Salvation-themed art environments are a roadside rarity, built out of a strong visionary dedication to God, but the sites are disappearing simply because the work is misunderstood. The historiography on the subject is sparse, trending more toward coffee table books with big glossy pictures than real scholarly endeavors, but the consensus among all has been clear. The sites are a valuable part of the recent American cultural landscape, crossing several scholarly fields - art, architecture, and history - and uniting them into a cohesive preservation movement. On a series of trips to visit, see, and experience five of these sites, I began to understand the massive scale that each site required to assemble and exactly what it would take to restore and preserve each site. The preservation goal is not small, but it is not unattainable. There are federal grants, nonprofit groups and localized support committees from which to gather support so that the site may continue to be a piece of history.

Los Angeles is experiencing a loss of inventory with Industrial land due to adaptive reuse and property conversion. The primary factors behind the conversions are inconsistent land use regulations and a strong market demand for residential property. In an effort to streamline land use regulation, the city will create a new zoning code. In conjunction with the zoning update, the purpose of this project will be to develop a form-based code for the Los Angeles Arts District. The new land use regulation will explore methods to preserve job producing industrial space and accommodate the growing residential market in the area. Data for this study was collected and presented as a site analysis. The study also includes a literature review that examines the history of land use regulation in Europe and the United States. The site analysis for the Arts District includes an investigation of circulation patterns, economic factors, development profile, community input, and review of planning documents. Research includes a chronological investigation of the Arts District’s history, land use policies, and regulations. The study indicates that the Arts District, though primarily industrial, contains multiple residential nodes. Additionally, it reveals that industrial jobs and building stock are at risk from new development. The purpose of The Arts District Form-Based Code, as the new land use regulation, is to create a predicable development pattern that improves the quality of the built environment.

Environmental conservation and natural resources management are critical global issues of the 21st century. The management of protected public lands emerges as a challenge particularly in developing countries because of the biophysical and socio-cultural importance of these lands. These lands are often referred to as 'working landscapes' where the natural systems and the collective actions of local residents have shaped one another in well-balanced interactions for generations. The working landscapes of the Köprülü Kanyon National Park (KKNP) in Turkey have provided the case study for this dissertation. Eleven villages exist within the park with a total of approximately 7,100 residents. The rich natural resources of the park have been contested by local communities, management and concessionaires. The objectives of the research were: first, to understand the fundamentals of the natural and socio-cultural dynamics within protected areas in general, and within the KKNP in particular; second, to examine the social conflicts which complicate the management of the KKNP; and third, to explore potential solutions whereby the stakeholders can cooperate in stabilizing the traditional dynamics of the park's working landscapes. Qualitative data was collected via 38 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with local residents, managers and concessionaires. The research found that an array of social disturbances and conflicts impact the social fabric and harm the land-human integrity of the site. These include shifting demographics, changing lifestyles of the villagers, pressures from tourism, multiple governmental authorities and instable management. Yaylacýlýk tradition, a semi-sedentary form of pastoralism, has played a significant role in both the traditional ecology and the social relations within the communities of the KKNP; and its abandonment has severely impacted both social and biophysical conditions. Through yaylacýlýk local residents had managed the lands as common property. The establishment of the national park, changing life styles and the pressures on the local agricultural economy brought an end to yaylacýlýk . Now the resources are treated in effect as open pool resources, thus leading to their demise. Throughout the eventful past of the KKNP the local residents have come from being integral elements of the 'working landscapes,' to being as antagonistic enemies of the park management. The three ideal characteristic elements of the 'working landscapes' of the KKNP (controlled access, coordination and communication) which once were maintained by the yaylacýlýk tradition, can be re-institutionalized within the region through contemporary applications by neutral third party initiatives. Restoration, conservation and efficient management of biophysical resources and the natural environment should be the outcomes of the resolutions of social conflicts which can be accomplished by the restoration of these three elements of the social structure.

