Save As: NextGen Heritage Conservation

Sea levels are rising ever faster in the face of climate change, and by the year 2100 many historic properties could be underwater.  Recent Heritage Conservation graduate Alex Clark wrote her thesis on the Adamson House in Malibu, built in 1929 and famed for its Malibu Potteries tile. In her thesis, Heritage at the Water's Edge. Adaptive Release at the Adamson House , Alex outlines the site’s...

Recent USC Heritage Conservation graduate Eliza Jane Franklin wrote her master’s thesis on a deeply personal topic: lynching. Not just the act of physical violence that took her great-grandfather’s life in 1922, but “the act of terrorizing and/or controlling individuals’ or a community’s heritage,” which she named “heritage lynching.” In this episode, co-host Trudi Sandmeier speaks with Eliza Jane...

What does “sublime” mean to you? Join us for an art history-meets-heritage conservation episode with recent graduate Ryan Holcomb. Like many of our students, Ryan fused seemingly disparate interests with heritage conservation in his thesis, Ponderous, Romantic and Awful: Tracking the Sublime within the Interpretation of Industrial Landmarks. He puts a name to that feeling we get—that mix of awe, w...

Recent graduate Andrea Mauk is from the historic mining town of Clifton, Arizona, just a few miles from the largest copper mine in the United States. Like many rural communities it has an aging and deteriorating housing stock, and its workforce is increasingly priced out of homeownership. In this episode, Willa Seidenberg talks to Andrea about her thesis, Old and Improved: Exploring the Use of a C...

On December 5, USC hosts the Soak It Up conference, exploring "landscape architecture’s leadership role in addressing critical urban flooding and water management." We thought it fitting to revisit our 2024 conversation with alumna Leslie Dinkin, who earned dual degrees in heritage conservation and landscape architecture. Her award-winning master’s thesis, Heritage in Practice: A Study o...

Much has changed since we spoke with alumna Dalia Mokayed in 2020 about her thesis, Heritage Conservation to Rebuild Cities After Crisis . Yet wars worldwide continue to decimate countries, communities, and cultures. In her thesis, Dalia examined her hometown of Aleppo, Syria, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Years before the fall of Assad in 2024, Dalia shared her invaluable perspective on the effec...

"A city is composed of different types of men; similar people cannot bring the city into existence." This quote from Aristotle's Politics opens Gaining a Foothold: Conserving Los Angeles' Queer Eden(dale) , the master's thesis of alumnus Rafael Fontes (MHC/MUP '20). With the ongoing erasure of LGBTQ history from federal archives and programs, we're spotlighting o...

Save As is taking a brief break, but we'll bring you some gems from the archives and launch Season 6 before the end of the year.  In the meantime, check out our Instagram (@saveasnextgen) for updates and catch up on previous episodes from our first five seasons! Connect with us on Instagram , Facebook , and LinkedIn !

Of the more than 1,300 local landmarks in the City of Los Angeles, less than three percent—that’s right, three —reference the history or contributions of women. In the Season 5 finale, we hear from some of the people working to change that by amending nominations for existing landmarks (known in L.A. as Historic-Cultural Monuments, or HCMs). Students Mel James, Leslie Madrigal, and Evan McAvenia d...

As artificial intelligence (AI) transforms modern life, we’re understanding more about the benefits and tradeoffs of its use in generating content. New alum Paul Kim wrote his master’s thesis about how generative AI (genAI) perpetuates false narratives about Asian and Pacific Islander Americans (APIA), and how communities can use genAI to reclaim those narratives. In this episode, producer Willa S...

An Encore episode with a new update! A group of architecture students at the University of Southern California wants to do more than just design buildings. They want to work with communities to “un-design'' spatial injustice and leverage the power of residents in shaping their neighborhoods. In this episode, producer Willa Seidenberg talks with students Reily Gibson and Kianna Armstrong...

Photographer Sally Mann once said, “Photographs open doors to the past, but also allow a look into the future.” Photography is a key component of the historic documentation process. New graduate Sam Malnati (MHC/MUP ’25) delved into photography’s role in the field for her thesis, Contemporary Vision: Photography's Influence on Perception of Places in the Past.   In this episode, producer Will...

