Teachers and Lecturers Historic Masonry Summer School Segovia 2023

HISTORIC MASONRY STRUCTURES

TEACHERS

Maurizio Angelillo

Professor at Università degli Studi di Salerno

Maurizio Angelillo is Professor of Statics and Strength of Materials at the School of Engineering and Architecture of the “Università degli Studi di Salerno”. Architect and structural expert with multi-disciplinary research interests including masonry mechanics, and Biomechanics, trained in Architecture at the University of Neaples and in Mechanics at the University of Minnesota, he and his group are actively working on the kinematics and on the equilibrium of masonry buildings. Angelillo, who is the Editor and the co-author of the CISM books “Mechanics of Masonry Structures” and “Discrete Computational Mechanics of Masonry Structures”, works on unilateral models for masonry since the early 80s, being the author of more than 50 papers on the application of these models to real masonry structures and masonry elements such as arches, domes, vaults and spiral stairs.

Professor

Philippe Block

Professor

Professor at ETH Zurich

Philippe Block is Professor at the Institute of Technology in Architecture at ETH Zurich, where he co-directs the Block Research Group (BRG) together with Dr. Tom Van Mele. He is director of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) in Digital Fabrication, and founding partner of Ochsendorf DeJong & Block (ODB Engineering). Block studied architecture and structural engineering at the VUB, Belgium, and at MIT, USA, where he earned his PhD in 2009. Research at the BRG focuses on computational form finding, optimisation and construction of curved surface structures, specialising in unreinforced masonry vaults and concrete shells. Within the NCCR, BRG researchers develop innovative structurally informed bespoke prefabrication strategies and novel construction paradigms employing digital fabrication. With the BRG and ODB Engineering, Block applies his research into practice on the structural assessment of historic monuments in unreinforced masonry and the design and engineering of novel shell structures.

Paolo Borin

Lecturer at University of Brescia

Paolo Borin is a Tenure-track Assistant Professor at at DICATAM - University of Brescia. He took a PhD at the Università IUAV di Venezia, with a thesis which explores the science and stereotomy of Guarino Guarini through digital and computational modeling techniques. He graduated in Architectural Engineering from University of Padua in 2011 with honors. From 2011 he has been exploring theory and practise of BIM and applying it to enhance the building process, particularly for existing buildings. His interests in research involve history of representation methods, application of advanced geometry for AEC industry (e.g., vaulting systems in heritage buildings, architectural façade systems, etc.), open format for BIM management, description of historic transformation with BIM.

Assistant Professor

Alessio Bortot

Professor

Professor at Università di Trieste

Alessio Bortot, an Architect and a “Doctor Europaeus” since 2016 in Architecture, City and Design, with a specialization in Representation, is Associate Professor at the Department of Engineering and Architecture in the University of Trieste since 2021.

He has been professor for the course of “Descriptive geometry”, “Advanced technologies for representation” and “Digital 3D modelling” at the IUAV University of Venezia, at the faculty of Engineering of the University of Padova, at the IED of Venice and at the École National Supérieure des Travaux Publics in Yaoundé (Camerun). He has participated to national (PRIN 2010-2011) and international research projects (James Turrell. Roden Crater Project – Florence 2007; Jean François Niceron. Prospettiva, catottrica e magia artificiale – Rome 2013.

Gianmarco de Felice

Professor at Università degli Studi Roma Tre

Gianmarco de Felice is professor of structural engineering at the Department of Engineering of Roma Tre University. He is coordinator of the PhD school in Civil Engineering at Roma Tre University, chairmen of the RILEM Technical Committee TC-250 CSM “Composites for Sustainable strengthening of Masonry” and member of the drafting Committee of the Charter of Rome on the Resilience of Art Cities to Natural Catastrophes. He has been the scientific coordinator for the design of engineering projects on heritage conservation and structural rehabilitation, such as the restoration of the Farnese Palace in Ischia di Castro and that of the Abbey of San Clemente in Casauria supported by the World Monuments Fund and awarded by the Domus International Prize for Restoration and Conservation.

