Guerilla Preservation w/ Dr. Kwesi Daniels

 Most architects are afraid to go to the community. Oh man, I can't wait to get there. 

Welcome to Tangible Remnants. I'm Nakita Reed, and this is my show where I explore the interconnectedness of architecture, preservation, sustainability, race, and gender. I'm excited that you're here. So let's get into it. 

Welcome back.  My only announcement for this week is that I will be giving one of the keynotes at the AIA Architects in Action virtual conference this Friday.  With the talk, I'll be demystifying the historic tax credit process. And so I'll put a link in the show notes if you want to check it out.  So let's jump right in with the building spotlight. 

This week, I'm focusing on Sage Hall at Tuskegee University.  This building was designed by Robert R. Taylor, who was the first black graduate of MIT and the former vice president of Tuskegee Institute.  The building opened in 1926 as a men's dormitory and it was renovated in the late 90s.  Be sure to check out the Tangible Remnants Instagram page to see some current and historic photos of the building. 

And now if you're wondering why. I decided to choose a historic building in Alabama. It's because this week's episode features a fun conversation with Dr. Kwesi Daniels of Tuskegee University.  Kwesi talks about his journey into the field during the episode, but for context, you should know that he is the head of the architecture department at the university and his professional experience ranges across various disciplines.

Including historic preservation, architecture, sustainability management, and urban Geography.  In 2018, he began developing a historic preservation program at Tuskegee University within the Robert R. Taylor School of Architecture and Construction Science,  with the goal of training architecture and construction science management students to handle the nuances of historic properties. 

I first got virtually introduced to Kwezi during COVID-19 when I was a mentor for five architecture students at Tuskegee as part of the preservation and practice program through the National Trust for Historic Preservation.  This episode is such a fun one and we get a bit into the weeds about the tools used.

to do some of the preservation documentation.  His excitement for preservation is contagious, and I'm so excited that he's getting the next generation of architects and designers excited about the field.  After the episode, feel free to check out the show notes for additional details about Kwesi's background.

As well as to get more information about things discussed on the show.  And so without further ado, I hope you enjoy this conversation between me and Dr. Kwesi Daniels.  Remember being incredibly excited to find out that Tuskegee had a preservation program, and then to meet you and seeing things that you're doing with the students, particularly knowing that there are just not that many. 

Black men in the preservation field. So I would love to learn more about what got you into the profession. 

So interesting enough,  I first engaged in preservation  in 2001. 

I was in Philadelphia.  Working with Habs and so that Habs actually was my very first official architecture internship,  and we were documenting African American historic sites in North Philadelphia.  And as I was told, then this was a very unique summer because we were doing six sites.  And summer, normally they would dedicate a whole summer to a site and I thought it was cool, you know, to do some things, but honestly, I didn't see anybody who looked like me.

And so I was like, this is, this is not my space. I want to do architecture and I'm going to go out there and be an architect.  And so I didn't, my next project around preservation came when I came back to teach at Tuskegee around 2000.  I had to come back in 2003, but the project was around 2006,  seven,  and it was with a, what are known as the Tuskegee Rosenwald community schools. 

And,  you know, we were approached the, the person who approached me, you know, said, Hey, here's this project. We want to get this building placed on the national register. And it had a number of challenges or historic. Things related to it, including being one of the oldest rural schools of our Tuskegee rural school model dated 19  and 19, 19,  and it was also a hosting site for participants in the United States public health service study of untreated syphilis in African American males. 

And so I was like, well, this is kind of, it's kind of deep. Right.  And. It was actually that project that opened up this world for me, because we were looking at a community who had a need and we were looking at how we could solve that need, but the very interesting thing is, I didn't see how it could tie into architecture because it was like, this is not us designing anything, you know, we're just. 

You know, restoring some windows and documenting some elevations, you know, but it didn't fit within the curriculum of architecture, but I knew it was important and it was the first time I learned about learning about a building, right? You know, new construction, you don't learn about a building. You learn about the space where the building would be,  but with preservation, you have to be introduced to the building.

