The Intensive, the ICAA's longest running program, is an eight-day immersion in the core curriculum. The program is designed for professionals and students with limited time, who seek a methodical introduction to the language of classical architecture.

Participants learn how to draw, identify, render, and compose with the classical elements to form an understanding of the basic tenets on which the classical tradition is founded.

Topics include: the classical elements and composition, proportion, architectural representation through drawing and rendering, the study of precedent, and the literature of classical architecture.

The week culminates in a studio project in which students use the classical canon in the design of a small building. Students are guided through a design process rooted in the Beaux-Arts system in which an initial parti is developed during an esquisse and a charrette into a finished design proposal. The program concludes with a review by an esteemed panel of architects.