Architectural Resources Group (ARG) is a pioneering firm of architects, planners, and conservators dedicated to preserving history while shaping the future. The firm’s commitment to cross-disciplinary collaboration and cutting-edge technology allows ARG to create meaningful connections between communities and their heritage.
For typical surveys using DPR forms, it used to take at least two hours per
document to fill in fields, format, and quality-check.
With Fulcrum, that time has been reduced to almost zero.
Mary Ringhoff, Senior Associate – Architectural Historian
Architectural Resources Group
Mary Ringhoff, Senior Associate – Architectural Historian, explains, “ARG was founded in 1980 in our original San Francisco office. Since then, we’ve expanded to Los Angeles and Portland, evolving into a full-service preservation architecture firm with three practice groups: architecture, planning, and conservation. This structure allows us to seamlessly integrate design, historical research, and materials conservation.”
One of the things that sets ARG apart is its commitment to highlighting under-recognized cultural heritage. As Brannon Smithwick, Architectural Historian and Preservation Planner, explains, “ARG has worked hard to shed light on historically overlooked heritage. Through our surveys, we’ve been able to recognize and honor cultural elements that haven’t always received the attention they deserve. It’s incredibly rewarding to bring recognition to these important resources, especially through our large-scale surveys that explore intangible cultural heritage.”
To support this critical work, ARG has turned to innovative tools like Fulcrum, which has become an integral part of its survey process, enhancing efficiency and accuracy in documenting historical resources.
At the core of ARG’s planning practice are historic resources surveys, which are essential for city planning and preservation. As Ringhoff explains, “These surveys are crucial because they give a city a clear understanding of what they have and what they need to manage. For example, when someone wants to demolish a building or add a significant addition, the survey provides baseline information that can flag properties as potentially historically significant. This helps cities make informed planning decisions.”
The data from these surveys also enables city planners to balance development with preservation. “For instance, if a building is 100 years old and has been identified as potentially significant, the city can require further study before any changes are made,” Ringhoff notes. This process enhances planning, preserves neighborhood character, promotes business development, and increases preservation tourism.
Moreover, these surveys allow cities to take advantage of preservation incentives and other benefits linked to maintaining historical sites. “Preservation isn’t just about saving old buildings,” Ringhoff adds. “It’s also beneficial for business, tourism, and the overall character of a community.” ARG’s surveys equip cities with tools to protect heritage and ensure historical resources are preserved for future generations.
In 2018, ARG recognized the need for a more efficient way to handle its extensive survey work, particularly with a large citywide survey on the horizon for San Marino. “We had been using an Access database for some of our large-scale surveys, which was far from ideal,” recalls Ringhoff. “We wanted to move away from that clunky system and find something more flexible and user-friendly.”
The biggest improvement is how much faster and more agile data collection has become.
Mary Ringhoff, Senior Associate – Architectural Historian
Architectural Resources Group
After extensive research and comparison, Fulcrum stood out as the platform best suited to ARG’s needs. “As historians, we’re not the most tech-literate people, so finding something intuitive was crucial for us,” Ringhoff explains. The switch to Fulcrum marked a significant improvement in how ARG collected and managed data. It serves to make documenting and evaluating hundreds, sometimes thousands, of historically significant properties much more manageable.
ARG’s approach to historic resource surveys typically begins with the Recon phase, often referred to as a “windshield survey.” As Ringhoff explains, “We literally drive every street, armed with a list of properties identified through research, confirming the existence and condition of listed properties and adding any new ones that appear to be older or potentially significant.” The deliverable for this phase is generally a property list in spreadsheet form. The document serves to provide a preliminary understanding of the survey area.
Where Fulcrum truly shines is in the next step, the intensive survey phase. “This is where we capture full, detailed architectural documentation of each property,” Ringhoff notes. “We’ve built out our Fulcrum app with data fields that allow us to collect a very detailed description of architectural characteristics and perform evaluations based on established criteria — national, state, and local.” These evaluations consider not only the architectural significance of a property but also its historical context. They can include associations with significant events, patterns of development, or important historical individuals.
In this phase, ARG identifies both individual resources and historic districts. “Some districts can encompass thousands of properties, where the collective grouping conveys a strong sense of place and historical character,” Ringhoff explains. While less information is collected for each property within these larger districts, Fulcrum enables efficient documentation, making it easier to manage vast amounts of data.
