Schedule
The Traditional Building Conference Series, now in its twenty-fifth year, has interesting, informative and inspirational education and architectural tours planned for 2026. Three of America's most historic locations will be our living laboratories for learning about architectural history, traditional design and craftsmanship. Earn up to 13 AIA Continuing Education Units in each event, most HSWs. Meet industry experts and network with your professional peers in intimate settings with excellent food!
Our 2026 Dates & Venues
- March 24-25, 2026 - Salem Waterfront Hotel & Suites, Salem, MA - Register
- June 16-17, 2026 - Cape May Convention Center (Beachfront Ballroom), Cape May, NJ (Palladio Awards at this event)
- November 3-4, 2026 - The Grand at 81 Mary, Charleston, SC
Stay tuned here for more information, or sign up for email updates.
Historic Salem Massachusetts March 24-25, 2026
At the Salem Waterfront Hotel
Salem Traditional Building Conference Schedule as of January 26, 2026. Please check back for updates.
Tuesday, March 24
8-9:00 am
Breakfast, Sponsors, and exhibits
9-9:15 am
Welcome and Introductions
9:15 -10:15 AM
Going for Zero: Decarbonizing the Built Environment on the Path to Our Urban Future
SPEAKER: Carl Elefante FAIA, FAPT, Principal Emeritus, Quinn Evans
Known worldwide for coining the phrase: “the greenest building is…one that is already built,” Carl Elefante is Principal Emeritus with Quinn Evans, recipient of the 2024 AIA National Firm Award. In 2018, Carl served as President of AIA, the culmination of leadership positions in architecture, historic preservation, and sustainable design organizations. In 2023, Carl was the inaugural visiting scholar at the University of Notre Dame Duda Center for Preservation, Resilience, and Sustainability. Carl is a Senior Fellow with Architecture 2030, a charter member of the Climate Heritage Network, and a Fellow of AIA and Association for Preservation Technology International (APT).
1 AIA Health/Safety/Welfare Learning Units
For those who shape the built environment, the forces impacting the 21st century present a relevance revolution. The importance of what, where, and how we build has never been more consequential. The actions of today’s building-sector professionals will chart the course of humanity’s urban future. What will it be? “If the Past Teaches, What Does the Future Learn?” From a career rescuing buildings from demolition and repurposing them, Carl Elefante shares his experiences prioritizing stewardship and applying the lessons of built heritage for strong and abundant communities.
Curtailing climate change requires retooling everything about the design, construction, and operation of buildings to eliminate carbon pollution. It demands both a greater focus on building performance and construction technology and also deeper understanding of the impact of buildings and cities on human health, safety, wellbeing, and productive capacity. Going for Zero both explains the demands of climate action on architectural solutions and the broader impacts of climate action in addressing intransigent social, economic, and environmental concerns. These topics are addressed from a unique perspective.
The subject matter is most relevant to architects and other building-sector professionals. The presentation offers a range of material from global trends to detailed technical information and is presented without jargon.
Learning Objectives:
- Strategize to keep and repurpose existing buildings to meet energy and climate targets and simultaneously yield collateral social, economic, and environmental benefits.
- Consider the limitations of many accepted practices and what is needed to overcome them to meet energy and climate targets and yield collateral social, economic, and environmental benefits.
- Apply the forgotten premises of climate-adapted design to meet energy and climate targets and yield collateral social, economic, and environmental benefits.
- Design for a very long service-life for buildings to meet energy and climate targets and yield collateral social, economic, and environmental benefits.
10:15-10:40 AM
Networking break
10:45 am-11:45 AM
The Discipline of Tradition: Historically, Inspired New Construction and Renovation
SPEAKERS: Patrick Ahearn, FAIA, Founder, Patrick Ahearn Architect, Boston, MA and Michael Tartamella, AIA, Managing Principal, Patrick Ahearn Architect
For nearly five decades, award-winning AIA Fellow Patrick Ahearn has been celebrated for designing residences that are rooted in history and shaped by place yet geared for modern family life. In this presentation, he explores the art and discipline of historically inspired new construction and sensitive renovation, revealing how architecture can evoke memory and familiarity, even when newly built.