Professor

Paula Fuentes González

Professor at Universidad de Alcalà

Professor

Paula Fuentes is Architect by the Polytechnic University of Madrid and has a Master in Building Structures. Her research focuses in history of construction, masonry structures and metric survey of architectural heritage In this field she has worked as a post doc researcher in the BTU Cottbus Senftenberg being member of the DFG Research Training Group 1913 “Cultural and Technological Significance of Historic Buildings”, and in the Department of Architectural Engineering at the VUB, in a project funded by a Marie Skłodowska Curie Individual Fellowship. Since 2021 she is Assistant Professor at the Universidad de Alcalá She is the founder, together with Rosa Ana Guerra, of the metric survey and analysis report of architectural heritage association villard 3 D.

Santiago Huerta

Professor at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid

Santiago Huerta is a professor of Structural Design at Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid (ETSAM). President of the Spanish Construction History Society (SEDHC). Work as consultant for Historical Constructions Analysis (Cathedrals of Mallorca; Santiago de Compostela; Lonja de Mallorca; San Juan de los Reyes, etc.). Director of publications of the Juan de Herrera Institute. Author of more than 80 publications: books (editor), articles and papers, mainly on historic masonry structures and Construction History. Prize for the ‘Dissemination of Architecture’ related to the Exhibition and Catalog Guastavino Co. the Reinvention of the Vault (COAM), 2003. Telford Gold Medal of the British Civil Engineers Association London, 2011.

Professor

Antonino Iannuzzo

Tenured Assistant Professor at University of Sannio

Assistant Professor

Antonino Iannuzzo is a structural engineer. He completed his Ph.D. in 2017 with a dissertation on “A new rigid block model for masonry structures”. Antonino’s research during his Ph.D. work focused on models for the static, kinematic and dynamic analysis of masonry elements and structures modelled as continua composed of Normal Rigid No-Tension material. During the academic year 2017-18 he worked as a post-doctoral researcher on “large scale assessment of ordinary masonry buildings under seismic actions” at the P.LIN.I.V.S. Study Centre for Hydrogeological, Volcanic and Seismic Engineering, whose scientific coordinator is Prof. Giulio Zuccaro, and joined the Block Research Group at ETH Zurich as a post-doctoral researcher, for three years: 2018-21. He is currently a Tenured Lecturer at UniSannio.

John Ochsendorf

Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

John Ochsendorf is a structural engineer with multi-disciplinary research interests including the history of construction, masonry mechanics, and sustainable design. Trained in structural mechanics at Cornell, Princeton, and the University of Cambridge, he conducts research on the structural safety of historic monuments, and the design of more sustainable infrastructure. His group is actively researching the dynamics of masonry buildings, the safety of cracked masonry vaults and domes, displacement loading of structures and the design of more sustainable infrastructure. Ochsendorf is the author of “Guastavino Vaulting: The Art of Structural Tile” and several dozen journal papers in structural mechanics. He has been awarded a Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome and a MacArthur Fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Professor

TILE VAULT TEACHERS

Carlos Martín

Master MAson

Master Mason

Vault builder and master plasterer, he has been involved in the construction and restoration of more than 300 vaults to date. He is the founder of Bóvedas Hispanas, a company specializing in the construction and restoration of vaults, working on numerous projects, including some of the most important in Spain in the last 30 years. He is a Professor of vault workshops at a national and international level and the author of several publications on plaster and vaulted structures.