ARG’s work in documenting historic properties often requires navigating the specific requirements set by the California Office of Historic Preservation. Ringhoff elaborates on the difficulty of balancing older, manual methods with ARG’s preferred approach. “It would be ideal if we could just provide a CSV, photographs, and shapefiles, and call it a day. In some cases, that’s possible, but many clients prefer the actual form,” she says. “The State relies on standardized documentation worksheets called the Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) 523 series forms. For many of our surveys, these are a required deliverable.”
Before Fulcrum, we’d spend hours manually adjusting page numbers, boxes, and formatting for each form. Now, we can auto-generate them, saving us hundreds of labor hours.
Mary Ringhoff, Senior Associate – Architectural Historian
Architectural Resources Group
This challenge is particularly evident in ARG’s largescale historic resources surveys. Here, the number of properties documented can range from a couple dozen to thousands. To address inefficiencies, ARG turned to Fulcrum to develop custom solution to automatically generate DPR forms from the collected data. This bridged the gap between modern data collection methods and traditional documentation requirements. “Before Fulcrum, we were manually copying and pasting data into each field, which was incredibly time-consuming,” Ringhoff explains. “Now, even though we sometimes still need to use these forms, Fulcrum has made the process much more efficient by automating it.”
Smithwick elaborates on the difficulties with the documentation process. “The Word documents are very specific about where we can and can’t input data. For example, if a field exceeds a page length, we can’t simply push it down. We have to generate a continuation sheet manually.” Fulcrum’s solution effectively addresses this issue. “Fulcrum coded those fields to automatically trigger a continuation sheet during export, saving a lot of manual effort.”
The introduction of Fulcrum’s automated solution has been transformative for ARG, especially when scaling up for larger projects. “It was absolutely a game changer for us,” Ringhoff states. “Before Fulcrum, we’d spend hours manually adjusting page numbers, boxes, and formatting for each form. Now, we can auto-generate them, saving us hundreds of labor hours. It still requires quality assurance, but the process is now much faster and more efficient.”
Summing up the profound impact Fulcrum has had on ARG’s workflows, Ringhoff says, “For typical surveys using DPR forms, it used to take at least two hours per document to fill in fields, format, and quality-check. With Fulcrum, that time has been reduced to almost zero.”
In ARG’s comprehensive approach to historic resources surveys, integrating data from various sources is key to ensuring accuracy and completeness. “Typically, we start with GIS maps of the entire survey area and preload parcel data for all age-eligible parcels into Fulcrum,” explains Ringhoff. “This data is usually joined by an assessor parcel number obtained from the county assessor’s office.” While the primary focus is often on buildings, Ringhoff emphasizes that ARG’s scope extends beyond that. “We’re also looking at other resources, such as street trees, landscaped medians, parks, sites, objects like signage, or districts.”
Before Fulcrum, we were manually copying and pasting data into each field, which was incredibly time-consuming. Fulcrum has made the process much more efficient by automating it.
Mary Ringhoff, Senior Associate – Architectural Historian
Architectural Resources Group
Additionally, ARG places significant importance on community outreach. “We engage with people who live in the area to gather information about resources that might not be easily identified through research or public observation,” Ringhoff adds. This collaborative approach allows ARG to capture a richer and more nuanced understanding of the historic significance of the survey area, ensuring that all relevant resources are documented and preserved.
Fulcrum serves as the central hub for all this data, seamlessly integrating information from various sources and making it easily accessible for analysis and decision-making throughout the survey process. This centralized approach not only enhances efficiency but also ensures that all relevant data is consistently maintained and updated as the project progresses.
ARG effectively combines the strengths of Esri and Fulcrum to streamline its field data collection and visualization processes. “Typically, we begin with a project area provided by the city, which outlines the parcels it wants us to survey,” explains Ringhoff. “We then work with that data in Esri to join it with parcel information, which allows us to visualize maps and identify the focus areas.”
This integration with Esri is crucial for creating preliminary visualizations, such as chronological maps that show the date range of building construction. “These maps help cities visualize their resources and assist us in planning how we’re going to approach the survey in the field,” Ringhoff adds.
