The OCP faculty and student projects typically involve resource inventories and assessments, planning concept documents, or graphic visualizations which help promote a better-informed dialogue about community assets and liabilities. OCP projects are selected according to their impact on the welfare of the community as a whole, the adaptability of individual project efforts to serve similar needs in other communities, and the educational value for student participants. The OCP also participates in community-based training workshops and seminars, and it collects and disseminates information relating to heritage resource conservation, planning, and development issues within Louisiana.
Since its inception, the Office of Community Preservation has received funded preservation research grants from the Louisiana Education Quality Support Fund, National Park Service, Louisiana Division of the Arts, Louisiana Division of Historic Preservation, Louisiana Old State Capitol Associates, National Trust for Historic Preservation, Hibernia Bank Corporation, and the Reily Foundation. Such funding support has been essential to the heritage conservation research, service, and education missions of the OCP.
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It is this fabric of varied parts, the toute ensemble, that best represents the true character and promise of many Louisiana communities. In order, to effectively manage and capitalize on these diverse resources, we need to understand the dynamics of our cultural ecology in the same way that we view the natural ecology. In this respect, community preservation in Louisiana underscores the vital importance of cultural continuity in promoting sustainable communities and enhancing the quality of community life by creating a "future" out of the fabric of the "past."
Perhaps the social and economic importance of Louisiana's rich cultural heritage is most obvious in the profound impact that cultural resources have on tourism. According to Lt. Governor Melinda Schwegmann, domestic and international visitors are visiting Louisiana in growing numbers (a combined total of 24 million in 1992) to experience the state's unique cultural blend of food, music, and heritage sites. The expanding international appeal of this cultural potpourri has made tourism the second biggest industry in Louisiana, and economists predict that it will be the leading industry by the year 2000. With so much at stake, one would think that the state's historic buildings and sites would merit special attention.
However, even as Louisiana communities are cultivating a growing dependency on tourism, the state is losing significant parts of its heritage at an alarming rate. The irreplaceable heritage resources of rural areas, towns, and urban centers are increasingly threatened by ill-conceived development decisions, inadequate maintenance, and natural disasters such as Hurricane Andrew. Most communities are tragically unprepared to counter these threats, and the technologies and expertise necessary to develop viable revitalization strategies are inaccessible to many communities due to factors of cost, fragmented data sources, inadequate mechanisms for information dissemination, and a lack of community organization and cooperation. Confronted with an array of complex resource management problems, most communities simply don't know where to turn for the assistance that will enable them to capitalize on their heritage resource assets.
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Even so, pictures are unquestionably the best way to promote an accurate understanding of the natural and cultural values that characterize community heritage. A cost-effective, photo-realistic method of depicting proposals for rehabilitation, adaptive use, and infill projects in the existing context of the site can facilitate the decision processes from project inception to design development, review, and approval. New computer-based image capture and processing technologies and three dimensional (3-D) modeling software offer significant potential for graphic analysis and communication. Computer imaging tools can help communities visualize the historic context of buildings and landscapes. These same tools can be used to develop and present design proposals sensitive to cultural values, yet accommodating to new or enhanced social and economic utility.
Computer image processing techniques can quickly generate a variety of design alternatives, allowing both the designer and client to evaluate a broad range of proposed treatments in order to arrive at a solution that will best ensure the physical and cultural integrity of the historic building or scene. Computer simulations can lead to new capital investments by providing a more believable graphic vision of resource development potential to clients, lenders, boards of architectural review, and local zoning authorities. In addition to promoting a general awareness of a community's heritage resource assets and liabilities, the electronic renderings can also be used to graphically represent the complex issues raised in regulatory ordinances and design guidelines, thus fostering a better understanding of how cultural values should be preserved and celebrated.
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- new electronic resource documentation and information management strategies;
- new computer-based visualization methods to enhance conservation and revitalization decision processes;
- new insight into resource values that can provide a foundation for social and economic development.
