First year PhD student Natalia Escobar Castrillon won 3rd prize for her poster presentation in the conference ”Directions in Twenty-First Century Preservation.” The event, organized by Historic New England and Roger Williams University, gathered scholars, professionals and students to define contemporary directions and challenges for the discipline of historic preservation. Speakers included Professor Daniel Bluestone and the president of ICOMOS Canada, Julian Smith.
Escobar, who took her MDesS at the GSD in the Critical Conservation track, presented her latest research ”Updating Urban Conservation Models to the 21st Century Planetary Scale of Urbanization,” where she challenges the present institutional approach to our built heritage. She proposes to shift the focus of our city-central conservation models to the spaces ”in between” and assess the value of the wider landscape and infrastructure as objects of conservation.