Cultural and Historical Resource Documentation

FHI’s staff includes architectural historians with expertise in a diversity of cultural resource investigations, encompassing inventories and surveys, regulatory coordination and compliance, mitigation documentation, preservation/restoration studies, and expert testimony.

• Historic inventories and surveys: FHI undertakes inventories of cultural resources involving identification and mapping of known and potential historic and archaeological sites. We have undertaken comprehensive town- and city-wide historic building surveys, as well as project-area inventories, to document or update the status of National Register eligible properties. FHI has the expertise to document the context and significance of cultural resources in of the relevant format, which may call for brief memoranda, detailed reports, National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) documents, state photo-documentation, state and federal Historic Resource Inventory forms, or comprehensive databases, with or without GIS links.

• Regulatory coordination and compliance: FHI staff are adept with agency coordination and resource documentation in conformance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, Section 4(f) of the Department of Transportation Act and with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). For these studies, FHI has the capability to assess historic resources for eligibility of listing on the National Register of Historic Places, to carry out impact analysis, and to navigate the agency coordination process from initial negotiation through the final Memorandum of Agreement (MOA). FHI has provided project management and quality assurance oversight for a wide variety of archaeological reconnaissance and intensive archaeological surveys, providing an integrated approach to cultural resource management.

• Mitigation documents: Mitigation documents of many forms are prepared by FHI staff pursuant to Section 106 Memoranda of Agreement (MOAs), including Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) and Historical American Engineering Record (HAER) recordation, photo-documentation of buildings and building relocations, journal articles, and “popular” historical reports for public enjoyment. Such projects have involved historic and archival research, layout, and publication, oriented toward either professional or public audiences. FHI has the additional ability to prepare these documents for posting on the worldwide web.

• Preservation/restoration studies: FHI has undertaken preservation planning in a diversity of venues, including scenic corridor management, building salvage, historic landscape restoration, and visual quality assessment for historic settings. FHI brings a variety of skills and knowledge in such areas as recordation, resource assessment, contextual evaluation, construction techniques, and material reuse on projects at both site and landscape scales.

• Expert testimony: Our staff have been called upon to provide expert testimony regarding the context and significance of historic properties, trends in the evolution of architectural styles, and precedents for zoning approvals. We also have expertise in GIS visual analysis applications and photographic simulation techniques to identify impacts to the scenic context of historic properties and districts.