For the past 20 years Michael Tartamella has been an integral part of the Patrick Ahearn Architect team. In 2018 he was elevated to the role of Managing Principal, and since then has played a pivotal role in guiding some of the firm’s most significant and award-winning projects. He continues to demonstrate a deep commitment to the firm’s distinctive approach to timeless architecture, and Patrick himself often says, “Mike sees with my eyes,” a testament to their alignment in design vision and philosophy.
This course has been submitted to the AIA for credit review.
Highlighting projects featured in his second book History Reinterpreted (2023)and his forthcoming volume Driven: The Road to Iconic Design (2026), Ahearn examines how to give new homes the patina of age through proportion, scale, materiality, and narrative so they tug at the heartstrings and feel instantly known. When addressing renovation, he moves beyond pure preservation, instead advocating for the continuance of an idea, honoring a home’s underlying story and imagining what it could have been rather than rigidly restoring what once was.
Throughout the talk, Ahearn emphasizes site-sensitive design and context-driven scale to ensure new and renewed homes feel inseparable from their surroundings, especially in coastal zones and historic districts. He also addresses the necessity of invisible modernity, integrating energy efficiency and contemporary building science to comply with evolving regulations and ensure long-term livability without compromising architectural directives.
Learning Objectives:
- Plan for aging in place in a multi-generational family home
- Design for evolving families, with a case study featuring a walk-in closet that could be modified over time to be a nursery.
- Reflect on coastal codes with a case study on flood plain requirements for the foundation that are silent on the streetscape.
- Avoid demolition to optimize square footage and comply with zoning requirements.
11:45 AM-12:15 PM
Historic Door Replacement and Restoration: The New York Stock Exchange
SPEAKER: Richard W. Off, AIA, Senior Architect, Supervisor/Team Leader, Hoffmann Architects and Engineers, New York, NY
Mr. Off is a Partner, Senior Project Manager, and Architect at Hoffmann. With expertise in preservation, and enclosure systems, he oversees architectural and engineering teams complete numerous multi-million-dollar rehabilitation projects, several having received recognition, including multiple Lucy Moses awards from the NY Landmarks Conservancy. Prior to completing fellowships in Asia and South America, Mr. Off graduated with a master’s from Columbia University and a bachelor’s from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He has lectured at APTi conferences, the APT DC Symposium, Traditional Building, and his alma maters, and he has published articles with Construction Specifier, BD+C, Traditional Building, Papyrus, and Hoffmann Journal.
.5 AIA Health/Safety/Welfare Learning Unit
Although frequently viewed as secondary components, exterior doors play a pivotal role in the performance of buildings and in their stylistic integrity and associated iconography. They typically represent a minority of an envelope's surface area, but they can contain complex, multi-material assemblies that must fulfill high expectations. Doors have major requirements for thermal, wind and fire resistance, security, and operation that all work in tandem with expressions and physical manifestations of strength and durability, and sometimes lightness and transparency. These challenges are critical considerations in both the restoration and replacement of historic doors and were central to a recent project at the landmark New York Stock Exchange in Manhattan's financial district. Designed by architect George B. Post in a Beaux-Arts style at the turn of the century; after decades of wear and tear, all the original ground level and balcony doors, and many masonry entranceways were changed or degraded so significantly that the main facade and key interior lobby and trading floor spaces deviated from their historic character, negatively impacting symbolic value, and diminishing visual and physical accessibility.
This presentation will focus on the material research, design, construction, and landmark preservation consultation processes that occurred throughout the door rehabilitation. It will provide a brief history of the building and the transformation of its use and appearance over time, including the development of anti-terrorism concerns and measures.
Through the lens of this project, this presentation will explore how preservation craft is not only material quality and assembly workmanship, but also an adaptive strategy making the sum of the parts greater than the whole. The scope involved multiple repair and replacement techniques, and associated trades, for different door and vestibule configurations and locations (both wood and metal framing and decorative trim, brass hardware, glazing unit infill, and marble and granite vestibule walls with bluestone pavement). The balance between salvaging original materials and providing new where altered conditions were insensitive to surrounding fabric allowed for a reduced carbon footprint, and conformance with contemporary standards and codes, all while restoring the transparency and decorative richness of the building. Further, by embracing both tradition and innovation the project reinforces the very spirit of the stock exchange as a temple of commerce that celebrates the opportunities of a free market economy.