Outstanding works. Vaulted vault in the Chapel of the Seminary of the Santos Niños Justo y Pastor de Alcalá de Henares (Madrid); Structural vaults of the Aljibe of the castle of Jadraque (Guadalajara) and in the cellar of the Valdemonjas de Quintanilla (Valladolid); Gothic vaults in stone in the Monastery of Pelayos de la Presa (Madrid); Vaults and domes in the Colegio San Basilio Magno de Alcalá de Henares (Madrid), in the Convent of San Juan de la Penitencia de Alcalá de Henares (Madrid), in the sacristy of Loeches (Madrid) and in the Chapel of San Felipe de Novelda (Alicante). He has participated as a builder in the Venice Architecture Biennale of 2016, executing a contemporary vaulted ceiling in collaboration with MIT (Prof. John Ochsendorf), with the design of Sir Norman Foster.

Esther Redondo

Professor at European University of Madrid

Architect, graduated from the School of Architecture, Polytechnic University of Madrid. Working as a structural designer and consultant since 1999, as co-founder of the GV408 Studio, since 2001 she teaches structural design at the School of Architecture of the European University of Madrid, where she has been in charge of several subjects in the area of structures, as well as joint subjects in the area of technology. She also worked as a visiting professor at ETSAM (Madrid), EaT (Toledo), Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (Madrid) and Universidad de Ambato (Ecuador). PhD in 2013 -"Tile vaulting in Sapin in the 19th Century: The transformation of a constructive system"-, her current field of research is the history of construction and structures. In this context, she has written numerous publications and participated in the organization of related congresses in Madrid (2013), Segovia (2015) and Soria (2019).

Professor

HOST TEACHERS

Antonio Cazzani

Professor

Professor at Università Degli Studi di Cagliari

M.Sc. CE (with full honors) at Technical University of Milan, Antonio Cazzani is a Full Professor of Structural Mechanics at the University of Cagliari, where he is teaching Structural Mechanics in both school of Architecture and Civil Engineering. Previously he has been for 20 years Assistant Professor and Associate Professor at University of Trento, teaching there Structural Mechanics, Structural Dynamics, Structural Stability and Computational Mechanics. He has been involved in several research projects, for some of them acting as PI or Associated PI, and has authored more than 55 papers published in international journals. His research interests span between Computational Mechanics, Masonry Structures, Laminated Plates, Shells, Structural Stability and Dynamics. He has been Visiting Scholar for several times at Georgia Tech, in Atlanta, GA, and more recently in 2018 and in 2020 at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, FL. He has been supervisor of many M.Sc. students and of some Ph.D. students.

Maria Cristina Porcu

Associate Professor at Università Degli Studi di Cagliari

M.Sc. CE in Civil Engineering (with full honors) and Ph.D. in Mechanical Constructions, Maria Cristina Porcu is a Professor of Structural Mechanics at the University of Cagliari, where she teaches Dynamics of Structures and Structural Mechanics. Involved in national and international projects, she has published more than 60 papers on the Post-Elastic Behavior of Concrete and Masonry Structures, the Seismic Assessment of Historical Buildings, the Experimental Dynamic Detection of Structural Damage and the Progressive Collapse of Bridges. She has been Visiting Professor at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, CALTEC, Cal, USA, in 2017, and at the University of Timisoara in 2018. Supervisor of dozens of master’s thesis students and five pre-doctoral students, she is the local coordinator, for the University of Cagliari, of the Italian National Doctorate School "Defense against natural risks and ecological transition of built environment”.

Associate Professor

Emanuele Reccia

Associate Professor

Associate Professor at Università Degli Studi di Cagliari

Eng, M.Sc. in Architectural Engineering at the University of Cagliari, M.Phil. and Ph.D. in Conservation of Architectural Heritage. in Conservation of Historic Architectural Heritage, Emanuele Reccia is Associate Professor of Solid and Structural Mechanics at the University of Cagliari, where he teaches "Structural Mechanics" and "Structural Analysis for Historic Architecture" at the Faculty of Architecture, and "Analysis of Structural Behaviour and Instability of Historic Buildings" at the School of Specialisation in Architectural and Landscape Heritage (SSBAP) of the University of Cagliari. Previously he was a post-doctoral researcher at the IUAV University of Venice and at the Sapienza University of Rome. He has participated in several research projects and is the author of more than 33 papers published in international journals. His research interests range between masonry materials and historical structures, masonry arch bridges, composite materials, shells and micropolar continuum.

