What Our Department Does

Survey and documentation of historic properties and landscapes (including cultural resource survey, National Register of Historic Places nominations, historic zoning overlays, and HABS-level recordation) is a core research activity of the Center in our efforts to create a cumulative record of the changing architectural and cultural landscape.   The Mid-Atlantic Historic Buildings and Landscape Survey (MAHBLS) is modeled after the Survey of London and the Historic American Building Survey/Historic American Engineering Record/Historic American Landscape Survey (HABS/HAER/HALS) in the National Park Service.  Since 1981, CHAD has documented more than 3,000 properties throughout the Delaware Valley and across the country.

Architectural documentation through drawings, photographs, oral history, and archival research is the first step in any MAHBLS research project.  Graduate students learn to conduct traditional fieldwork and documentary research, as well as the process for converting hand-drawn field notes to measured drawings in AutoCAD.  Completed documentation projects are archived in the CHAD Collection and accessible to the public for research as our digitization project progresses. All images associated with each property are being made available through our Artstor Commons: Public Collections​ portal hosted by the University of Delaware Morris Library; and buildings documented in the Collection can be viewed spatially through our GIS-based portal​, where records are also linked back to the full set of images in Artstor Commons.

MAHBLS projects come from a variety of clients, including government agencies, local historical societies or preservation groups, and private property owners.  By working on real-life projects, students gain the experience of working with and for the community, and develop advanced technical professional skills.

For more information contact Catherine Morrissey at cmorriss@udel.edu.