It has a history, it has relationships. You have to know those things.  So fast forward, I still, I still wasn't sold. I just was like, Hey, it's something I did. It was great. I loved it. It changed my life, but. You know, I'm still trying to be an architect. Right. You're like, that was nice, but okay.  Exactly.  And so it really wasn't until I went to, until I was working on my Ph.D.  

And, I was, I was looking at the social impact of Drexel University's expansion into North Philadelphia,  and I had these grand ideas about how I was going to save the community, and I was going to stop all this expansion and growth, and you know, everybody's going to throw a big party for me because I saved the world.

And what was your Ph. D. in? What were you pursuing?  I was actually, I was studying urban geography at Temple and what drove me to urban geography was the ability to answer the question, how do we improve the conditions of African American communities?  And I never could understand, you know, now we talk about red lining,  you know, the, you know, the highways running through our communities.

Like that's part of this.  Standard conversation that's happening.  However, I didn't understand how all these connected and urban geography were sharing that with me.  Now, what I found over the course of my research, you know, about three, four years,  the development was happening so rapidly that I was like, you know, there's no way of stopping that train. 

And I remember having a conversation with one of the community residents that I was interviewing. And we were really just like digging and how do we, how do we help the community? What, what's something we can do? And that's when historic preservation just like jumped out at me. I started a preservation.

We're starting the preservation program at Tuskegee, but it, it didn't all click until I was talking to him and I was like, man, preservation has all these tools that the preservation act, you have section 106. There's, you know, there's, there's a social impact assessment that you have to do with historic sites.

So there's all of this like. Infrastructure to protect spaces,  I was like, well, I may not be able to save the whole world, but I can say some really strong, culturally significant environments.  And then when I being back at Tuskegee and running the department of architecture,  I was like, yeah, we sit on, we're sitting in a national historic landmark.

I mean, we're not, it's the only college campus in the country. That's a, that's a national historic landmark.  We have all these historic buildings around me. This is just, it just makes sense.  And then the final thing that just sealed the deal, like, I was like, I'm done, I'm sold, you know, stick a pin in me and call me done was we, we were, I was at a community meeting and I was telling. 

The, you know, these members of churches that, you know, in sites that were all part of the civil rights movement,  that we were telling them how we were starting a historic preservation program in Tuskegee,  and they gave us a standing ovation.  I said, I was like, we ain't even done nothing, 

you know, like, okay, cool, but.  And it hit me, I said, wow, the community has been hungry for this. They've been waiting to hear that we were going to be reassuming a role.  And  I was like, this is, I guess this is where I'm supposed to be because I was brought here. All the spaces I've ever dealt with as it relates to preservation have been African American sites. 

That's something most people couldn't say.  And I've never really looked for it. I mean, outside of HABS, I applied for it, but even like.  The, the, uh, the rule school, I actually was kind of kicking, you know, I was virtually kicking and screaming because I was like, I've done enough outside work in the community, you know, and, you know, it was like, listen, I said, go out there and it's just like, yes, sir.

So, you know, none of these, I've not. I had not intentionally moved that in that direction, yet I was there doing the work and seeing how impactful it was.  And so it was, it was that moment that I knew I was doing something that the community respected, felt there was a need for,  and it was able to address something that was important to me, which was knowing how architecture could be used to meet the needs of our communities. 

And from there, I was like, Hey,  I'm done. Let's go. Let's make it happen. It hasn't run it ever since. I love it. I love it. And I think that's one of the things that really excited me when I heard that Tuskegee was starting a preservation program was because there, one, there's not that many, there's not that many architects that understand historic preservation.

There are not that many black architects that understand historic preservation.  And so then knowing just the history of Tuskegee and the fact that there would be potentially more people of color entering the profession of preservation was really exciting to me because I think for so long preservation has put the spotlight on elevating the stories of those who don't look like us and not focusing on people of color, other historically disinvested communities. 