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This dissertation examines how institutions and individuals navigate the histories of racial difference and settler colonialism by focusing on architectural preservationists' explanations of what are referred to as white cities. Through dialogue between architectural history, international relations, and critical heritage studies, I map the making and remaking of the histories of white cities, or what were designed as "European" zones – in opposition to "Indigenous" zones – that brought together modernist architecture, white supremacy, early twentieth-century European settler colonialism, and architectural preservation. My focus on preservationists' narrations of these white cities extends interdisciplinary work charting their historical production from a group of scholars focusing on the relationship of architecture in the production of domination in European colonialism. My work extends this scholarship by shifting to preservationists' narrations of white cities through the question: how do preservationists remake the histories of racial difference and settler colonialism that underpinned the production of white cities? In this dissertation, I argue that preservationists remake the histories of racial difference and settler colonialism that produced white cities by relying on what I refer to as didactic narratives to legitimate preservation interventions. Preservationists use these didactic narratives to reframe white cities as part of national histories, the universalism of the World Heritage List, and the history of the modernist movement in architecture and planning. My argument advances by showing preservationists' appropriations of the didactic narratives in the World Heritage List inscription materials for White City of Tel Aviv (2003), Rabat, Modern Capital and Historic City: A Shared Heritage (2012), and Asmara: A Modernist African City (2017) and through ethnographic fieldwork with local preservationists in Casablanca and Tel Aviv. To frame these analyses, I map the institutional changes within the UNESCO World Heritage Committee that sought greater legitimacy by expanding the typological and geographical scope of the World Heritage List. To do so, the institution enlisted the International Committee for the Documentation and Conservation of Buildings, Sites, and Neighborhoods of the Modern Movement (DOCOMOMO-International) to recraft the criteria to include twentieth-century modernist architecture onto the List. However, DOCOMOMO promoted a particular way of interpreting white cities through the didactic narratives that led to the proliferation of white cities on the World Heritage List. By charting the different ways that preservationists appropriate the didactic narratives in the World Heritage List materials and in the text of semi-structured interviews and from participant observation, I show how the intersecting power structures of white supremacy and settler colonialism that were embedded in the production of white cities are adapted by preservationists in the co-constitution of international institutions, disciplinary knowledge, and individual subject positions. / Doctor of Philosophy / This dissertation considers how the histories of race and colonialism are narrated by architectural preservationists. I do so by focusing on preservationists' narrations of white cities, "European" enclaves designed in opposition to "Indigenous" zones in early 20th century settler colonialism. By focusing on the preservation of what were designed as racialized spaces, I explore how these histories of racial difference and colonialism are mediated by forms of knowledge, institutions, and individuals. Yet it is the focus on preservationists that I detail how preservationists silence, downplay, or mobilize the histories of white cities through three different narrative tropes of national histories, the universalism of the World Heritage List, and modernist movement architecture and design. I show how these narrative tropes justify preservation interventions while making some histories more accessible and others less so. To analyze how preservationists remake the histories of white cities, I map the creation and transformations of the primary international preservation organization, the World Heritage List. These institutional changes led to the addition of white cities in Asmara, Rabat, and Tel Aviv based on preservationists' adaptations of the three narrative tropes. I then show how these same narrative tropes are appropriated by local preservationists to remake the histories of race and colonialism in white cities. By drawing attention to the ways that the histories of race and colonialism are remade through the intersections of individuals, institutions, and forms of knowledge, the project shows how knowledge on the modernist movement is implicated in the constitution of power in the World Heritage List and in consolidating privileged subject positions. Moreover, my analysis opens up questions on the co-constitution of institutions, forms of knowledge, and individual subject positions. Lastly, the analysis demonstrates that individuals have the potential to challenge – rather than to uphold – the constellations of power etched into white cities. I show one instance of architectural preservationists challenging these structures of power in the preservation effort of Les Abattoirs in Casablanca in 2009-2013.