LECTURERS and TUTORS

Marialuigia Sangirardi

Research Associate at University of Oxford

Lecturer

Marilù is a Research Associate at the Department of Engineering Science of the University of Oxford where she's working on the development of new advanced and non-invasive in situ testing methods for historic masonry. She received her PhD in Structural Engineering in 2016 from the Technical University of Bari and the University of Minho, where she spent a visiting period as part of the ISISE Historic Masonry Group lead by Professor P.B. Lourenço. She has been working as scientific consultant in international research projects and as research fellow in Bari, Pavia and Rome, in the Research Group coordinated by Gianmarco de Felice. Her research interests include constitutive modelling of masonry, computer vision based monitoring strategies, numerical simulations of various boundary value problems, under static and dynamic conditions, with particular emphasis on historical constructions, low-impact retrofitting techniques and soil-structure interaction. She serves as reviewer for several international journals in preservation, structural engineering, and mechanics.

Alessandro Dell'Endice

Post-Doctoral Researcher at ETH Zurich

Alessandro is a chartered building engineer and architect. In 2013, he completed a Master's Degree in Building Engineering and Architecture at the Politecnico di Bari (Italy), with an experimental thesis on aluminium-concrete composite materials for free-form structures. From 2013 to 2015, he worked in Italy as a structural engineer and architect on various residential building projects. In 2016 he earned a Master of Advanced Studies (MAS) in Architecture and Digital Fabrication at ETH Zurich, led by the Gramazio Kohler Research Group. In November 2016, he joined the Block Research Group (BRG) as an intern and then as a Research Assistant. In 2018, he started a PhD at BRG, focusing on developing computational tools for the structural assessment and design of unreinforced masonry structures using the Discrete Element Method, investigating the role of geometrical imperfections on their structural behaviour. In 2021, Alessandro took part as a structural designer and BRG project leader in the realisation of Striatus, an unreinforced masonry 3D-concrete-printed pedestrian bridge built in Venice. From August 2021, he was Visiting Researcher in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley for six months, hosted by Prof. Matthew J. DeJong, working on the mechanical behaviour of unreinforced masonry spiral staircases. Alessandro currently works at the BRG as a Post-Doctoral Researcher.

Lecturer

Amal Gerges

Research Fellow at Università Degli Studi di Cagliari

Research Fellow

Amal Gerges holds a Ph.D. in Architecture and Civil Engineering from the University of Cagliari, along with a Doctor Europeaus certificate. with a dissertation titled Modelling Masonry as a Continuum: Finite Element Analysis Using Abaqus. Her research primarily focused on the stability of masonry structures under static and dynamic loads, a key aspect of her work is the study of masonry as a continuum, aiming to bridge the gap between limit analysis-based methods and the finite element environment.

She is currently a postdoctoral researcher on a national funded project focusing on the evaluation of the structural behaviour of Nuragic architecture at the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering at the University of Cagliari. During a study period at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid (ETSAM), she worked under the supervision of Prof. Santiago Huerta, investigating limit analysis methods to predict the behaviour of masonry structures.

Previously, she worked on construction and rehabilitation projects in Lebanon and Syria. She has also been actively involved in tutoring and conducting seminars for courses on Dynamics of Structures and Seismic Engineering.

