The Preservation Research Collaborative at Penn (PRCP) is the research and practice platform of the Department of Historic Preservation at the Weitzman School of Design. PRCP enables faculty, staff, and students at Weitzman to lead preservation and conservation projects at the intersection of built heritage, cultural landscapes, community values, and societal change.
Our platform supports and expands on the department’s longstanding research initiatives—including the Urban Heritage Project (UHP), the Center for Architectural Conservation (CAC), and the Center for the Preservation of Civil Rights Sites (CPCRS)—and creates new opportunities to design, plan, and manage change for the inherited built environment. Together, PRCP’s research initiatives address the most pressing issues and opportunities confronting historic buildings and landscapes.
Our purpose is always to understand deeply the evolution of these historic places and to connect them to the lives, needs, and desires of contemporary communities, working in partnership with the stewards who care for them. Our work engages many types and scales of heritage phenomena—domestic and international, with governmental and NGO partners and supporters such as the National Park Service, World Monuments Fund, the Mellon Foundation, Monument Lab, Tuskegee University, the Rwandan government, and grassroots heritage organizations in Philadelphia, Washington, DC, the Alabama Black Belt, and the American Southwest.
Learn more about our interdisciplinary team here, and contact us here to explore new research partnerships.
Urban Heritage Project (UHP)
The Urban Heritage Project’s work addresses issues at the intersection of cultural landscapes, built heritage, and societal change through multi-disciplinary research and practice. Since 2012, UHP researchers have been leading cultural landscape documentation projects on behalf of the National Park Service and other partners.
Center for Architectural Conservation (CAC)
The Center for Architectural Conservation is dedicated to training and research in the technical conservation of the built environment. Founded by Frank Matero in 1991 as the Architectural Conservation Laboratory (ACL), the CAC encourages cross-disciplinary collaboration on contemporary issues related to the conservation of culturally significant buildings, monuments, and sites throughout the world including issues of sustainability.
Center for the Preservation of Civil Rights Sites (CPCRS)
The Center for the Preservation of Civil Rights Sites is committed to the remembering, studying, and stewarding of civil rights histories in the United States. CPCRS undertakes research, teaching, and fieldworkto explore issues and solutions and develop pathways toward the sustainable conservation of civil rights heritage and related stories of Black cultural vibrancy and activism.