In this “Where Are They Now?” episode, we catch up with Elysha Paluszek (MHC ‘10), senior associate, architectural historian, and preservation planner at Architectural Resources Group. She’s been highlighting hidden history since her master’s thesis, The Los Angeles African American Heritage Area: A Proposal for Development . At ARG, she’s worked on award-winning studies revealing how policy and p...

A month after the disastrous fires in the Los Angeles area, this special episode features a conversation among Save As co-hosts Trudi Sandmeier and Cindy Olnick, and producer Willa Seidenberg. Trudi reflects on the loss of her historic family home, her close-knit neighborhood, and the Will Rogers ranch, an integral part of her and her family’s lives. We discuss the city’s current state of grief an...

In this “Where Are They Now?” episode, we catch up with alum Junyoung Myung (MHC ’15), who followed yet another of many career paths in heritage conservation: research and teaching. His exciting work blends architecture, design, heritage conservation, and technology—from teaching undergrad architects about adaptive reuse, to training AI to identify architectural styles, and much more. He’s also fi...

As a young architectural historian in San Francisco, Shayne Watson would take lunchtime walks near her office, pondering how and where the city’s lesbian history took shape. She discovered that one of the earliest lesbian bars once stood right up the street in North Beach, a neighborhood that served as the birthplace of the city’s lesbian community—though you’d never know it just by looking. After...

October 31st marks the beginning of Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights. It's the most important holiday in India. In celebration, we are re-releasing this episode from Season 1. The allure of abundant work and fertile soil drew many to California, and in particular, the rich rural areas of the state. Punjabi workers came in small numbers to Yuba City in the early 1900s,  but after Indian in...

Before Death Valley became a desert tourism mecca, it was a mining hot spot. The homelands of the Timbisha Shoshone tribe were opened to industry during the California Gold Rush. In this “Where Are They Now?” episode, producer Willa Seidenberg talks with alumna Mary Ringhoff about her thesis on the early-twentieth-century mining town of Ryan, an unusually well-preserved site just outside the bound...

One of the signs memorializing the 1955 murder of Emmett Till weighs nearly 500 pounds and is designed to absorb a rifle round. It’s the fourth version of the sign, the others having been vandalized and riddled with bullet holes. How can communities recognize and preserve vulnerable Black heritage sites without placing them more at risk? New alumna Kira Williams shares her views with co-host Cindy...

Why do urban rivers look like they do? What makes one river key to a city’s identity and another one largely unknowable? We wrap up Season Four with a trip to the banks of the Los Angeles River, where Cindy Olnick chats with new dual-degree alum Leslie Dinkin about her award-winning master’s thesis, Heritage in Practice: A Study of Two Urban Rivers . Leslie wanted to know what happened to set the...

Drag performances have long been a draw for audiences in L.A., though often held “underground” because of threats of persecution. In addition to its entertainment history, drag has had a role in affirming and protecting gender identity.  Architect and recent graduate Jesús (Chuy) Barba Bonilla researched this history for his master’s thesis, Drag Culture of Los Angeles: Intangible Heritage through...

Tools for documenting historic buildings evolve constantly, but professional 3D scanners remain out of reach for most of us. Alumna Ye Hong, our first dual-degree student in Heritage Conservation and Building Science, sees a path to more equitable heritage conservation in the nearly ubiquitous smartphone. For her thesis, she tested the potential and limitations of mobile apps to scan Reunion House...

Dedicated students at the University of Southern California have pulled out the laser scanners and measuring tapes to document the Wilfandel Clubhouse in the West Adams neighborhood of Los Angeles. The Wilfandel Club, the oldest Black women’s club in Los Angeles, was founded in 1945 by Della Williams (wife of architect Paul R. Williams) and Fannie Williams as a safe place for social, civic, and co...

New alumna (and Save As producer) Willa Seidenberg has enjoyed the mineral-water spas of Desert Hot Springs for decades. In the 1950s, the Coachella Valley town became a destination for middle- and working-class families who frequented the simple spa motels, or "spa-tels." Willa and co-host Cindy Olnick took a road trip to Desert Hot Springs to see the remaining spa-tels and talk about W...

A San Francisco native, alumna Emi Takahara always wondered why so many locals dismiss the historic Fisherman’s Wharf as a tourist trap. Sure, it has overpriced food, but it also has a culinary history that might surprise you—as well as longtime businesses trying to weather the changing times. In this episode, Emi talks with producer Willa Seidenberg about her thesis, The Restaurant That Started I...