 Well, so here we are. This is the Columbia campus there at the at the bottom and over here is Avery Hall and yet was just mentioning it. There's at the bottom you can see the main kind of campus commons and around it are the various buildings of the different faculties. And so in the middle of the image at the bottom is a domed building reminiscent of the of the pantheon in Rome, which was originally the library but is now the president's office and over to the right you can see a little blue arrow which is where the preservation program is the architecture planning and preservation school is in Avery Hall, which is the building that you see at the top, and the school is spread out around a number of different buildings and so is our program. And so, when you get here you will, you will get, you know, really acquainted to it but if you look at the bottom left hand side you can see a key map. And the building that looks like a Greek cross that's that domed building that we were just looking at in the in the plan, which is low library the original library and then to the right there are some buildings that are shaded black. And those are the buildings in which our school is there for in total. And so on the right, then you can see above that into the right you can see some diagrams of that and in blue shaded blue are the areas that are really the areas of the preservation program. So, on an Avery Hall there are offices and also a lot of of the classrooms in which you will be taking seminars and studying in different classes we have lecture rooms at the bottom of the Avery Hall there are the two auditoriums that where we have a lot of the big lectures. So that's also the building that has the library Avery library with some of the greatest the world's greatest archival resources you know Frank Lloyd writes papers are here McKimmy and whites papers so it's it's really a tremendous resource for everyone in the preservation program then you have the building Fairweather Hall that's our studio that's our preservation studio everybody gets a desk there that's kind of our home room. Everybody spends, you know you take studio classes but also where you just have your desk and you also hang out and off hours and then ensure more extension. That's where our preservation technology lab is, and we'll talk a little bit more about that it's a major part of the program in its focus. We have a mix of full time and and adjunct faculty in the program. So, some of the worth three full time faculty Andrew dole card is a historian focuses on New York City history. He's published a number of books on New York City history, including books on tenement houses books on the Columbia campus and books on different vernacular typologies, like the, the row house of New York City is also very involved in groundbreaking research on LGBTQ sites so these are sites associated with LGBTQ sister history that have that were really neglected by preservationists and Andrew with a number of alumni from the preservation program started an organization to document them, create this tremendous online resource, and then they're now protecting them in various ways through the landmarks program. So, Andrew is someone that you will meet in studio one he is somebody that teaches archival and historical research methods so it's this is something that's very important for historic preservation because sometimes, you know, buildings that are not necessarily beautiful might be very important because something happened there that is worth our attention as a, as a society so in particular the picture in the middle for example the stone wall in the regular bar, pretty nondescript building, but this was the site of the LGBTQ revolts that led to the passing of, of, you know, civil rights protections for gays and lesbians, and also the beginning of the gay pride parade and, and, and so many other, you know, world changing events so this building is protected not because of its architectural significance but because of its social significance and part of the way that you learn that is through archival historical research so that's a major part of what it means to be a preservationist, and that's part of studio one studio to is, is run by Erica Avrami and Erica Avrami is a planning professional a policy person and really deals with more of the systemic issues of historic preservation the kind of big picture. The laws, the regulations that happen at all levels from the municipal level to the national and international level. So she has, you know, decades of experience in the field working for the World Monuments Fund as director of education and research for the World Monuments Fund. And does these incredible studios that are teaching students how to engage with communities and try to understand from the communities what their resources are what's, what's important to the community and then from their develop policies in accordance to that so to be meeting her in studio to I should say of course that our studio is not sorry our program is studio centric and focused on experimental preservation, and so I. We can talk a little bit more about what that means. But it's very creative. It's very artistic. It's very much focused on innovation. We, we believe that, you know, preservation is a way of changing the world but also preservation is a way of making the future so we're very much invested in this idea of testing out new ways to preserve and to think about the future through historic objects. So that's, I'm the third full time faculty in the program. Here are some of my books that deal with this question of experimental preservation which is, you know, this is a book that tries to capture this and shine a light on this on this movement, which is really, you know, although Columbia has played a lead role in it. It's really an international movement. I've written his more history books concerned with postmodernism and how architects became