The focus hasn't been there because the people who have been doing the nominations and deciding what to elevate to historic status haven't looked like us and haven't been focused on that side of history. And so I know the field has changed and there's definitely more focus now, but knowing that there will be more people who will likely make different decisions.

As you've been introducing Architecture students to historic preservation and the field of it, what are some of the, what's some of the resistance or the pushback or even excitement that you're seeing in the students as they're learning more about preservation as a field? So,  you know, there's been, there's really, there's been no pushback and a lot of it, I'd say, is because of the approach that we've taken to preservation. 

I tell people that it. You know, as far as we're concerned, this is not your grandmother's preservation. Right.  Yeah. We are, you know, we're doing hands-on work,  teaching students how to restore windows and repoint brick or, you know,  exposing them to traditional trades.  We're teaching students how to do documentation where they're going out and,  you know, walking in buildings and learning about historic structures reports and assessments.

And, and doing physical documentation, you know, by hand drawing it up,  we're showing students how to also use the most latest, greatest technology to play in the space.  So, they're using laser scanners and drones, and we're using photogrammetry to create virtual models and virtual tours of spaces.  We're exploring augmented reality and virtual reality to, to document spaces and provide a digital footprint to a lot of spaces that would not be able to afford this type of access. 

And we're also exploring design,  so we're able to have conversations about what the building looks like currently.  And then we can say,  all right, so after we repair it after we restore it after we stabilize it after we do all that needs to be done to get it up and running again, what do you really want to be? 

And we're able to now bring architecture to the conversation.  You know, I should say design because it's all architecture. I have a problem with the fact that we separate historic preservation out from architecture.  It's very problematic to me. Yeah, agree. Uh, so, you know, we can bring design, you know, cause actually everything up to that is just pure research.

The documentation, you know, the restoration work. I mean, all that's research. You're investigating, you're gaining an understanding of, you know, the resource that you're working with. And once you do all of that and you made decisions on how you stabilize it, now you can talk about how you're going to, you know, redesign that space for our new use or, or redesign it for a former use. 

But I say the thing that most excites me and our students when they get engaged in it are the spaces we get to walk into.  I mean, listen, I, I feel privileged. I mean, come on. I've, I've, I've been inside of the home that Dr. King lived in with his family.  Yeah.  I've been inside.  The home that Rosa Parks grew up in that her father built for her. 

I've been inside the church that Dr. King spoke in.  I've been inside the church where he was made president of the Montgomery Improvement Association, which was responsible for the  Montgomery bus boycott.  I.  I've been inside Brown Chapel, the place where mass meetings were held.  And when people were crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge,  and what resulted in Bloody Sunday, this was one of the places they ran back to. 

I've been inside 16th Street Baptist Church, a church designed by Wallace Reed,  who was a Tuskegee architect.  And we know it very well because it was also a church that was bombed.  I've also been inside of  A building that was known to be fireproof and in my ignorance say, yeah, every building has got to be fire retarded.

You get inside and you see it's terracotta and concrete and steel.  And you're like, Oh, this thing is fireproof. Okay. Y'all, y'all was serious. Like,  yes,  I've had a chance to be in, in rural schools that people, when we say that You know, there's an old disgusting joke that says, if you want to hide anything from Black people, put it in a book. 

I've been able to be in schools where Black people totally defied that disgusting joke because they said, whether you want to give us education or not, we're going to create it for ourselves and we'll build it for ourselves. And they did that.  Yeah, the, and I think the power of the buildings that you're talking about is one of the things that excites me about the research and things that you're talking about, and even being able to know the history of the different spaces that you're going.

And I think that's powerful. And so then, as you were. Going into those spaces and kind of looking at them or just being in them, understanding their historic significance. Do you think it would have been different if you didn't know the history of them?  Or do you or how does that kind of knowing the history and all that change the perception of the building? 

Oh, 100%.  You know, you can't.  You can't engage in this work without knowing the spaces and that's the thing that, that is really the most amazing thing about this is you can't engage in any work before you get introduced to the place in the space,  the buildings we walk into, you know, I remember one, it's the, the Dr.

