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Please click on the pictures below to learn about our interests.

 

 

Update on Karensa Wood

Kerensa Wood, our graduating Scholar, relates her Spring Semester projects as follows: Analyzed preservation law by engaging in a number of mock testimonies and prepared proposals for the US Navy to highlight the historic resources located on the National 1799 Navy yard.

This summer Kerensa will be attending the Vernacular Architecture Forum in Jamaica to present a paper on the history of the sobrado (row house) and its potential reuse in the future. She desires to professionally work with the US Navy in Washington DC at the federal level.

Kerensa writes: "Through the support and generosity of The Questers', I have been able to explore my passions in preservation and be involved in invaluable experiences that would not have otherwise been available to me. For this, I am forever grateful!"

SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
NEW YORK CITY, NY

Columbia University’s Historic Preservation Program offers a curriculum of extraordinary diversity. The curriculum builds on over forty-five years of experience teaching historic preservation, while remaining cognizant of the demands of a dynamic evolving profession.. The curriculum includes a series of core courses, providing each student with basic knowledge of the field, and then broadens out, allowing each student the opportunity to develop his or her own focus.

The core curriculum - “Theory and Practice of Historic Preservation” is the centerpiece of the first semester’s Studio I course. This class teaches documentation and interpretation skills, focusing on a specific New York City neighborhood. Students also take Preservation Planning, an introduction to planning as a preservation tool; Structures, Systems, and Materials I, which introduces pre-industrial building techniques and materials, and American Architecture I, a history of architecture in the United States through the 1880s.

Several of the first semester courses continue into a student’s second semester. Studio II focuses on particular timely preservation issues. All students also take Structures, Systems, and Materials II, which introduces students to the built world from the mid-nineteenth century to the present; and American Architecture II.

During the summer between the first and second year, each student will work at one or more internships.

Only two classes are required during the second year of study in the Historic Preservation Program. During the first semester, all students take Preservation Colloquium, a class that analyzes issues introduced in the first year and prepares students for the completion of a thesis. By the beginning of the second year, students should have chosen a thesis topic. Preliminary thesis presentations will be made during the first semester, but the bulk of thesis work will occur during winter break and during the second semester. All other classes during the second year are electives.

                                    

                                     Kerensa Wood:
                                     The Questers’ 36th Scholar

 

2010 Summer Report: Kerensa Wood
36th Scholar, Columbia University

This summer has been an incredibly rich period of interesting projects, internships, and travel.

My summer began with Professors Carol Clark and Tony Wood organizing the 2011 Fitch Forum: 45 Years of Preservation Law, New York City and the Nation: the Past and the Future.  Marketing and fundraising projects will continue throughout the year leading up to the conference.

At the end of May, I was invited by two graduating historic preservation students (including fellow Quester scholar Ioannis Avramides who is pictured with me on the right) to join their Kinne trip to Scandinavia. We visited a number of UNESCO World Heritage sites, the world’s first the world’s first  open air museum with a 12th century stave church and other types of Norwegian vernacular architecture, and a number of extremely well-preserved neighborhoods. Upon return, I continued work with Carol Clark and Tony Wood.

Without a doubt, the highlight of my summer was the Columbia GSAPP-sponsored field trip to Rio de Janeiro. At the end of May, four of my classmates and I were selected by Dean Wigley to conduct an in-depth documentation report on three "sobrados" (Brazil's equivalent to a rowhouse) that will be converted into a studio and research facility. The documentation project placed an emphasis on determining original finishes, as well as alterations, in order to inform future design of the studio. Collaborating with five Brazilian architecture students, who were selected from various universities in Rio de Janeiro, we investigated the sobrados and produced measured representational drawings. In-depth historical research was conducted on the sobrado typology, the surrounding neighborhoods, architectural styles and materials in Brazil, and the development of Rio as a whole.

Upon return from Rio de Janeiro, Professor Theo Prudon offered me a four-week internship with DOCOMOMO US. My internship with DOCOMOMO focused on updating their "Register" (which is a database with reports on modern buildings), which included writing guidelines on how to research and format the reports, editing submitted reports, and writing new reports. This work was recently presented by members of the DOCOMOMO US Board at the DOCOMOMO International Conference in Mexico City.

Currently I am working on writing, editing, and formatting the Rio de Janeiro documentation report; consulting with Landmark West! on developing a walking tour iPhone application for their 25th Anniversary this fall; working on a number of tasks for Future Anterior; and continuing my work on the 2011 Fitch Forum.

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