interested in history and in the first place, and then a more recent book that just came out is a textbook on historic preservation theory which is really an anthology of original architects from all over the world. That is used for teaching the class historic preservation theory and practice, which I teach. First year I'm teaching now and so if you come to visit or come to study with us you will you will take that class. I practice, you know, trained as an architect trained as a historian trained as an urban designer, many, many different kinds of trainings, and, but that all led me to historic preservation and always practiced as an artist. So my practice really uses art as a way to preserve historic buildings and preserve aspects of historic buildings that are sometimes neglected so I've done this decades long research on dust and the dust that settles on buildings and clean the dust with techniques. And then here you can see some of my artworks that have to do with latex, you know, pulling off the dust off of buildings with latex cast and then showing the dust on the one hand cleaning the building and on the other hand really showing this dust as an artwork itself to try to think about dust as an important architectural material. This is not obvious to everyone but you know before you make a building you have to make a lot of dust to make all those materials pollute. And so pollution is, is in a way the origin of architecture but it never is accounted for as a material so these, this is a project to really think about pollution as an architectural material. So that leads us to the preservation technology lab and how we think about materials and I'll talk about that in a second but these works, the work of Andrew, Erica, and myself have in common this idea of testing and questioning what a heritage building is what heritage is and how do we take care of it and pushing the envelope pushing the boundary of what can be considered heritage why for whom is it considered heritage and how using the tools of preservation we can actually begin to make a difference and change the world in the direction in an intentional direction that we want to see and as a program I would say that we're very focused on this question of climate change, and of course social justice together so these are projects that that really lead the way in that direction. I also work on on the preservation of historic monuments around the world with teams this is a project that I've been working on to preserve the United States Embassy in Oslo which was designed by aero sarin a very famous modern architect in 1959. I can tell you more about that project if you're interested. We have a tremendous group of adjunct faculty all of whom have offices and studios in and around New York City, they are both. They're from many, many different disciplines, many of them are architects, many of them are engineers, some of them are historians, some of them are policymakers and planners. Some of them are conservationists and material scientists. Some of them are data science engineers. I think that you know the material world and the techno sphere are connected through data and digital information so you have a lot of classes focused on machine learning artificial intelligence 3D scanning, all of which connect to material courses as well of different materials like stone or metals and things that that make up architecture, but these are also of course connected to classes that deal with with policy you know how does the regulation and the laws that are created in different ways to reflect how we treat those materials. So for example, Carolina Castellanos will you see on the right hand side is somebody that works with, you know, UNESCO and other international organizations to create management plans at an international level and I think historians I heard some of you are coming from that background will be very interested in that kind of work. And this is all, you know, again we all come from very different disciplines and some of you are coming from architecture some of you are coming from engineering some of you are coming from history, English philosophy, and that's part of what makes preservation amazing is that we, you know we bring it all together. We already Sarah Grace, Mika supports us with as lab manager and Lee Smith is our program assistant. You have some options in terms of how you can register in the program. You can either be full time or part time. So, if you are coming full time it's for semesters so two years with summer in between. Really, it's geared for students who are coming from a career that is related to preservation but want to make the shift into preservation and want to become professional preservationists. You don't really have to have any prior experience in preservation, or you can join the program as a part part part time student, which is four years and you do it half time so you're really taking classes so that and half time basis so that you can actually be working in New York City at the same time so this is for people that have already some prior experience in preservation architecture engineering or planning. So that are that are working in the field and want to do the program in that way. Some of you might be interested in our dual degrees which we have with our been planning with architecture and real estate. So you shave off and save some time in those dual degrees and of course if you some of you have questions about those we can talk about those separately. The program is quite unique and our curriculum is quite unique. We call it the slab curriculum, and the slab curriculum. It has these four pillars that are integrated together across our curriculum is called the S stands for society, L stands for the laboratory preservation technology laboratory, a sense for archives and historical work, and B stands for building building design. So now I've already talked about some of the ways