Preservation Inspiration II: Viewshed & Context

Using Department of the Interior inspired Visual Resource Management Guidelines as a means of preserving Context in Preservation of Historic Trails, Roads, Communities, Sites, and Structures

2.8.12   Please note: These articles are currently being edited and peer-reviewed. They will be updated accordingly over the next month or so. We are making them available before they are fully vetted because we get so many requests for the conceptual framework. Please consider them "drafts" and distribute freely, with citations and a link here so people can get the most up-to date version if possible. If they are useful to you, please click here to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it !

 

The need for instituting a scenery management system is obvious for land management agencies like the Forest Service, BLM, US Fish & Wildlife Service, Department of Defense, and National Park Service, whose holdings are adjacent to, contain, or are bisected by private property, highways, utility corridors, and/or industrial development. These “inclusions” on national properties are often subject to new development, which may take the form of structures or infrastructure improvements including expanding highways and pull-outs, installing solar arrays or cell towers, water tanks, or any number of other projects. Sometimes that development, even if determined to be a “public good” can threaten, and if not carefully attended to - destroy… a favorite or historic view, viewpoint, landscape or viewshed.

While the BLM and others have had a Visual Resources Management plan for decades, the vast majority of sites affected by these efforts are what could have only been deemed “pretty landscapes.” However, with the need to protect context in less “pretty” historic landscapes, in 2009, the DOI produced a document, officially titled Managing Visual Resources, which sets up a scenery management plan to do a kind of “triage” to identify scenic resources and then to establish a protocol to deal with changes in a way that minimized the adverse effect on the scenic and/or historic view.

When working on a project in 2011 that required integration of this method, our team immediately realized we’d hit upon a concept that could have a potentially huge impact on historic preservation in America. In putting its excellent ideas into practice outside the parks, we have come to call the modified concept Visual Resource Management (VRM).

VRM is a method of evaluating landscapes for integrity of historic character. In it, we evaluate context and landscape as criteria for preservation of trails, roads, archaeological and architectural sites, natural and cultural landmarks, and other various structures, including buildings.

 

Inventory > Analysis > Develop a Protection Plan > Implement > Monitor

Breaking these down by section, this is what that means...

Inventory

Identify Site Context & Character

Identifying a site context may sound a little intimidating. But it's really not. It is intimately connected to mapping. The context of a historic site or park, as planned for by the DOI, deals with one major aspect of these sites: transportation, specifically... roads and trails. The context of these linear features is what you can see when looking in any direction while driving or walking along a road or trail. It's the "view".

In the case of a stand-alone structure, the context includes the landscape it is built within, views from the structure out, and views of the structure while passing along neighboring pathways - or in some cases historic roads which may be off in the distance, but which afforded an established historic view of the structure – say – the steeple of the first church in America as seen a mile away from the historic road which fed the town. You wouldn't necessarily want a high-rise or cell tower to block that view, because then, you lose a bit of the story - and the glory - of the structure itself. It relegates the building to merely an object, when really... buildings are responses to a very specific place, culture, and environment. To remove any of these contexts destroys the story... the WHY of why we preserve buildings. We aren't just trying to stop time. We are trying to preserve a narrative that's only REALLY preserved when it is intact.

QUESTIONS TO ANSWER ABOUT YOUR SITE

• What is the purpose and significance of preservation of this place?

• What level of control do you have to manage negative impacts? Are you limited to influence or do you have direct control?

• For whom are you managing the site and/or views? Or, in the modern parlance - who are your Stakeholders?

• Do you want to minimize impact while allowing development or institute COMPLETE preservation?

• What are your desired future conditions?

• What mode of travel is the viewer using while they see the site?

• From what vantage point (high, low, side, etc) is the site viewed?

• What is the duration of viewing the site?

•What is the current state of landform integrity? Once upon a time, the site responded to its “place.” Does it still? It may be built on a rise above the landscape for security, or set into a hill so it could shed snow or stay cool in summer, or built alongside a stream for easy access to water. Contrast historic conditions (in varying periods of significance if applicable) with current conditions.

• What is the current state of vegetation integrity? In the case of our local Plaza, once upon a time it was a lush tree-lined oasis in the desert and fed by a running acequia. Now the site is mostly concrete, with only a token tree and tiny patch of grass. What is preferable? The old or new? Is there a way to tell the story of what was, if what is new is more ideal? Contrast historic condition with current condition.

• What landmarks (natural or man-made) are used for orientation and navigation to or from the site? Are they still visible? Is this site a landmark to other buildings or structures? Contrast historic condition with current condition.

• How has the human use of the site changed over time? Contrast the “point of view” of the historic users to the current condition. What is the imprint (physical evidence) of the historic mode of production (historic condition) with the contemporary condition?

• What is the limit of acceptable change from the historic condition? What is the desired state of repair or rehabilitation? Is that state possible to attain without creating ersatz history in the process?

IDENTIFYING CONTEXT EFFECT

• What is the site context? What does it look and feel like?

• What elements are critical in the site and views of the site? Ecological, Spatial, Sense of Place, Identifiable Cultural Area? Identify Form, Line, Color, Texture or Vividness, Intactness, Uniqueness, Vulnerability, & duration of views

• What is the Period of Significance?

• What is the current importance or value of site and view preservation?

• What are the Expectations, Preferences, Values, and Acceptable Levels of Quality of the Users and Visitors?

• How will changes in quality/integrity affect use and/or visitation?