Pietro Meriggi

Lecturer at Università Roma Tre

Pietro Meriggi is an Assistant Professor and member of the Structures Research Group at the Department of Engineering of Roma Tre University. Born in 1992, he got his BSc in 2014, his MSc in 2017, and his PhD in Civil Engineering in 2021 at Roma Tre University. His scientific interests and expertise include laboratory and field testing of both traditional and innovative materials and of full-scale masonry structural members (subject to static and dynamic loads), analytical modelling of masonry structures and development of rules for the design of masonry constructions. From January to March 2020 he was visiting PhD Student at Navier Laboratory – IFSTTAR in Paris, where he started studying possible strengthening solutions for 3D printed digital concrete structures. Pietro has recently been involved in International Technical Committees, including the RILEM TC 250-CSM “Composites for sustainable strengthening of masonry” and the ACI 549 0L – RILEM TC 250 CSM Liaison Subcommittee “Design and Construction of Externally Bonded Fabric Reinforced Cementitious Matrix (FRCM) Systems for Repair and Strengthening Masonry Structures”. Since 2017 he is teaching assistant for the course of Earthquake Engineering at Roma Tre University.

Assistant Professor

Andrea Montanino

Lecturer

Lecturer at University of Naples "Federico II"

Andrea Montanino is Lecturer at the University of Naples “Federico II”. He obtained his PhD in Computational Mechanics and Advanced Materials from the University of Pavia in 2015. His thesis was awarded as the Best PhD thesis in Computational Mechanics of Fluids by the Italian Group of Computational Mechanics. Since then, his research has focused on different applications of computational mechanics, including fluid-dynamics, biomechanics and computational methods for masonry structures. From 2015 to 2018 he joined as a Post-Doctoral Researcher, the Research Group of Anna Pandolfi at the “Politecnico of Milano” working on various projects on the Biomechanics of the Eye. He is coauthor of about 35 publications on peer-reviewed international journals.

Fabian Bernal Orozco Barrera

Lecturer at National Autonomous University of Mexico

Fabian is an architect who specializes in masonry vaults and domes, using static thrust line techniques to assess the safety in ancient masonry buildings. He studied in the Nacional Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) through a master’s degree in Restoration with the thesis “Methodological proposal for the conservation of Vaults and Domes in view of earthquakes”. He did a research stay at the Polytechnic University of Madrid under Professor Santiago Huerta. Currently he is a structures professor at the Faculty of Architecture in UNAM, collaborating as an Independent researcher. He works as an active consultant on the assessment of Masonry Structures in Mexico for private and public entities since 2020. He has worked on restoration projects and retrofitting of masonry buildings. He has conducted the surveys of the case studies for the Summer School on Historic Masonry Structures 2021 also participating as teaching assistant.

Lecturer

Vittorio Paris

Assistant Professor

Lecturer at Università di Bergamo

Vittorio Paris is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Bergamo. He received his PhD in 2020 under the supervision of Professor Attilio Pizzigoni. Vittorio’s research focuses on masonry self-balanced shells and their equilibrium during the construction, through which he aims to pave a way towards sustainable construction that is inspired by historical techniques. Under this aim, he has conducted extensive research on the unique and long lost masonry technique: the herringbone technique and the cross-herringbone masonry pattern to construct domes. He is also part of the Form Finding Lab at Princeton University since 2018. Here, he works with Prof. Sigrid Adriaenssens towards applying self-balancing techniques to a range of shells varying in form, scale and materials, and further in collaboration with new-age technologies of robotic construction.

Giulia Piccinin

Research Associate at IUAV University Venice

Giulia Piccinin graduated in Architecture from the IUAV University of Venice with a thesis on the digital reconstruction of the helical staircase in an elliptical plan of Palazzo Mannajuolo a Naples. She has a PhD in Architecture, cities and design. She is a teaching assistant and contract professor at the Iuav University and the University of Trieste for subjects relating to the field of representation of architecture and drawing (SSD Ichar/17). He is a member of the Imago rerum (Iuav) research unit, coordinated by Prof. De Rosa. She is currently a research fellow at the Department of Civil and Construction Engineering Environmental of the University of Padua. Giulia Piccinin graduated in Architecture at Iuav University of Venice with a thesis focused on the digital reconstruction of the elliptical heicoidal staircase at Palazzo Mannajuolo in Naples. She holds a PhD in Architecture, City and Design. She is teaching assistant and adjunct professor at Iuav University and University of Trieste for subjects related to the field of representation of architecture and design (SSD Icar/17). She is a member of the research unit Imago rerum (Iuav), coordinated by Prof. De Rosa. Currently she is researching fellow at the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering of the University of Padua.