in which these things come together now. Let me just make that a little bit clear. The way they come together isn't studio studios we have a studio every semester for the first three semesters and then followed up by a thesis the last semester which is an individual project now the studios are places where you do hands on work, and you're actually learning to integrate all the knowledge from the slab curriculum into the regular projects, and each of these studios places and emphasis on on one or two aspects of these of these four facets of the of the program. So in studio one which has already mentioned is led by Andrew bill card you'll be learning really about archives and historical research but you're also going to be learning about buildings and some basics about how to analyze graphically how to design or understand design principles. Those of you that are architects or engineers will have more design work those of you that come more from a historical and archival background will have more of that work so part of that studio is to put everyone on the same, you know, collective work but also to learn one another studio to is more community based research community engaged research you're really going to be focusing on the s. You're also going to be doing archival historical work and some design work as well and then studio three which I lead is really an experimental preservation studio, which we work. It's a travel studio we travel to different places we're currently working in Venice I just took the students to Venice we spent a week there. And we're working on the adaptive reuse of a historical building there for climate change. And so we're working with a community there with local partners to really understand how climate change manifests itself there, and to really begin to design and think about an experimental preservation plan for that site. And so one of our studios which is led by Erica is dealing with the film industry and how the film industry uses historical site in particular in Montgomery, Alabama, where a lot of the civil rights sites have been used for films and so she's looking at the policy questions and the ethical questions of using films in historic sites or filming historic sites. These studios are really supported by a number of seminars and lecture courses which you can see below. And all of those are coordinated very tightly so that exercises that you're doing in one class is reverberating or being talked about in another class. We're kind of building up so they give you all the, all the knowledge and all the skills that you need to be a professional preservationist and go out and get a job and, you know, make some money, which is part of the concern that everyone, you know, of course has. This is Studio one we go out on the street we look around we measure buildings we go to archives. We learn about the different building types of New York City the different materials. Studio two is community engaged we work around New York City we interview people we discuss the various issues that have, you know, influence the development of the site, the values that have influenced the development of the site sometimes values are good. Sometimes they're disagreeable, like for example, the values of redlining that really racialized the urban experience in New York is something we talk about. How can we address it how can we fix it through both policy, but also different design interventions at the very local level that begin to highlight different aspects of the city so on the right hand side for example, students did an installation, doing some history in one of these very important churches in Harlem. That was open to the community and on the left. This is a project that was actually for Columbia University to try to literally bring light to one of the buildings and in Columbia University that is where the LGBTQ movement in New York, had a major place of the building for dances that were organized at Columbia University for all the New York LGBTQ community. And so that the building is designated for having that history. Studio three we we it's again a travel studio. We stayed local but now we're traveling again. This is a project this is a studio that teaches you how to actually visualize those values at a building scale how do you actually make when you're preserving a building. According to a set of values and ideas about how you want to engage with the community think about the future and think about the relevance of a particular site to that community, you have to make choices you have to design. You have to change materials you have to put in a new entrance you have to put in a visitor center. How do you engage with the community and how do you begin to make those design choices so this is a design. This is experimental preservation design oriented studio and here we worked with a very important site of one of the founders of the United States called John Jay, who was one of the people that's passed the laws to abolish slavery, but he was paradoxically also a slave owner so we dealt with some of those issues. So we go out and learn to 3D scan using drones using 3D scanners using photogrammetry make 3D models to visualize how to, for example reconstruct buildings and then take those three dimensional information and feed into them. There's really specific hardcore lab materials analysis work on the paint samples on the on the wood types, etc, to be able to then, you know, make a proposal for a reconstruction of a building for example among many things. This is a historic bowling alley but that students were thinking about how to actually reconstructed and turn it into something else. In this case what the J center needed was a visitor center. So, we also work a lot with 3D printing, you know this is the future of bringing a hybrid of craft and digital technology together. So we 3D scan pieces of buildings that are decaying or that are that are the need