Harris house, the Dr. Richard Harris House on Jackson Street in Montgomery, Alabama, was a refuge for people escaping attacks when they came into Montgomery,  they were part of the Freedom Riders, and Congressman, late Congressman, John Lewis was among them.  Dr. Richard Harris was a pharmacist who had recently, and I call his house the Noah's Ark because he had recently expanded his house. 

And instead of using wood studs, he had. Use concrete for the flooring system and resurfaced his whole house in brick and had brought over the counter from his pharmacy.  And so you have this huge counter inside this house. And so from the outside, it looks like a little, just a regular house. It's nothing, you know, it's not too, it's nondescript,  but when you walk inside, you know, you, you could have about 50, 60 to 100 people inside comfortably being fed and taken care of.

And he did that about.  A year or two before the Freedom Riders came in.  So it's kind of like, you know, Noah's Ark where God said, you know, build an ark. And for what? Don't worry about it. Just do what I say.  And, but we couldn't get started with any of the work because of his daughter, Dr. Montgomery.  Oh, we had to get out.

We had to get introduced.  She pulled out, she pulled out the pictures. She pulled out the yearbooks. We, we, we, you know, one of my students played the piano. And so, you know, we started doing some, some Negro spirituals. I mean, we went to church and went back to the view, the movement all at the same time.  And we didn't get, I think the first day, I don't think we actually really did any work that first day.

Gotcha. At least not pen to paper at least.  No, there was definitely no pen. No, no, no, there was no pen to paper. It was definitely, you're going to get a learning lesson.  And what I love about it is that that's actually, that's what I've also seen every other site, you know, without going into detail of every single one, but these sites, when you go to them, there's a caretaker.

There's a mother, there's a father, there's a,  there's a champion for the site who was vested,  who, who bleeds for the site, who sheds tears for the site, who said tears of joy and unhappiness and sadness. I mean, they.  This is their purpose. And so,  you know, you're not going to, you're not going to come here without learning about where you are. 

And I love that because that's what allows you to now be a champion for it as well. Right. And it also makes the history more real. Like, it becomes like a heart thing because you feel it and you understand more of the context and why it's important, as opposed to just reading about it in a book where you're like, okay, yeah, the Freedom Riders went there.

But then being in that space and being like, oh. They came here and yes, 

if it's not, it's not four walls and they're going to seal it now. It's alive.  Yeah. And I think that's one of the things I also am excited about preservation and I'm excited that your students are getting that experience as well. Because I know you're saying, oh, there was no, no work done that first day, but like, That's the heart work, like the emotional connection, which makes you love a place even more.

And I'm so grateful that they get to experience that with you and with the sites that they're going to. And so then I guess for those kinds of trips, how do the students?  Cause I guess I'm always intrigued by students who are getting into it for the first time. And students typically tend to be a little bit shy, not wanting to ask the question, scared of doing the wrong thing, all that.

So then how are they engaging with the people that they're meeting at the site? So are they inquisitive or are they just kind of like waiting to receive and not really wanting to ask the wrong question, if that makes sense?  So it really all depends. So  I think what happens is like anything, you know, just like meeting a person for the first time,  you're kind of standoffish,  you know, you're trying to get to figure out what connections do we have,  however,  you know, within,  you know, by the time we leave their family,  by the time we return a couple of times,  they have purpose,  they understand why they're engaging in architecture,  they're understanding the purpose of the building, this building is not something on a sheet of paper, A couple of lines you draw with this fake expression about how this is going to be impactful, you're talking to people who were telling you how your architecture can be impactful. 

And more specifically, we're talking about for a number of spaces. These are spaces that were designed by Tuskegee architects.  Some of them were built by students.  So you're not just talking about the impact of architecture. You're talking about the impact of an architect who came from your institution,  who was sitting in your chair. 

