AIDA — International Water Academy
CORE Venice Lab · Venice
A field academy on water. One week, on the water, in the Venice lagoon — where the lagoon is the classroom and the people who run it are the teachers.
Why Venice
Venice is not a monument with a water problem. It is a 1,200-year-old experiment in living with water that never stopped running — and is now being rewritten by sea-level rise, mass tourism, depopulation and a mobile barrier system that has been closing the lagoon since it entered operation.
We take small groups inside that experiment for a week. We teach what worked and what did not, because both are still visible from the boat.
How you stay
Seven days, full board. Only travel to Venice is excluded.
| Aboard | What it is | Cohort |
|---|---|---|
| Voga & Islands | Traditional boats and island lodging, simple | 12–20 |
| Motonave Campus | Equipped vessel, simple cabins | 16–20 |
| Catamaran Campus | Apartments aboard, full catering | 12–20 |
Teaching is identical at all three levels. Only the comfort changes.
Who teaches
Giovanni Cecconi — Course leader
Forty years on the Venice lagoon as a hydraulic and environmental engineer. He directed the control room of the mobile barrier system at Consorzio Venezia Nuova, where the decision to close the lagoon is prepared, taken and lived with. Author of Venice: Living with Water, Learning with Nature (2017). Founder of CORE Venice Lab.
He teaches days 1, 2 and 7 of every programme. The rest of the week is taught by practitioners who do the job every day, not by visiting lecturers.