Planning for Heritage Preservation

This class provides an introduction to heritage preservation planning at the local level in the United States. It begins by examining a series of related questions that are currently
subjects of active debate within the community of preservation scholars and practitioners. These questions include: What does it mean to "plan" for heritage preservation? Given the wide breadth of all that could be considered heritage--from buildings to landscapes to foodways--what are the appropriate subjects and contents of a preservation plan? Does preservation planning intersect with, and take into account, larger issues of city planning, and vice versa? How has the content and practice of preservation planning changed over time, and how might it (or should it) change in the future?

These questions are debated both before and throughout the execution of a hands-on,
community-based, case-study project. The class researches, recommends, and presents policies and programs to address the disposition of foreclosed and abandoned properties in Saint Paul's Dayton's Bluff historic district. Housing foreclosure is a growing nationwide epidemic that presents an especially unique challenge within a city-designated historic district. While other cities propose demolition of "blighted" vacant property, St. Paul should be a leader in the revitalization of historic and culturally significant properties. City-owned historic houses on East 4th Street are proposed as a pilot project to create best practices that can be replicated throughout the Twin Cities and beyond.

ForeclosureResponse_Part1_RFS.pdf

Conservation Science Laboratory

Assistant Professor Greg Donofrio invited guest instructor, Andrew Fearon, Architectural Conservator with Milner+Carr Conservation, Philadelphia, to introduce future professionals in the field of architecture to the laboratory -investigation of historic building materials. Through examination and testing programs participants yielded both findings from actual historic buildings samples as well as a broader understanding of material aspects of the built environment. Interactive lectures on historic construction practices accompanied a series of hands-on labs and traditional building techniques encompassing wood, paint, and mortar. Students received a binder containing core reference materials for each lab.

Economics of Historic Preservation

This introductory course provides, through readings and lectures, an overview of the theory and practice of heritage preservation-based community redevelopment and economics. Students learn about financial aspects of real estate development (including economic incentives and constraints) by developing case studies of recent historic rehabilitation projects throughout Minnesota in which they examine details such as financial feasibility and compliance with design guidelines and other regulatory aspects often encountered in the adaptive reuse of historic properties. They also consider financial incentives available in other states in an effort to understand how new policies in Minnesota might positively influence preservation activity.

Skateboard Park - Twisted Landscape

Adjacent to the existing site of this hybrid skateboard park / after school learning center are several transportation arteries, including a multi-lane parkway, minor surface roads, a light rail line, sidewalks, and a dedicated bike path. This scheme endeavors to subsidize the cost of the park by twisting the site's horizontal surface to the vertical position where it can be used as a billboard for paid advertising as well as a vertical skateboard ramp. The orientation of surface maximizes its exposure to the existing transportation arteries.

Skateboard Park - Interchange

This skateboard park scheme evolved from an examination of the highway interchange as a precedent study. Based on narrative user scenarios, the building's organization captures primary and secondary flow patterns of the existing site as well as anticipated new user patterns. It weaves these flow patterns together, sectionally, with the dynamic programmatic requirements of a skateboard park.

Skateboard Park - Woven Path

During the first half of this project, we focsed on developing a clear conceptual strategy for laying out the skatepark on the site and how program was the driver for decision-making. I arranged program around a weaving path and it became a push-pull system. Exterior programs are pushed into the earth allowing for sectional variation. The architecture emerges where the exterior programs end.