A hundred years ago,  and you're learning about the impact that they had an impact that they died never even knowing that they had, or would have,  that is,  it transcends anything you could ever try to impart in a student by reading a book to them,  you know, telling them to look at a video online. No,  you have to be here to understand it and experience it.

And then to see the joy when you see a, I think she's 80.  Miss Woody, who is the caretaker of the Armstrong school.  We helped her secure a 30, 000 grant.  This 80-plus-year-old woman jumped up,  literally jumped, and started doing a happy dance.  I said, man, you look like you got more energy. And younger than me right now. 

So, you know, when you see, when you see that you're a student or, or, or a staff person, when you, when someone hugs you and thanks you for the contribution that you have yet to make,  but they recognize your potential because you showed up,  Oh, the students are sold.  They are sold.  The question is then how quickly can we get this work done? 

Right. Oh, that's fantastic. And so then I know that you and Tuskegee have formed a partnership with UPenn and doing a collaboration.  And so being a UPenn grad, I legit was like, wait, what?  Let me find out. Penn is doing some cool things with Tuskegee. So I would love to learn more about how that partnership came together.

Are you talking about that?  So, yeah, we, it goes.  Right back to right before the pandemic, about a year before the pandemic.  I, so we initially were doing some work with Columbia.  They, it was a, one of the individuals who was running a class coming out of Columbia. They were, they were looking at Montgomery at some sites and had initially done some work.

And because the majority of their work is international.  The gentleman's name is Will Reynolds. He said, Hey, I have a, have a contact Randy Mason over at UPenn that I would love for you to connect with. I think he could take this work and, you know, the work that y'all are doing and really help elevate y'all and help you on, you know,  gain deeper, deeper understanding of this field and also help support the growth of your program. 

And so  Randy came down, saw what we were doing.  And it was like, Hey, we would love to jump on board and support it. And now for about four years, we've, we've done work around civil rights sites. Our major joint project is with the Armstrong school where we're figuring out how to get it stabilized and get it preserved. 

They've been able to  bring an expertise to the, to the classroom because they've been doing it for a little over 30 years.  That is, has such a level of depth that can bring. But they brought faculty who engage in conservation. So we've learned how,  how much information you can collect from some paint samples.

You couldn't have told me that you could do something with some paint.  Like it's paint. It's a layer of paint. Who cares? Like, it's like, no,  no, no layers and layers and layers. It's like a mountain range. Like you cannot, no, no. Uh, you know, the amount of.  You know, how much love you can, you can have for us a masonry or,  or the kind of testing you can do to, to learn about wood,  you know, how you can date a building based on these things.

I mean, it just, it really, it opened up a whole nother world for us.  And what I would say is really beautiful about this engagement is.  They show us,  they give, they give us an opportunity to peek into, into the rabbit's hole and see how deep it goes.  And then we're able to go back and start figuring out how to jump into that hole ourselves. 

And so through this engagement, it's, it's helped us be clearer about what we need at  Tuskegee to do preservation for communities in the black belt of Alabama.  You know, we need conservationists and. Archaeologists, anthropologists, it's like,  you know, this, this list is growing, but we, the fact that we can say this is, this is a need. 

I love that because people, you know, people got to know what you need to bring to the table in order to do the work and they've been very instrumental in helping us, uh, you know, put our fingers on what, what the needs are. Yeah, and that's fantastic to hear because the material science side of preservation, it's a whole.

Another beast in terms of like, you're talking about that kind of stuff, but also I like, I like that you're able to layer in that information.  And learning more about, do you think at some point in time. Want to do, like, a conservation lab kind of thing?  Oh, yeah. No, we're, we're actually developing it now.

Oh, great. Oh, great. Oh, yes, we, we're developing it. We've been. Tremendously blessed. Not only are engaged with the Penn, but also the Park Service, National Trust, uh, Advisory Council for Historic Preservation.  Like, you know, the National Trust hope crew, like,  I mean, there've been all these rock stars who've come and said, I hear what you're doing, and we want to support you.

