What is Historic Landscape Preservation?

Looking through the ruins of the fort out into a desert landscape

Historic landscape preservation is a smaller, and often misunderstood, field within the broader preservation movement, but it is vital for understanding and conserving the environmental and cultural narratives of places. In Utah, many historic landscapes disappear before their full significance is recognized. These landscapes are not merely backdrops for historic buildings; rather, they are integral […]

3 Strategies for Vibrant Communities

Recently, I shared an overview of our three core principles for community revitalization on Io LandArch’s social media channels. When creating this content, it struck me that there’s much more to delve into on this subject, along with some pertinent case studies. So, let’s dive in… Whether your community is expansive or compact, there are […]

Reviving Communities: 5 Lessons from Historic Home Restoration

As a Historic Home Restoration survivor, veteran community organizer, Landscape Architect/Architect, and Urban Designer, it has occurred to me numerous times over the past 2 decades just how much restoring a historic home is a microcosm of community revitalization.  Historic structures are an essential building block of successful community revitalization, but the parallels go much […]

Washington Square and the Salt Lake City and County Building

Washington Square is the entire 10-acre block surrounding the Salt Lake City and County Building located between State Street and 200 East, and 400 South and 500 South in Salt Lake City, Utah.  Washington Square is significant for its historical uses including the original 1847 Mormon pioneer camp.  In 1894 the City and County Building […]

From Trial to Advocate: My Preservation Journey

It was a crisp, late winter evening. We were just settling in to watch a movie at our condo in Logan when the phone rang.  It was one of those calls that you don’t ever want to receive.  It was the Ogden Fire Department.  The house that we had purchased just 2 weeks earlier was […]

The Four Types of Historic Landscapes

Pioneer Park CLR

The documentation and preservation of historical landscapes represents a relatively new and frequently misunderstood branch of the preservation movement. Many historic landscapes are being lost before their significance is recognized. Historic landscapes are important because often they provide context for historic buildings and structures. But historic landscapes can also exist without historic buildings, or can […]

Stilwell’s Sentinel Trees Bear Witness

This article by Io principal Susan Crook was published in the June 2014 Union Vedette, the newsletter of the Fort Douglas Military Museum. Stilwell Field has played an essential role at Fort Douglas from the founding of the post on October 20, 1862 to the present stewardship of the Fort Douglas National Historic Landmark (NHL) […]