Historic Landscape Resources
Historic site developments and archeological resources evoke our cultural heritage in ways that buildings alone cannot. Sites reveal past relationships between the natural and built environments and show how the builders chose to integrate a structure with its setting.
Since landscapes change over time, they cannot be frozen at a single moment like a building. Cultural resources change through weathering and deterioration, ecological succession, erosion, plant growth, and other natural factors. To choose an appropriate interpretation for historic sites, one must understand these processes as well as the cultural context of the period of interest.
Where a site has been used and altered over multiple important periods, the landscape is often a better medium to convey the site’s changing identity than is an historic structure. If a structure is most significant, it guides the approach to the site developments, from historic restoration through adaptive reuse.
Successfully completed projects include the following:
• archeological sites (American Indian, Spanish/
Mexican colonial, early American)
• culturally significant historic sites
• historic restorations
• renovations
• historically compatible adaptation and new uses
