:30 Transitioning to Building Information Modeling: Challenges and Opportunities for the Architectural Practitioner
Speaker: Panel Moderated by Len Charney, Head of Practice
Boston Architectural College, Boston,  MA

Description:
Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Integrated Practice (IP) are certainly getting a lot of attention in the AEC industry today. This 4-hour, 2 session workshop has been organized to provide practitioners having little hands-on experience with a working overview of BIM technology; perhaps more importantly, they will hopefully come away with and understanding and appreciation of how all phases of an architectural project are likely to change as BIM technology is accepted and openly applied by all stakeholders involved.

During the first 2-hour session a panel of knowledgeable professionals will share their successes and struggles linked to transitioning to BIM. In so doing they will describe the advantages that BIM promises, as well as the challenges and obstacles to its adoption.

Two case studies will be critically presented during the second session; together they will demonstrate how each phase of an architectural project is fundamentally different when building information modeling software serves as a framework for project teams to share technical information and work collaboratively throughout design and project delivery. 

Attendees will leave this workshop with practical insights and answers encompassing the following seven (7) questions:

1)      What makes a BIM-type software application in terms of features, performance, and usage? 2)      How can BIM be applied as a tool to understand and enhance designs early in the design process, including key issues such as lighting, energy analysis, and cost estimating?3)      What specific changes in office operations and business practices are required of firms to effectively transition to BIM?
4)      How should project teams be formed, trained and managed?
5)      How does BIM affect workflow, project management, legal contracts and construction? 6)      How can architects work more collaboratively by sharing data and design ideas as they create the BIM model?
7)      What clear advantages does BIM and integrated practice provide the small firm?

June 22nd, Sunday

10:00pm-12:00pm

Title:
Green Strategies for Historic Buildings

Speaker:
Susan E. Hollister, LEED
Goody Clancy, Boston, MA

Description:
The existing buildings in the United States have an embodied energy greater than the annual energy production of the entire world.  Carbon neutrality requires utilizing this extraordinary resource.  New technologies offer opportunities to decrease carbon footprints, but historic buildings often provide surprising lessons for high performance design.

Learning Objectives:

1.      Identify the sustainable characteristics and performance criteria of historic buildings and communities.

2.      Demonstrate specific strategies for improving the performance of historic buildings with new technologies and products that reduce resource consumption and create healthier buildings and communities.

3.            Prioritize the goals of historic preservation and environmental stewardship that shape sustainable communities and are most responsible to future generations.

Bio:
Ms. Hollister has extensive experience as a preservation designer, a planner and an architectural historian. Her work has involved review, analysis, and project management of a wide range of new and historic building types for both public and private clients.

Her work at Goody Clancy as well as the Massachusetts Historical Commission, the Cambridge Historical Commission, Historic Boston Incorporated, Public Archaeology Laboratory in Rhode Island and private non-profit consulting and architecture firms gives her over 20 years of historic preservation experience. Active in the New England Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians, Ms. Hollister has served as Vice President, Director and Preservation Officer. She is currently a Board Member of the Association for Preservation Technology (Northeast Chapter) and an active member of the parent organization, APTI.

Her special expertise in historic preservation resource management, evaluation, and exterior envelope survey and assessment are essential skills on numerous projects involving historic buildings or adaptive re-use of existing structures.  Ms. Hollister has an unusual ability to combine a historian’s love of the built past with an architect’s knowledge of historic building techniques and materials.  She is equally at home on a lift inspecting existing building fabric and doing archival research and writing.

Ms. Hollister’s experience at Goody Clancy includes her position as Project Manager for the interior renovation of Boston’s Arlington Street Church, which received a preservation award from the Massachusetts Historical Commission. She authored the Decorative Paint & Mural Assessment Report that records the history of the interior of H.H. Richardson’s Trinity Church in the City of Boston, a National Landmark. Additional historic materials assessments and technical recommendations include work at Trumbull College, Yale University, Springfield Union Station (Springfield, MA), the Ayer Mansion (Boston), St. Paul’s Church (Natick, MA), and the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial, (Melrose, MA).