Learning Objectives:
- Consider how cautious, case-by-case assembly, detailing, and material selection in preservation projects can respect original design and historic fabric while enhancing building longevity and performance.
- Examine sustainable exterior rehabilitation approaches that minimize carbon footprint by salvaging and repairing existing elements but also increase energy efficiency with reconstructed systems that incorporate new technologies.
12:15- 1:10 PM
Lunch
1:15-2:15 PM
Impact Doors & Windows Design Possibilities
SPEAKER: Russ Oliveri, President, Oliveri Windows and Doors
Rosario 'Russ' Oliveri is President of Oliveri Millworks, a leader in the South Florida market for architectural hurricane impact fenestration. A former general contractor armed with credible impact testing data, Russ advises general contractors and architects about specifying and installing historically accurate, custom windows and doors which meet stringent coastal area building codes.
This course has been submitted to the AIA for credit review. (1 hour)
Designing high-performing windows and doors for historic, traditional, and custom buildings requires region-specific solutions informed by real-world storm performance. Across the U.S., code requirements for wind and impact resistance vary by region, while increasingly severe weather events continue to challenge designers, manufacturers, and insurers.
Since Hurricane Andrew in 1992, significant advancements have been made in window and door products, detailing, and regulations to improve life safety, reduce property damage, and enhance building performance. This course examines proven strategies to mitigate water and wind infiltration through case studies and tested architectural details. Emphasis is placed on evaluating window and door performance within the context of the entire building—including envelope detailing and energy-efficiency considerations—while maintaining design intent and code compliance.
Learning Objectives:
- Identify regional climate and code requirements affecting window and door performance.
- Select tested window and door details that reduce water infiltration and wind damage.
- Request and interpret manufacturer testing data to inform design decisions.
- Compare stock and custom window and door solutions for applications in high-wind and high-water regions.
2:15- 2:40
Networking Break with exhibitors
2:45- 5 pm
Tours
Please select one. Please dress for the weather! It will be spring in New England on the Coast, so we may have glorious sunshine or snow! We will be walking to and from the Conference Hotel to the selected sites. Please let us know if you need assistance to and from the sites.
First Period and Federal: The Gedney House and The Phillips House
Guides: Historic New England Staff
This tour has been submitted for credit review. (1.5 hours) This tour is limited to 15 people.
Salem presents opportunities to learn from the amount of extant First Period and Federal Period buildings in the city. Historic New England stewards two examples that will be the focus of this tour.
Salem shipwright Eleazer Gedney built the earliest portion of Gedney House in 1665. Originally the house was asymmetrical, with two rooms on the first floor, a single chamber above, and an attic with a front-facing gable. Significant renovations in 1712 and 1800 resulted in dramatic changes to the house’s appearance. Gedney House is significant both for its framing and for its evidence of early decorative finishes in the hall chamber and parlor. It is also one of only two extant buildings with ties to the Salem Witch Trials.
In 1821 four intact rooms from an earlier house were transported by ox sled to Salem’s fashionable Chestnut Street to form the core of a new Federal-style mansion being built by Captain Nathaniel West. Nearly a century later, Anna Phillips bought the house and launched a fourteen-month renovation in the Colonial Revival style. Today Phillips House is the only mansion open to the public on Chestnut Street.
When Anna Phillips, her husband Stephen Willard Phillips, and their five-year-old son moved in, they brought with them a family collection that spans five generations and grew exponentially during Salem’s Great Age of Sail. Enjoy a glimpse into the privileged world of the Phillips family and their staff during the early decades of the twentieth century. The kitchen, pantry, and a domestic staff bedroom present a rarely seen picture of how great houses functioned as new technologies were being introduced.
Learning Objectives:
- Explore a 17th century timber frame structure.
- Trace significant changes over time in historic buildings.
- Discuss different periods of economic prosperity in Salem and its impact on construction.
- Compare the lifestyles of Salem families of the past with residential preferences for home design today.