Identify View Character Types

View Character is another great standard to borrow from the DOI road and trail standards for city, town, and regional planning around and within historic or cultural areas. View Character essentially describes the setting. We've modified these to fit into historic and cultural sites. There are four in our model, as follows:

"Naturally Evolving" view character areas support the natural evolution of biophysical features and processes and are limited in the number of human-made structures and land use patterns. Examples of "Naturally Evolving" view character areas include:

• Focal view of a river, irrigation canal, bridge, viewshed, or other site access intervention or placement -related detail within an otherwise "wild" landscape

• Panoramic (mostly-natural) views from nearby mountains or open fields which include the historic or cultural site

• Feature view of a mountain or other natural phenomenon that may be seen as a "landmark" indicating the site's location.

"Pastoral" view character areas include agricultural land uses of food crops and pastures, meadows, and associated structures.

• Panorama view into an agricultural area connected to the site or settlement

• Level view of farm

"Cultural" view character areas include built structures, landscapes, and features that represent human participation in the landscape. Examples of "Cultural" view character areas include:

• Feature view of a cultural resource

"Sub/urban" view character areas maintain historic and cultural vistas and preserve views from new and existing structures.

• Level view of site or settlement

• View from within key historic site to other historic and natural landmarks

Identify Visual Preferences

The basic premise of this part of the exercise is to identify the context aspects, and thereby identify preservation priorities. In the case of the place where I live - Taos, NM – our town, when settled, was designed within specific “siting criteria,” including being located on a defensible elevated spot at the edge of a mesa overlooking a wellspring, with the Rio Grande Rift Valley beyond towards the south and west, and backing up to Taos Pueblo to the north at the base of the locally-sacred Taos Mountain. “When a chain store wanted to build a “small box” on one of the most pristine views in the area, the community rallied to make sure that effort would not be successful. One of the problems with that was… without adding view preservation as a priority in the planning and zoning codes, it was a small, temporary, win. What needs to happen to keep from having this battle every time someone wants to sell or develop their land… is to plan for building (as every property owner has a right to use their land how they see fit)but to use zoning law to stimulate development which does not encumber the historic view. In our case, that would look something like this:

Conduct View Area Mapping

Looking at any site from within, and without, we can use view area mapping to assign preservation priorities to a site. See below for an example of a quick sketch done to illustrate what, if these were their "real" views, such a study might identify as preservation priorities for Taos Pueblo.

The next aspect of view mapping looks from without. It uses a map of an area to identify historic and significant views of the structure, site, village, town, or city. See below for an example of this done by the DOI.

Oftentimes a topographic map can be of great use here as it can help identify the extent of the viewshed, by including the entire area of the view in any direction to its topographical limitations, as indicated in the blue areas indicated in the picture below from the DOI package.

We learned in recent trail and acequia work that using this method helps us to identify an area, rather than a line of trail, for preservation. What we discovered on-the-ground during fieldwork was what seems like the actual trail... is really just a part of the trail. To preserve the context of the trail - instead of the wagonruts, for instance - allows us to acknowledge that horses can go where carts and wagons cannot, and that streams ebb and flow and snake with seasonal water changes, and the trail moves accordingly.

This simple observation and application of the VRM guidelines allowed us to preserve the context of the trail, as well as preserve for future archaeologists the entire area of the identified trail feature. It also allowed us to acknowledge natural features that were "landmarks" of being on the trail. As, in the case of Taos, noting the town or Taos Pueblo as historically and culturally significant without acknowledging the imposing Taos Mountain on the east and even the rift valley and views to Pedernal to the west, misses the entire point of preserving the place. A place does not exist in a vacuum – it is a response to a specific environment - both physical and cultural.

We have now applied this same process to acequias (irrigation ditches) and historic sites to preserve their context as well.

Conduct View Area Baseline Photography

This is a pretty straightforward exercise. Collect historical photographs to determine which views were in fact most relevant, and document the existing condition of both those and any current views desired to be preserved for the future.

Analysis

Evaluate View Area Attractivenes, Integrity, and Quality.

This exercise collects the data from the inventory phase, evaluates it from the perspective of cultural and historic preservation, then identifies current preferences.

The final step of this prepares two deliverables: a compiled folio of existing conditions and historic documentation, and a publicly-accessible place to act as repository for the data and observations, preferably digitally.

 

Develop a Protection Plan

Identify Preservation Goals & Identify Desired Future Conservation Objectives

This part of the process produces a document that is not about the existing or previous conditions - it establishes a plan for the future, complete with a detailed schedule of specific tasks designed to achieve the goals and objectives set out in the planning process. The schedule also assigns responsibility of each task to a specific member of the plan team. Each task has a goal of obtaining a planning and/or zoning ordinance which will put the task into action.

Implement

Get local buy-in to include protection plan in zoning, preservation, and planning documents

Share with ALL stakeholders why they should care about these efforts and then identify how they will benefit from making these ideas into code-requirements (This is key to making the process work.)

Build community consensus through focus groups or charettes.

Allow it to work

 

Monitor

Monitoring changes to the site and its view areas, and updating the existing conditions documents produced in the Analysis section of this process accordingly, then reevaluating to identify new needs and concerns at regular intervals – say, every two years - will allow the process to live on to help future generations to protect the integrity and context of your site.

Assigning this work to a standing taskforce or commission will allow you to:

• Have direct and continued access to the planning document process, so as new priorities are identified, they can be included in planning and zoning plans and ordinances.

• Consult with land owners and developers to provide site planning recommendations and impact mitigations.

• Identify willing sellers and work to purchase interests in lands which could be placed in land trusts to ensure future preservation or controlled development.

 

This Visual Resource Management Plan is offered to inspire trail organizations, communities and historic sites to take CONTEXT into consideration. It will help us be more effective at preserving our historic and cultural resources, presenting opportunities to encourage tourism, sustainable investment, and development that actually helps the people who are doing the developing, as well as the community.