SAM studio

09/03/2026

Rust Hall, originally the Memphis Academy of Art and the now the new home of the Metal Museum, is one of Roy Harrover’s earliest and most important works and a wonderful example of New Formalism architecture in Memphis. Harrover and his then partner, William Mann won the competition to design the new art school in 1958, and the building opened in 1959. It was later named Rust Hall in honor of longtime academy director Edwin C. “Ted” Rust.

The building won the Progressive Architecture Award in 1960 and was also named the “Building of the Decade” by the American Institute of Architects (AIA).

Harrover designed Rust Hall around open courtyards that connected to the landscape of Overton Park. Its most memorable feature is the dramatic folded-plate roof, which appears to float above the building on slender Y-shaped columns.

Another defining element is the building’s concrete sunshade, or brise-soleil. These projecting screens shade the large expanses of glass from the sun while still allowing natural light into the interior.

Rust Hall also provides an important introduction to the larger architectural career of Roy Harrover. Only a few years later, he would design the Memphis International Airport, with its iconic “martini-glass” columns, and decades later he would create the monumental Mud Island River Park and Mississippi River Museum in the Brutalist style.

The Metal Museum’s transformation of Rust Hall is yet another excellent example of adaptive reuse in Memphis, something we do really well here.

Memphis Heritage will be at the grand opening this Saturday, September 5 from 1pm-2:30pm.

08/30/2026

Every town should have this.

07/21/2026

For those of you in historic preservation, heads up. Final voting in Congress apparently is this Friday, July 24. And 30 day comment period.

From Historic preservation professionals group on FB:

The ACHP is moving toward the most consequential rewrite of the Section 106 regulations since 1986, and the comment window, when it opens, is expected to be just 30 days. I am not speaking hyperbolically when I say that this will gut the NHPA.

Based on the ACHP's announced review and reporting on the draft under consideration, the proposal would restructure the 106 process itself:

• SHPO/THPO concurrence on eligibility is gone. The consultation model is replaced by an agency-written "Section 106 Report." Agencies would determine what's historic, what's affected, and what's adequate mitigation, then circulate their conclusions for comment.

• "Historic property" would be redefined to require tangible built improvements and geographic compactness—expressly excluding landscapes, ethnographic landscapes, and natural features. Entire categories of Traditional Cultural Properties would fall outside review, no matter their National Register eligibility.

• Setting, visual, atmospheric, and audible effects would no longer count as adverse effects. If a project doesn't physically touch the resource, the surrounding context that makes it eligible wouldn't matter.

• Avoidance disappears as the priority. "Avoid, minimize, mitigate" becomes "address" and agencies could simply document that other considerations outweigh preservation and move on, via a unilateral Memorandum of Decision instead of a negotiated MOA.

• Public participation becomes optional, at the agency's "exclusive discretion." The category of consulting party that lets preservation nonprofits and concerned citizens at the table would be eliminated.

• Whole classes of federal actions—delegated programs, block-granted funds, "minimal" federal involvement—would no longer be considered undertakings at all.

Section 106 has produced sixty years of negotiated outcomes, documentation, and seats at the table for states, tribes, local governments, and the public. That table is being removed.

Cultural Heritage Partners is a private law firm committed to the principle that cultural heritage is a human right.

07/12/2026

06/29/2026

Trees are infrastructure.

YES: Mamdani plans to cover 30% of NYC in trees by 2040 — starting with the neighborhoods that need it most.

New York City released its first-ever Urban Forest Plan, and the way it's structured tells you everything about who this administration is governing for.

Instead of planting trees wherever someone calls 311 or makes a big donation — which is how it used to work — Mamdani's plan starts with the neighborhoods getting hit hardest by extreme heat.

Low-income communities of color currently have just 19% tree canopy coverage, compared to 26% in wealthier areas.

That gap isn't aesthetic. It's a matter of life and death.

Heat kills more than 500 New Yorkers every summer. Black New Yorkers die at twice the rate of white New Yorkers. And the neighborhoods with the least shade are almost always the same neighborhoods with the least wealth, the least air conditioning, and the least political power. Mamdani is starting there on purpose.

The plan divides the city into more than 400 zones and commits to hitting every viable planting spot in the highest heat-risk neighborhoods first — with the goal of completing the most vulnerable areas by the end of 2027. Every community board district gets serviced on a regular rotation after that. No neighborhood gets skipped. No donation required.

NYC's 7 million trees already provide $260 million in annual benefits — removing over 1,100 tons of air pollution, saving energy equivalent to 8,000 homes, and reducing stormwater runoff by 69 million cubic feet. A tree planted today does more work in 20 years than it does now. This is infrastructure that gets better with time.

THANK YOU, Mayor Mamdani!

06/19/2026

This is the biggest housing bill in more than 30 years. Let's get it done.

06/13/2026

06/06/2026

05/25/2026

Get out there and garden! Trees are worth more than you think.