And so I think you want to, you need to go check out this space right here. And so, like, every person who's come down.  They brought gifts to us in terms of information,  and we've taken those gifts and what's the most beautiful thing about it is, I think what it gets our students excited is that we show them how to bring these. 

Bring these tools and these gifts into communities of people who look just like them and  I don't know about you. It gets fun. You know, you  We were at Florida A& M University a couple of weeks ago,  and I don't know if you've ever heard of, have you heard of the mounds, the indigenous mounds that are around the country? 

Okay,  I had never heard of them until maybe 2 months ago. Yeah, and I heard of them is because I have a colleague who's done a lot of work with indigenous populations. Yeah,  yeah. Well, we were, we were, we were driving back from FAMU.  And I saw a sign on the road that, you know,  discussed this mount. It's the, I was a colloquial mount.

I definitely am destroying it, but, you know, it's outside of Georgia, between the Alabama and Georgia border.  So, if you see it, please excuse my pronunciation,  but then it was so, so amazing about it is it's like guerrilla preservation, like, riding along. We have all our laser scanning and drawing equipment in the back and it's like.

Oh, check it out. We got to scan that. We got to document it. That's awesome. I  hope nobody comes around. I don't think we broke the law. But you know, we're going to do this quickly. So nobody finds out.  You know what I'm saying?  Tell folks, you know, folks understand. Like, listen, we are here.  We're here to tell the story.

We're here to make sure people know. We're not here to pillage or anything like that. But we gotta document this. People gotta know about this. I mean, it is.  I mean,  we couldn't do this. We couldn't have this kind of fun.  Just doing regular architecture. I mean,  it's cool to sit in the lab and like pump out some ideas. 

But man, there's something else. You see something and you're quickly pulling out some scanning equipment and trying to get it done and you pull out a drone and people go, what's that? What you doing?  You're eating. So that's amazing. I love the girl.  I love it. 

Oh, and it's funny because my co-workers give me a hard time because I have,  uh, basically like a survey bag in my car. I've been going on dates all the time, like profile comb, primer, whatever. But then I'll show them what I'm doing. I'm a preservation because you gotta have your bag and he has to be ready to go.

You can't be trying to pack it later. You know, you know, while you're running now, you gotta have it all in. Oh, man. We were on campus. I have my bag, my gorilla bag,  and we're, we're walking into one of our buildings, Sage Hall, it was a building designed by Pursley and, and Robert R. Taylor,  and it was one of Taylor's last buildings.

And so we,  they, we're, we're, we're walking around, you know, the contract is telling us all about it and. He opens up the, the, the, the hatch to go up into the ceiling and, uh, I'll pull out my headlamps,  and, and then they're not making fun of me. You really have a, so you just carry, just carry a headlamp in your bag.

That's just what you do. Exactly. Yeah. Don't, don't be jealous. Don't, I'm sure I appreciate the haters, you know, but Right. Yeah. I'm about to walk up in here and look, just look around this. You can't do it, so,  you know, it was that door to explore that fact, like, I can reach in this thing and I can pull out everything you need. 

I'm gonna tell you the thing, speaking of tools, the thing that I love so much about this space.  Is when you show up on-site,  you know how you would see the,  you know, the old films with the doctor who would make house visits and they have their bag and they look like they would come in there and do something really official. 

I mean, you think about as a  traditional architect,  there is no official thing that you look like you're about to engage in when you walk on the site.  I'm just going to walk here. I got a camera. I look around. You can't tell I'm about to do some business or whatever. I'm just kind of here. I can be in and out and you won't even know when you pull up to the site, which, uh, you know, which a gorilla bag.

Right? And yeah, laser scanning equipment. And you've drawn,  you got, you know, might be going to size. So you got the lights with you. I mean, you pull up, it looks like a whole raid for a production company.  Yeah.  And then you get busy.  You might only be out there for, for a couple of minutes, but man, it is a production.