The House of the Seven Gables from 17th Century to 21st Century Coastal Resilience
Tour Leaders: Paul Wright, House of the Seven Gables and Kara Babcock, Union Studio
This tour has been submitted for credit review to the AIA. (1.5 hours) This Tour is limited to 15 people.
This tour will feature a walk around the House of the Seven Gables two-acre historic campus, including the namesake manor, and its evolution and preservation since it was built in 1668 by sea captain John Turner and a review of adaptations planned in light of a recent coastal management study that was funded by the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management in 2022.
Learning Objectives:
- Explain the history and evolution of the House of the Seven Gables and its campus.
- Describe the coastal zone management planning process and its application to an important historic structure.
- Identify areas of concern in coastal zones.
- Consider the recommendations for the House of the Seven Gables and their application to their coastal historic structures.
McIntire and More: The Architectural Details of Broad and Chestnut Streets Walking Tour
Tour Leader: John Tittmann, ART Architects, Boston, MA
This course has been submitted for AIA credit review (1.5 hours) This tour is limited to 17 people.
Learning Objectives:
- Explore Federal and Greek Revival style buildings and architectural ornament with a keener eye for details.
- Reflect on how architectural details emphasize building character through composition, interaction with light, and good geometry.
- Consider McIntire’s designs and what can and should be used in contemporary design and construction.
- Compare the historic streetscapes of the McIntire District to contemporary streetscape planning and design.
The Pickering House Tour
Guides: Interpretive Staff from the Pickering House
This tour has been submitted to the AIA for credit review. (1.5 hours) This tour is limited to 15 people.
The United States celebrates its 250th anniversary and Salem celebrates its 400th anniversary in 2026. The Pickering House is the best possible venue to understand the evolution of this nation.
Home to a single family for over three and a half centuries; home to carpenters, farmers, patriots, military leaders, deacons, diplomats, linguists, scientists, and statesmen. And as homes will, it changed with the times.
Built in 1660 by settler John Pickering — a carpenter form Coventry, England — and his wife Elizabeth, it was once just a two-room farmhouse on a vast plot of land that ran all the way down to the seaport on the North River, encompassing what is today Chestnut Street and the McIntire District.
Over the next 350 years, the succeeding John Pickerings and their wives added wings, gables, and Gothic peaks. They raised ceilings, extended the roofline, and created the distinctive fence, to evolve into the warm and gracious home it is today.
One family member in particular played many roles in the American Revolution and in the early years of the Republic. Timothy Pickering spent all of his adult life in the service of his country. One of the few of his peers to actually take up arms, he marched on April 19, 1775 at the head of 300 men to cut off the retreat of the British from Lexington. Appointed by Washington as Quartermaster General in the Revolutionary War, he was present at the battles of Brandywine and Germantown and at Cornwallis’ surrender.
Pickering is the only person to serve three cabinet posts: Secretary of State, Postmaster General, and Secretary of War — which included administration of the Navy and Indian affairs.
Learning Objectives:
- Explore a First Period House (1660), Salem’s oldest house, and its adaptations over time.
- Reflect on changes in the function of homes and residential design over a nearly 400-year period.
- Assess what houses can convey about its residents and American culture through architectural design and details and the family’s choice of decorative arts.
- Explain the ongoing efforts to preserve and maintain a First Period building.
5 pm
Reception
Wednesday, March 25
8-9:00 am
Breakfast, Sponsors, and exhibits
9-9:15 am
Welcome and Introductions
9:15 -10:15 AM
Form Follows Energy: Residential Design Before and After Fossil Fuels
SPEAKER: JB Clancy, AIA; Managing Partner, ART Architects; Boston, MA
1 AIA Health/Safety/Welfare Learning Unit
From First Period Houses to contemporary forms to the traditionally inspired homes of today, fossil fuels have impacted the form of our houses.
According to the US E.I.A., over 43% of the energy consumed in our country is used to run our buildings today. Most of this energy comes from the burning of fossil fuels. The burning of fossil fuels releases greenhouse gases that are changing our climate. We must find a way to dramatically reduce the amount of energy our buildings consume.
