Campus News

Best practices in historic preservation highlighted in exhibit

Maland
Myles Maland repairs a shutter during a historic preservation maymester field course on Jekyll Island in 2011. Maland is a graduate student studying landscape architecture at the University of Georgia.

The College of Environment and Design will host the exhibit Historic Structures Report: Process and Product from Jan. 17 to Feb. 17 in the Circle Gallery in the Owens Library, located on the ground floor of Caldwell Hall. An opening reception will be held Jan. 17 from 4:30-6 p.m. in the gallery.

 Mark Reinberger, coordinator of the graduate program in historic preservation, curated the exhibit, which explores best management practices with regards to historic buildings and their care. These practices are laid out for each building through a historic structure report, one of the fundamental documents of historic preservation.

The exhibit draws on 18 years of historic structure reports produced by students in the building materials conservation course, which is offered through the College of Environment and Design’s master of historic preservation program.

Included in each historic structure report are historic research on the building, techniques used to construct it and examples of the end product as well as building materials. The report also analyzes the building’s present condition, the sources of its physical problems and recommendations for correcting those problems.

The show will highlight building elements including roofing materials such as wood shingles, tiles and slate; lumber with different saw cuts that tell a story about the building’s provenance; plaster and lath for wall structure; and various building materials including brick, stone, tabby and wood.

The Circle Gallery is open weekdays from 8:30 a.m.-6 p.m.