Mission Statement
The Center for Historic Architecture and Design (CHAD) helps communities preserve their heritage in the face of rapid development and change.
CHAD ensures that preservation and historic resources are part of planning and policy development at local, state, national and international levels.
The center excels at research and documentation of historic properties and traditional technologies, National Register nominations and cultural resource surveys that contribute to the creation of historic districts, heritage tourism and similar efforts.
What our center does
Have you ever wondered how a structure gets documented and preserved for history? If so, you've come to the right place. At CHAD, we are actively documenting structures located in well-known and sometimes forgotten parts of Delaware and throughout the Mid-Atlantic. Many of these structures have already disappeared or are in danger of being demolished. The center maintains a permanent archive of all documentation work, available to the public.
Most of CHAD's work falls under research programs, including nominations to the National Register of Historic Places, Mid-Atlantic Historic Buildings and Landscapes Survey, Scenic and Historic Byways and the Laboratory for Analysis of Cultural Materials.
Center staff and faculty teach courses in the Historic Preservation Graduate Certificate program, available to both undergraduate and graduate students in any University of Delaware program, and to external applicants. We offer research assistantship opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students in all of our activity areas when funding permits.
CHAD faculty and staff also serve in leadership roles in preservation-related organizations at the local, national and international levels and participate in various interdisciplinary initiatives across the University of Delaware and with other universities and institutions.
CHAD specializes in architectural documentation. This typically takes the form of measured drawings and photographs. CHAD field crews spend extensive time on site creating field notes that record different aspects of a building or site, including site plans, floor plans, elevations, and sections. Back in the office, these annotated notes are converted to finished drawings using Automatic Computer Aided Design (AutoCAD).
In addition to architectural documentation and creating individual National Register nominations, CHAD specializes in historic district surveys and re-surveys. These projects range from small districts with three or four resources to large historic districts with several hundred resources. Recently, CHAD has partnered with several small towns, museums and cities to re-survey National Register historic districts to state and federal standards.
In addition to other types of historic preservation activities, CHAD specializes in authoring National Register and National Historic Landmark nominations for the National Register of Historic Places program run by the National Parks Service.