This course is an overview of the interdisciplinary paradigms, principles, and programs in the field of heritage conservation ranging from local, state, and federal contexts with some attention to international practice. The course addresses the conservation of cultural resources (tangible and intangible products of human construction) generally, and the built environment specifically, by introducing students to the terms, concepts and philosophical/theoretical foundations of heritage conservation in action. Students will learn how cultural resources are defined in regulatory and legal frameworks, promoted as value-added public amenities using economic development and planning tools and will analyze existing guidelines and standards to document, preserve and rehabilitate them. Implementing sustainability in heritage conservation practice is another focus of the course. 

Online
Typically Offered: Fall
Units: 3

This course deals with the documentation, interpretation and management of cultural landscapes. Cultural landscapes are a heritage resource combining natural and cultural environments, from the local to the global. It is a wide-ranging field that includes protection of smaller, well-defined sites with tangible historic elements, to vast landscapes with intangible associations that embody a sense of place and identities of a people.

This course provides the vocabulary and approaches to the protection of cultural landscapes. Students will be asked to consider the varied challenges and opportunities such landscapes present. These can include the management of ongoing activities that can bring vibrancy but also endanger the landscape’s integrity. There are the challenges of interpreting sites which may have dark and sometimes difficult histories. Interpretations often include the protection of indigenous rights, as well as managing the risks to these landscapes caused by a range of threats from warfare to climate change. The ultimate purpose of cultural landscape conservation is to represent stories of these places that are more equitable, integrated across nature and culture and connected to community. The culminating capstone project will embody some of these stories, and how the student proposes to conserve them going forward.

Online
Typically Offered: Fall
Units: 3

This course familiarizes students with important social, economic, political and technological agendas that have shaped the design of the built environment and public realm. Students who successfully complete this course will learn many of the key debates in recent urban and architectural theory, the distinctive language of contemporary theory, issues of cultural diversity and writing strategies to develop their own critique of concepts relative to the course material and interpretations of existing and emerging themes in architecture and urbanism.

Online
Typically Offered: Spring
Units: 3

This course examines methods and standards to document historic buildings, districts and  cultural landscapes and to interpret their historical and design significance. Students learn how to conduct historic research and survey and record data on historic properties. The course culminates in the completion of an individual building or landscape documentation project to professional standards.

Online
Typically Offered: Spring
Units: 3

A review of preservation policy and jurisdictional issues within community development context, this course addresses complex social equity considerations associated with historic designation, examines economic incentives and explores preservation philosophy, cross cultural values and emerging trends. Students will gain skills to connect technical and policy requirements of historic preservation with pragmatic social and economic concerns of community development.

Online
Typically Offered: Spring
Units: 3