How can we design and construct our buildings to meet this challenge? We might look at traditional building forms before the introduction of fossil fuels into our energy economy. Buildings constructed pre-fossil fuels are the original zero net energy/zero carbon structures. They were built with carbon neutral materials and heated with carbon neutral fuel. They were built to respond to a particular climate. Once fossil fuels were discovered, such as coal, our buildings dramatically changed. They no longer had to use local materials or relate to the local climate.
Learning Objectives:
- Describe the evolution of home design in America from 1600 to the present and how energy inputs have impacted building form.
- Compare and contrast building envelope design and passive heating strategies, from 1600 to present day.
- Explain different forms of energy and how to measure them.
- Develop different strategies for maximum energy/heating efficiency when building today.
10:15-10:40 AM
Networking Break
10:40-11:45 AM
A 21st Century Conversation with Samuel McIntire (1757-1811)
SPEAKER: John Tittmann, ART Architects
This course has been submitted to the AIA for credit review.
Samuel McIntire (1757-1811) was born in Salem, Massachusetts to a housewright. He distinguished himself as a carver, furniture maker, sculptor and ultimately a master builder and architect. His work exemplifies the American Federal Period. He left a lasting impression on his hometown with designs that are characteristically beautiful with an underlying geometry. Architect John Tittman will examine McIntire’s work, architect to architect. He will lead us in a dialogue of what practitioners of traditional building would do well to remember and interpret in work today.
Learning Objectives:
- Explain how a carver and furniture maker became an architect.
- Discuss books that influenced him and can continue to influence craftspeople, builders, and architects today.
- Consider McIntire’s role in Salem’s development.
- Examine his projects, built and unbuilt, including an unbuilt plan for the US Capitol.
11:45 -12:40 PM
Lunch
12:40- 1:45 PM
Renovation of Lehigh University’s Packer Hall: A Case Study in Honoring the Past, Present and Future
Speakers: Bob Mohr, AIA, LEED AP, Principal, Shepley Bulfinch and Jason Donahue, Senior Architect, Associate, Shepley Bulfinch
This course has been submitted to the AIA for credit review (1 hour)
This case study examines the recent renovation of Lehigh University’s first campus building (completed in 1869), now known as Clayton University Center at Packer Hall. Over 150 years old, the building has served many purposes over its long history, from classrooms to dorms to a chapel to a natural history museum. Throughout its time an addition was made in the 1950s and its dining operations have been updated continuously over generations. This completed project is the first full scale renovation, with elements of restoration, preservation, and transformation that modernize the facility with a revitalized interior that enhances the historic fabric and creates new, vibrant spaces for student life on campus.
Learning Objectives:
- Describe the impact of the renovation on campus life and to student and staff well-being.
- Discuss the process of documentation research and investigation that was required to understand prior eras of the building and the planning and design considerations to renovate the iconic university structure while honoring its past and embarking on a new era and outlook.
- Describe the importance of fenestration to the design and how solutions involving simplicity, transparency, and daylight improved perceptions of the building and its spaces.
- Compare window replacement and repair challenges and considerations within the historic context.
- Highlight the post design discovery of hidden elements that added authenticity and richness to the completed project.
1:50-2:50 PM
Panel: Designing for Health, Safety, and Welfare: The Role of Traditional Building and Historic Preservation
PANELISTS: Frank Shirley, AIA, Frank Shirley Architects; Ethan Anthony, AIA, ICTP, President and Principal Architect, Cram & Ferguson Architects LLC; moderated by Peter H. Millier, Hon. AIA, President, Traditional Building
Frank Shirley earned his architecture degree from the University of Cincinnati. He began his career as a designer at Moshe Safdie & Associates, working on large-scale civic and institutional projects. From there Frank became a project manager at Design Associates, Inc., where he led the restoration of the Corbin-Norton residence on Martha’s Vineyard, which received the Boston Society of Architects’ award for “Excellence in Architecture.”
Since 1998, Ethan Anthony has led the practice as President and Principal of Cram & Ferguson Architects, LLC. Under his leadership the firm has continued its 125-year focus on planning and design of new traditionally inspired religious and academic buildings and campus planning, in addition to the preservation of significant historic buildings.
