Fallon Samuels Aidoo

Preservation Planner, Practitioner, Scholar & Educator

Within academia, as a public official and through consulting, I analyze hazards to heritage and adapt heritage to hazards. This work revolves around the rehabilitation, revitalization, and recovery of real estate disproportionately impacted chronically and acutely by deterioration, disinvestment and disasters—especially historic sites, structures and streetscapes significant to Black, Indigenous and immigrant populations on the Atlantic, Pacific & Gulf coasts. With these marginalized and minoritized populations, I conduct community-based, participatory and applied research on public financing models, private investment practices and philanthropic aid programs that preserve their built environments, culture, and economies.

I conduct preservation planning and create preservation histories through two channels: as Principal of studio RxP, a consulting firm, and as Assistant Professor of Real Estate and Historic Preservation at Tulane School of Architecture. Through studio RxP, I support governments, companies, families, and communities striving to preserve and protect what they hold dear. At Tulane, I teach interdisciplinary studios and seminars reflective of my multidisciplinary expertise and experience. I recently served as Jean B. Boebel Assistant Professor of Historic Preservation in the University of New Orleans (UNO)’s Dept. of Planning and Urban Studies and Urban Entrepreneurship and Policy Institute. I previously taught architecture and urbanism at Northeastern University, Harvard, and MIT while researching hazards to historic structures for VREF, AECOM, DMJM, and Ochsendorf Block.

I hold degrees in urban planning (Ph.D., Harvard), architectural history (M.S., MIT), and civil/structural engineering (B.S., Columbia), plus a GIS Certificate (Harvard). I also meet the U.S. Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Architectural Historians engaged in Historic Preservation and requirements for AICP certification from the American Planning Association.

PROFESSIONAL SERVICE & CONSULTING

Serving investors, planners, developers, designers and stewards of the built environment, I consult on preservation plans for communities and institutions of every type and scale. via Studio RxP, I perform Historic Resource Surveys, Multiple Property Inventories, NPS nominations, NHL updates, participatory and asset mapping, and oral history. Studio RxP clients include NPS and NTHP grantees: Tulsa’s Historic Greenwood Chamber of Commerce and the African American Heritage Trail of Martha’s Vineyard. Previous collaborators include Hector Design Service and Newark-based MCJ Amelior Foundation, and stakeholders in designation of New Orleans’s Pontchartrain Park Historic District (Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans).

At any time, I hold several appointments in the public and nonprofit sector. In 2020/2021, those appointments included the Buildings, Land Use and Housing Committee of the Governor’s Climate Initiative Task Force (2021-); the City of New Orleans Street Renaming Commission’s Panel of Experts (2020); and the Board of Trustees of Louisiana Landmark Society (2018-2020). I continue to serve on the National Register Review Committee of Louisiana’s Office of Historic Preservation (2021-).

My involvement in diversity, civic, digital and cultural initiatives concerning the built environment extends well beyond Louisiana and historic preservation. I serve on the Presidential Task Force on Anti-Racism of ACSP, the Association for urban planning programs, professors and students, and help coordinate opportunities of Dark Matter University. My commitment to DEI extends beyond academic and professional organizations to any communities, policymakers and stakeholders seeking insight into cultural heritage vulnerable to erosion and destruction, grassroots planning for environmental and economic sustainability of cultural resources; and the preservation investments and insights of Black, Indigenous and other People of Color (BIPOC). I give public talks and keynote events on a sliding compensation scale reflective of organization capacity.