It's a whole show.  We are about to dissect this thing and learn something.  Oh, I love it. I love it so much.  Well, amazing. So of all of the things that you are doing at Tuskegee with the students in the, in the program, what is currently exciting you the most?  Oh man. Uh, you know, the first question you asked is how I got to preservation. 

Uh, but the thing about it that is not as well known is that I actually,  I'm not a preservationist.  I'm a sustainability practitioner.  Hold on. How did we get all the way to the end? Okay, say more. 

So,  you know, as they say in architecture, the most sustainable building is the existing one.  And, so  I see preservation through the eyes of a sustainability practitioner.  It's the sustainability of the community.  Is the sustainability of resources,  the sustainability of culture,  my,  my degree, you know, you're saying, you know, so what was I studying?

I was studying urban geography and in that program, you know, we had 3  elements of which 1 was sustainability.  So, I came to it through sustainability, but I left it.  Doing historic preservation and so the reason I say that is because the most recent project that I have right now, we're actually unveiling it to the community tomorrow.

So,  Is a bookmobile,  so our students in our first year were approached by someone in the community named judge bigger. She's a local judge and juvenile court, and she has a  policy council for children policy council for making county and they had gotten a grant to do a bookmobile for children. You convert an old school bus into a mobile library  to address the.

Literacy rates of 3rd graders in making county, because currently 70 percent of 3rd graders. Or reading below level,  and so I'm so excited because tomorrow we've already given it to them, but tomorrow we unveil it to the community.  And our students last year did the design. I students this year actually built the design. 

And so we were able to convert an old bus and repurpose old shipping pallets.  In order to create this environment for our students and what I love about it is.  We get to, on my end,  I can have a conversation about preservation that can span design, traditional architecture design,  and can span into a very traditional hard-line related to preservation. 

And it's not a, these aren't separate conversations. We can have conversations about contemporary sustainability issues.  Using an architecture hat in a historic preservation hat. Absolutely.  And that's what to me makes all this work. So exciting that the same students who I can have in a class, we just went looking at some old buildings to figure out how to. 

Preserve them and document them can turn around and have a whole nother conversation with me. About how we can repurpose. Shipping pallets or shipping containers and some very contemporary stuff.  And when they ask me why, you wonder how this all connects,  I can say it's all about being sustainable.  Oh, I love it.

And that is what is so needed. Because that is, that's the thing. They're two sides of the same coin. Exactly.  I'm so excited you were doing the work that you're doing. Thank you for doing it. And it was amazing.  You know, when you're, when you're doing that, when you're doing the work that,  that you're supposed to be doing. 

And the truth is we all can't, we all don't, don't get the opportunity to connect with things or the thing that you, you know, you're supposed to be doing.  So to, to, to have connected and know this is where I'm supposed to be playing. It's like being a kid. And I'm going to the playground and playing in the sandbox,  you know, you're, you're, you're having fun every day and I'm, I'm just, I'm just very blessed and I feel honored to,  to be able to do this work and be able to do it for my people. 

I feel that I, I mean,  get to walk in, walk in the door and know.  Whatever challenges you have,  I got some stuff in my gorilla bag for you.  And when I leave here,  you're going to be happy. I came.  So it's most, most folks, most architects are afraid to go to the community.  Oh man. I can't wait to get there. 

Thank you so much for listening. Links to amazing resources can be found in the episode's show notes. Special thanks to Sarah Gilberg for allowing me to use snippets of her song Fireflies from her debut album, Other People's Secrets, which by the way is available wherever music is sold. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe to the show. 

And now that Tangible Remnants is part of the Gabl Media Network, you can listen and subscribe. to all network partner content at gablmedia. com. That's G A B L media. com.  Until next time. Remember that historic preservation is a present conversation with our past about our future. We don't inherit the earth from our parents, but we borrow it from our children.

So let's make sure we're telling our inclusive history.  I saw the first Firefly sun and right then  I thought of you.  Oh, I could see us catching them and setting them free.  Honey, that's what you do. 

That's what you do to me.