Peter H. Miller, Hon. AIA is the publisher of TRADITIONAL BUILDING, PERIOD HOMES and NEW OLD HOUSE, producer of The Traditional Building Conference Series, author of a monthly column “For Pete’s Sake,” and host of the “Building Tradition” podcast
When planning education for architects and other building professionals, an effort is made to address the topics of health, safety, and welfare. Join a panel of practitioners and hear their reflections on the challenges we face in designing for health, safety, and welfare and how historic preservation and traditional building play an increasingly important role in generating effective solutions. The discussion topics include aging in place, affordable housing, compliance with energy and other codes, and pressures to build tall buildings in infill locations within historic settings, and sessions at the conference that focused on a continuity of change: architecture, climate, and craft.
Learning Objectives:
- Elevate the goals of health, safety, and welfare in one’s work.
- Cite examples where historic preservation has provided important solutions for achieving the goals of health, safety, and welfare.
- Cite examples where traditional new construction met the objectives of health, safety, and welfare.
- Consider challenges that are faced by historic preservation and traditional projects in contemporary construction today.
3-5:30 PM
Tours
Please select one. Please dress for the weather! It will be spring in New England on the Coast, so we may have glorious sunshine or snow! We will be walking to and from the Conference Hotel to the selected sites and there is one walking tour. Please let us know if you need assistance traveling to the sites.
- First Period and Federal: Gedney House and Phillips House
- The House of the Seven Gables from 17th Century to 21st Century Coastal Resilience
- McIntire and More: The Architectural Details of Broad and Chestnut Streets
- The Pickering House Tour
Plus: Measured Field Sketching- Samuel McIntire’s Work
Lead by: JB Clancy, AIA; Managing Partner, ART Architects; Boston, MA
Victoria Tsai; Architectural Designer; ART Architects; Boston, MA
This drawing tour has been submitted to the AIA for Credit Review.( 2 hours) This tour is limited to 15 people.
This drawing tour will focus on the work of Samuel McIntire, through measuring and drawings some of his buildings. The focus will be on his interiors, specifically his moldings, carvings, and mantels.
Samuel McIntire (1757–1811) was a leading American architect, woodcarver, and furniture designer of the Federal period, best known for shaping Salem, Massachusetts. Largely self-taught, he learned woodworking from his father and studied classical design through European pattern books. McIntire became Salem’s principal designer during its late-18th-century prosperity. His Federal-style houses are noted for refined proportions, elegant symmetry, and restrained classical ornament. He excelled especially in interior woodcarving, producing delicate swags, urns, rosettes, and carved figures. McIntire also designed furniture, often integrated directly into his architectural interiors. His work helped translate European Neoclassicism into a distinctly American architectural expression. Today, he is regarded as America’s foremost Federal-period woodcarver and one of its earliest great native-born architects.
Learning Objectives:
- Use measuring and drawing to study the work of Samuel McIntire.
- Refine hand drawing skills - measuring and drawing orthogonally to a scale in plan, section, and elevation to capture details.
- Reflect on McIntire's interior details as an expression of late 18th century-early 19th century New England culture.
- Adopt traditional strategies to record existing buildings for use as design precedent.
Earn AIA Learning Units:
The Traditional Building Conference Series is a registered provider of AIA continuing education credits. Credits for ASID, NARI, AIBD, and some NAHB certifications are available.
Check out some of our previous conferences:
Coral Gables, 2021
2020 Virtual Conference
Winston-Salem 2019
Winterthur 2019
Oak Park 2018
Brooklyn 2017
Salem 2017
Charleston 2017
Washington, D.C. 2016
Pittsburgh 2016
New Haven 2016
Frequent & Past Attendees Include:
Consiglia Construction
Historical Concepts
Peter Pennoyer Architects
Shawmut Construction
David M. Schwarz Architects
Fairfax and Sammons Architects
Glave and Holmes Architects
Shope Reno Architects
Barnes Vanze Architects
Robert A.M. Stern Architects
Harrison Design
Schooly Caldwell Architects
The Architect of the U.S. Capitol
The National Park Service
City of Denver
General Services Administration
U.S. Department of State
Duke University
Princeton University
MIT
University of Virginia
South Carolina Historic Preservation Office
New York City Landmarks
Schafer Buccellato Architects
Quinn Evans Architects
Morales Construction
Bulley & Andrews
Winchester Builders