to be replaced and then figure out how could we 3D print these pieces to replace them when the craft work is not there a lot of time the 3D print needs to be supplemented with some kind of craft techniques so for example this is the printout of some historic tiles in Spain that we worked on, but then need to be lacquered and and and fired, so that they have the right color on. So that's some of that work this is some, again some of that studio three work that we did working on different buildings around the world that was United Nations and Geneva this is the US Embassy in in London, and you can see on the right it's also experiment with different ways of visualizing history. And so here, for example, the student on the right hand side, you can see was using an overlay of different images indicating different time periods and how those kind of that palimpsest of times then needs to be enacted and visualized in the final design for the adaptive reuse of the embassy into a new library for London. So we did similar projects we did this whole series on US embassies around the world that are being closed and decommissioned and so this was the one for Mexico City where students worked on different systems to to adapt these buildings to climate change at the same time that they're being adapted to new, new programs and made public again so you see the image on the right is the old embassy and on the left is the student proposal. We were recently in Venice and this is the team we just got back from Venice this is the US pavilion in Venice, currently by Simone Lee, who's done that intervention. You can see there's a thatched roof that has been placed in front of the historic US pavilion at the Venice Biennale that that whole thatched roof which which is part of Simone Lee's artistic installation was actually designed by a student that was once in the historic preservation studio three. And so we're very proud that that he did that and actually the US pavilion itself is also a alumnus of the Columbia program but from 1930s so you know this has a lot of Columbia history in that photo but we travel we see how preservation is done in different countries. This travel by the way very important to mention is funded by the school. So, yes the program is very expensive but yes the program also you get a lot back. So the school funds you in different ways this this these travel studios are funded by the by the school. So we went to Frida Kahlo's home in Mexico City, or the dirty Wakkan students went to Africa as well to Freetown and Sierra Leone to work on some of the remnants of the slave trade over there. They've been to Haiti, you know, we've gone to Myanmar. So this is the probe. This is this other studio that is done by Erica of Rami who is a community engaged studio. And does these incredible reports that are policy recommendations for the future so the the the project and the end product over here is these these these reports that actually have a life in the world afterwards and are adopted by communities in order to preserve preserve some of these resources so now they are in Montgomery, Alabama they just got back and they're again working I mentioned on how these sites are used in various films, and they're engaged with a lot of communities there. So this brings me to thesis so those are the three studios and you're going to be doing a thesis that is independent research now these thesis are really whatever you're interested in. Some of the thesis are very materials oriented. Some of the thesis are tech, you know, digital technology oriented. We have one student now dealing with blockchain technology. We have other students dealing with vernacular architecture archival work other you know there's they're really they span the full gamut of the program. You have at your disposal the preservation technology laboratory where you can have access to all the equipment and materials to do scientific research on different materials here. One of the people who was doing a project on lime mortar, you know how to find a good replacement for lime mortar so we can. Again, the thesis is a one year project we're very proud of our thesis. This is, we spend a lot of time with you working one on one on your thesis you get a thesis advisor that follows your progress helps you along the way there is a thesis class that helps you to frame your research question. And set yourself up with a literature review and and identify your archival and historical resources that you're going to use and as part of your research that set up your scientific experiments set up your technological protocols. So all of this is really, really well organized you get a lot of support for this kind you also get money to travel for your thesis research so this, you know, we will we will support your travel. We want our students to change the world we want our students to go out there develop big ideas to dream big at Columbia and then take those ideas and actually make them happen so unique to our program is a major prize called the onara prize. $25,000 for a student that graduates from Columbia University in historic preservation to take that big idea and make it real. And so you you use these $25,000 for the six months that you that follow your graduation and come up with it with it with a, you know, implementation of that new idea so we've had some students that have done for example. They've implemented a reality to, to, to visualize what a restored building might look like. They've actually started a company, and these students are actually now teaching in the program, you know, they've they've come back to the program. We have other students that we're thinking about how to spatialize the history of Poughkeepsie, New York, and allow the community to visualize where the historical sites are, and, and provided this incredible resource for Poughkeepsie to really master plan it's its future in relationship to its historic sites.