This facility enables LSU faculty and students to contribute to the research, service, and educational missions of the OCP in a number of ways. The OCP fields teams of LSU students to document historic structures as part of the National Park Service's Historic American Building Survey (HABS). Using traditional hand-measuring techniques, rectified photography, and advanced photogrammetric systems, students collect the dimensional data necessary to create a set of record quality architectural drawings. A variety of buildings and sites have been documented by these LSU teams, including plantation complexes, Creole cottages, sugar mills, churches, agricultural and engineering structures, and military facilities. Archival quality drawings of these significant buildings and sites that were generated by hand in the past, are now being assembled on computer-aided drafting systems (CAD). These drawings of historic buildings by LSU students have won national recognition as part of a touring exhibition of HABS drawings completed over the past ten years ("Documenting Historic America"). While these award winning HABS projects serve an important need by recording Louisiana's threatened architectural legacy, they also have a critical educational value in that they raise community awareness regarding the value of local resources and give students a graphic, hands-on encounter with the fabric of historic buildings, as well as with the process and tools of resource documentation.
Projects that enhance other community revitalization efforts also benefit from the OCP's computer image processing capabilities. Using computer-based 3-D modeling and image processing systems, the OCP can generate photographic quality images of resource development alternatives set into the existing visual context of the community. These computer visualization exercises help build community pride and encourage a dialogue about the appropriate utilization of heritage resources. Such photorealistic visualizations help the layperson penetrate the mystique of design; pictures can level the resource management playing field by making the language of proportion, rhythm, scale, materials, colors, spatial relationships, and cost-benefits intellectually accessible to all participants in the conservation decision processes.
In these visualization applications, images are manipulated using 2-D and 3-D graphic processing and computer-aided drafting (CAD) software to depict heritage values, conservation treatments, and design strategies for a site. The degree of photorealism achieved in each rendering is determined by the anticipated use and audience for each project, and a 15 percent effort is typically required to generate an image that is 85 percent photorealistic. Most analytical, design, and interpretive applications do not require the highest level of photorealism, and it is more cost-effective to invest the time to create a number of alternatives (at 85 percent photorealism) instead of a single photorealistic image. In some applications, images that have obvious cartoon qualities prove to be the most effective means of communicating heritage values and the consequences of ill-conceived management plans.
While computer generated models and images have helped promote a better understanding of resource values in Louisiana communities, in many cases they have also formed the basis for investment decisions, since such pictures are typically more effective than conventional architectural drawings in communicating project intentions to property owners, developers, and lenders. By promoting heritage resource development potential, the OCP's computer- based visualization projects can lead to new capital investments that create jobs and preserve or enhance the quality of community life. Office of Community Preservation imaging projects have facilitated heritage conservation efforts in such towns as Abbeville, Franklin, Hammond, Minden, Morgan City, Opelousas, Ruston, St. Martinville, and Winnsboro.
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By applying its heritage conservation expertise and technological capabilities to community revitalization challenges, the OCP is also providing important educational experiences for LSU students. In fact, in the School of Architecture's most recent accreditation review (Spring, 1993), the heritage conservation activities and computer-based research, service, and teaching initiatives of the faculty and students associated with the Office of Community Preservation were cited first in a list of program strengths as the School earned the maximum accreditation (5 years). The accrediting report stated:
"The Historic Preservation Program benefits the School, the University, and the citizens of Louisiana. It reinforces appreciation of regional heritage, demonstrates the computer's potential, and generates research funding."
As a result of its efforts to raise heritage consciousness, provide technical support, and promote community revitalization through the development and application of computer-based tools and techniques for heritage conservation, the OCP is making a significant contribution, both directly and indirectly, to enhancing the economic well-being of the state. With the continuing efforts of faculty and students, and financial support from public and private sector sources, the OCP will be able to make increasingly important contributions to sustaining the cultural integrity of Louisiana communities.
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