For more than 10 years, Riccardo has been studying and working in the field of engineering, conservation, and urban heritage. He graduated from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University College Cork, Ireland before gaining his MSc in Building and Urban Design in Development at the Development Planning Unit of University College London with the thesis ‘Urban Discourses: the Language of Public Space’. He then obtained his advanced Masters degree in ‘Structural Analysis of Monuments and Historical Constructions’. Since 2011 he has lived in Prague. His current research focuses on knowledge-based assessment of historic buildings, and particularly on the diagnosis of masonry failure mechanisms and related intervention strategies. As a heritage enthusiast and scholar he enjoys discovering Prague´s fascinating urban fabric, making connections with the complex evolution of the socio-economic processes that take place as the city’s built environment transforms.