Ms. Hollister is a key member of the architectural team designing the adaptive reuse of Boston’s John W. McCormack Post Office and Building, an early 20th century Art Deco style post office and Federal courthouse eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places and a Boston City Landmark structure. She is currently the Project Manager of Goody Clancy’s $30 million renovation of Stockwell Hall, a historic dormitory building at the University of Michigan.  The project combines exterior envelope repairs, new infrastructure, interior renovations, the incorporation of new program areas and the renovation of historic public spaces within the building.

12:00pm-2:00pm

Title:
Modern Heritage: Not Your Grandfather's Preservation.

Speakers:
David N. Fixler, FAIA, LEED
Einhorn Yaffee Prescott, Boston, MA/DOCOMOMO-New England
Jon Buono
Einhorn Yaffee Prescott, Boston, MA/DOCOMOMO-US

Description:

The modern movement in architecture broke many traditional ways of thinking about, designing and building architecture, landscape and cities. Undertaken with the best of intentions to create environments that would enable social, economic and technological progress, modernism has bequeathed us a spectacular but uneven and often misunderstood legacy.

This session will outline the history and importance of the modern movement as cultural heritage and will discuss some of the strategies that are being used to strike the balance between conservation and enhancement in bringing these resources into active, sustainable use for the 21st Century.  We will talk about the work of advocacy groups such as DOCOMOMO as well as citing specific projects that have successfully addressed these issues.

Bios:
David Fixler is a Principal at Einhorn Yaffee Prescott Architecture & Engineering, PC in Boston specializing in preservation and adaptive re-use, with particular emphasis on the work of the Modern movement.  His projects include the renovation of Alvar Aalto’s Baker House and Building Seven at MIT, the Widener, Lamont and Hilles Libraries at Harvard University, Boston City Hall and Plaza, Faneuil Hall, the Massachusetts State House and the impending renovation of the United Nations Headquarters in New York.  He has done extensive work for numerous American colleges, universities and cultural institutions, and for government on the municipal, state and federal level.

David is a graduate of Tufts and Columbia Universities (M.Arch 1980) and worked at several offices in New York and Boston, including Perry Dean Rogers and Partners, prior to joining EYP in 2000.  A frequent teacher, writer and lecturer on architectural history, preservation and design, David has had his work published internationally and has helped to organize numerous conferences on a wide range of architecture and preservation topics.  He is active in a variety of professional organizations, including serving as Co-Chair for the Technical Committee on Modern Heritage for APT, past Director of the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH), United States Representative on the DOCOMOMO International Specialist Committee (ISC) for Registers and as the president of DOCOMOMO-US/New England.


Jon Buono is an Associate with Einhorn Yaffee Prescott. Mr. Buono received his Bachelors of Architecture from Cornell University in 1998 and began his career as a Historical Architect with the National Park Service. While with the NPS he authored cultural resource management plans for significant historic sites in the southeast and received the agency's top honor for this work in 2003. His research included work on the period of progressive modern architecture that defined the National Park Service in the postwar era- the building program known as "Mission 66".

Upon joining the private sector, Mr. Buono’s practice focused on college and university planning. In 2005 he authored the University System of Georgia's “Guidelines for Campus Historic Preservation”, as funded by the J. Paul Getty Foundation's Campus Heritage Program. The Guidelines represent one of the most comprehensive programs to promote campus historic preservation among university systems in the United States.

In 2004, Mr. Buono was selected for the U.S./Russia Volunteer Initiative, organized by the U.S. State Department, and traveled to Yaroslavl, Russia to assist in the restoration of the 18th-century Church of Sts. Peter & Paul.

Mr. Buono is an active member of the Association for Preservation Technology (APT) and the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS). In 2007 he was elected to the DOCOMOMO U.S. Board of Directors and serves as the Chair of the Register Committee. He is responsible for the organization’s national documentation efforts and manages their web-based inventory of significant modern-era U.S. architecture and landscapes.