Research Associate

Felix Rodriguez

Lecturer

Consultant at GV408 studio and Lecturer at European University of Madrid

Félix Rodríguez is an architect specialized on structural analysis, currently working as a consultant for GV408 studio and as a lecturer on structural design at European University of Madrid.

He completed his BSc in 2021 and his MSc in 2023 at Escuela Técnica Superior de Madrid, where he specialized on historical masonry structures and thrust line analysis, writing his bachelor thesis on the interventions and structural analysis of San Fernando church in Mexico under the supervision of Santiago Huerta, he has taken part as an assistant on the tile vaulting workshop at Polytechnic University of Madrid and as a tutor in the previous editions of the Summer School on Historic Masonry Structures.

Félix Rodríguez is an architect specialized on structural analysis, currently working as a consultant for GV408 studio and as a lecturer on structural design at European University of Madrid.

Teaching Assistants

Tvrtko Renić

Research Associate at the University of Zagreb

Tvrtko Renić is a postdoctoral researcher at University of Zagreb, Faculty of Civil engineering where he has been working at the department for strucures since 2017 on research and teaching in the feild of new and existing concrete and masonry structures. He received his PhD in structural engineering at University of Zagreb in 2022. His main fields of interest are seismic analysis and design, existing masonry structures, strengthening methods, graphical methods of analysis and design and use of non-metallic reinforcement. He is part of a research project that aims to study typical unreinforced masonry buildings in Zagreb with emphasis of their assessment and post-earthquake retrofitting.

Research Fellow

Martina Buzzetti

PhD Student

PhD Student Politecnico di Milano

Martina Buzzetti is a PhD student in the Department of Architecture, Built Environment, and Construction Engineering at Politecnico di Milano, Italy. She earned her BSc in Civil Engineering in 2020 and her MSc in Earthquake Engineering in 2022, specializing in the seismic assessment and retrofitting of historical masonry buildings. Her master's thesis focused on this area, and she continued this research in her PhD, particularly on the seismic response of historical masonry buildings to earthquake sequences. Her work aims to develop numerical models to prevent damage and collapse from repeated seismic shocks, improving the safety and resilience of heritage structures in earthquake-prone regions like Italy. She also has experience as a teaching assistant for the Structures and Seismic Design Criteria course in the master's program.

Álvaro Díaz

Student at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid

Álvaro Díaz will graduate from a Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture in June, after presenting his final thesis in the area of masonry structures. His strongest interest in the field of architecture is precisely the study of Historic Masonry Structures, as well as general Structural Calculation and Design of any other kind of structure.

He has collaborated with the Department of Structures of his University in the assessment of the structural safety of a damaged parking building in the centre of Madrid. He has taken intensification courses in Masonry Structures and Tiled Vaults under the teaching of Professor Santiago Huerta, who will also tutor his final thesis. He has also participated in various Workshops consisting of building different typologies of tiled vaults, arches and domes with the master mason Carlos Martin. He participated in the last edition of this Summer School (2024) as a student.

Student

Natalia Pingaro

PhD Student

PhD Student at Politecnico di Milano

Natalia Pingaro is a PhD student at the Department of Architecture, Built Environment, and Construction Engineering. Her interest in architecture and the restoration of historical buildings began during her undergraduate studies at the Politecnico di Milano School of Architecture, where she completed a BSc thesis on the seismic vulnerability of historical masonry towers. To gain deeper insight into structural problems of historical buildings, she pursued an MSc in Building Engineering, focusing on historical masonry arches through advanced numerical models. Her PhD thesis involves computational models with experimental validation of historic masonry curved structures, considering retrofitting interventions. She has experience as a teaching assistant in structural mechanics and structural analysis courses and is a co-author of five papers published in peer-reviewed international journals.