Architecture in its primitive form enacted a relationship of making between intentions and outcome. Post- industrialized modernization has created a multiplication of complexities, resulting in a profession that has disengaged theory and practice through the specialization of the architect and the craftsman. Design-build has the ability to be an educational process that re-engages a direct dialog and collaboration of the roles of designer and maker, reinforcing the resilience of culture and place through joining intentions and built reality. Design-build projects have the ability to be an integral part of design education because of their ability to engage in physical manifestation that is fundamentally different than formal education of designing through drawing or design at a distance. Exploring the Washington Alexandria Architecture Center's Design-Build ethos as a primary case study, I intend to support this claim by providing evidence of how a Design-Build process can engage the designer, tools, methods, and materials, with the cultural, social, and environmental context that is sensible to place. By utilizing creativity and ingenuity of available resources as an opportunity for adaptation, an organic sense of place is perceptible, the place is created. Representation beyond drawing encourages one to be proactive in connecting the qualities and characteristics of existing space; this leads to a sustainable practice of continued investment in object, materiality, time, and place. Hybrid approaches to design, or the assembly of both design and building as an academic practice, are no longer insular, but are encouraged as a way to interrelate and connect the built environment with its unbuilt opportunities and impressions. / Master of Architecture / Architecture in its primitive form enacted a relationship of making between intentions and outcome. Post- industrialized modernization has created a multiplication of complexities, resulting in a profession that has disengaged theory and practice through the specialization of the architect and the craftsman. Designbuild has the ability to be an educational process that re-engages a direct dialog and collaboration of the roles of designer and maker, reinforcing the resilience of culture and place through joining intentions and built reality. Design-build projects have the ability to be an integral part of design education because of their ability to engage in physical manifestation that is fundamentally different than formal education of designing through drawing or design at a distance. Exploring the Washington Alexandria Architecture Center’s Design-Build ethos as a primary case study, I intend to support this claim by providing evidence of how a Design-Build process can engage the designer, tools, methods, and materials, with the cultural, social, and environmental context that is sensible to place. By utilizing creativity and ingenuity of available resources as an opportunity for adaptation, an organic sense of place is perceptible, the place is created. Representation beyond drawing encourages one to be proactive in connecting the qualities and characteristics of existing space; this leads to a sustainable practice of continued investment in object, materiality, time, and place. Hybrid approaches to design, or the assembly of both design and building as an academic practice, are no longer insular, but are encouraged as a way to interrelate and connect the built environment with its unbuilt opportunities and impressions.

The global perspective on digital revolution is one that has received a rapturous approval from information professionals, scholars and practitioners. However, such an approval has come at a great cost to memory institutions as the preservation of digital information has proved to be a complex phenomenon to memory institutions. Guided by the multi method design and underpinned by the triangulation of questionnaires, interviews, observation and document analysis, the study examined digital preservation of e-government in Ghana. Findings revealed that the creation of databases, digital publication, emails, website information and tweets were often ocassioned by the use of ICT, e-government, and application of legislations and public policies. It observed that these types of digital records were in urgent need for preservation as most of the ministries and agencies were unable to access their digital records. While the application of a digital preservation tool (Lots of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe) was a familiar terrain to the ministries and agencies, there was expressed lack of awareness about digital preservation support organisations and digital preservation standards. The study identified funding, level of security and privacy, skills training and technological obsolescence as factors that pose key threats to digital preservation. It noted backup strategy, migration, metadata and trusted repositories as the most widely implemented preservation strategy across the ministries and agencies. On the other hand, cloud computing, refreshing and emulation were the least implemented preservation strategies used to address the digital preservation challenges . The study recommends that the ministries and agencies can address many of the digital preservation challenges if they leverage on collaborative and participatory opportunities. Such collaborative and participatory opportunities involve the use of experts from other institutions to share resources and use a common protocol through cloud computing and Open Data. It further recommends that the process of developing a digital preservation policy can be guided by a template document from other jurisdictions / Information Science / D. Litt et Phil. (Information Science)

This report argues that historic landscape preservation efforts need to embrace biodiversity planning. Historic landscape preservation sites need to develop biodiversity plans because they are uniquely qualified to provide the continuous monitoring that successful biodiversity planning requires. Not only will biodiversity monitoring at various historic landscape sites contribute to a nationwide collection of biodiversity planning data, but it will also provide a rich source of information that can be presented to draw a wider audience into the biodiversity discussion. After considering three precedents: Old Sturbridge Village, Old World Wisconsin, and Tucson Botanical Gardens, the report focuses on the Kino Heritage Fruit Trees Project and its real and potential impacts on biodiversity planning in southern Arizona and more broadly. Finally, the report considers how seed libraries and seed swaps might serve a similar purpose in other parts of the country. / text

To be submitted.

1 English abstract: Villa Müller versus Villa Tugendhat - A Comparison of Two Different Restoration Projects of Modernist Buildings. The work compares two successful restorations of interwar Czechoslovak avant-garde buildings realized between 1995 and 2012. At first, the respective histories of both buildings are compared since their creation through two totalitarian regimes up to their restoration. The fates of builders and architects of both villas are also described. From the point of view of historic preservation the work describes the state of both buildings before the commencement of restoration. The errors committed by the original designers are also described here. The methodology of restoration of both villas stemming from the professional points of view and relevant laws governing heritage protection is also treated in detail. The emphasis is given on preparation works preceding the design phase - the historic-structural survey, which, in both cases, was conceived as above-standard. Due to their span, these surveys have marked a key moment in relation to the modern cultural heritage within the Czech context. In the last part of the work links and comparisons are given to similar modern cultural heritage objects abroad. The work also documents the influence these two restorations have had on...