Once the data is processed in Esri, ARG exports it as an Excel file, which can then be uploaded into Fulcrum. “This process is very helpful because it pre-populates the points for us in Fulcrum, meaning we don’t have to manually place pins for hundreds of buildings. The geospatial data from GIS does that work for us,” says Ringhoff.
This pre-population of data significantly speeds up the preparation phase, allowing ARG to focus more on the actual survey work. “Of course, there are times in the field where we identify something new and need to add it manually, but typically, having this pre-populated data makes the process much faster and more efficient,” Ringhoff notes.
By leveraging Esri’s powerful mapping capabilities and Fulcrum’s flexible data collection tools, ARG ensures its surveys are both thorough and efficiently managed from the planning phase through to fieldwork.
Once ARG completes the survey documentation process, the data collected is typically integrated into the client’s GIS platform. “They usually put the data there,” explains Ringhoff, “and then they have the DPR forms, spreadsheets, or other deliverables available for internal use.” This integration allows city planners to access and utilize the data efficiently for various planning purposes.
Fulcrum significantly enhances this process by ensuring that the data collected is clean, organized, and easily searchable. This makes it simpler for clients to manage and share the information. When a city council decides to formally adopt the findings of a survey, the reliable data generated through Fulcrum can be seamlessly submitted to the state and added to the State Historic Resources Inventory.
In addition, cities often will make the survey results publicly accessible by posting them on their websites. The accurate data captured by Fulcrum facilitates this transparency, allowing community members to easily access and engage with the documentation. “It’s beneficial to have the public as involved as possible, because they often have the best information,” Ringhoff adds. By providing organized and searchable data, Fulcrum helps cities foster greater community involvement and ensures that historical resources are preserved with the community’s input and support.
When ARG takes on a new project, the approach is always tailored to the specific needs and budget of the client. As Smithwick explains, “ARG will work with the client to see what funding is available and what they hope to capture in the data. We then refine our data fields accordingly.”
This customization ensures that the data collected is both comprehensive and aligned with the client’s priorities. Ringhoff adds, “A lot of these projects are grant-funded, so they don’t have unlimited resources. They often ask us, ‘What can you do for this amount of money?’ In some cases, we can streamline the data collection even further, depending on what they need and what they can afford.”
In the field, it’s great not to have every single field pop up. We can customize and visualize the data as needed, which makes fieldwork much smoother.
Mary Ringhoff, Senior Associate – Architectural Historian
Architectural Resources Group
The flexibility provided by Fulcrum allows ARG to optimize data collection processes, ensuring that even with limited budgets, clients can maximize the value of their investments. “Being able to streamline, even if we aren’t producing the DPR forms, makes it easier to tailor the project and estimate actual costs, now that we have a baseline set in Fulcrum,” Ringhoff notes. This careful consideration of client needs and financial constraints ensures that the final deliverables are both valuable and cost-effective.
A key feature of Fulcrum that has greatly enhanced ARG’s fieldwork efficiency is the use of conditional fields. “What I find particularly helpful with Fulcrum is the visibility and condition requirements available in the app,” explains Smithwick. “For example, we can link fields so that if a building is potentially individually eligible, selecting that option triggers additional fields for the necessary data. Conversely, if the building isn’t individually significant and instead a district contributor, the app minimizes unnecessary fields.”
This functionality is especially valuable during on-site surveys, where efficiency is crucial. “In the field, it’s great not to have every single field pop up. We can customize and visualize the data as needed, which makes fieldwork much smoother,” says Smithwick. By streamlining the data entry process to display only relevant fields, ARG’s team can stay focused on capturing essential information without getting bogged down by unnecessary details.
A major advantage of using Fulcrum in ARG’s projects is the seamless integration of photo documentation into the data collection process. “With other apps, we had to take photos separately, keep a photo log, and then manually attach the photos to the records,” Smithwick explains. “But with Fulcrum, we can take photos directly within the app.”
This functionality not only simplifies the documentation process but also enhances the accuracy and efficiency of data collection. Smithwick explains, “Recently, a client requested photos at the Recon survey level, so we created a simplified Fulcrum app that captures just the address, Assessor’s Parcel Number (APN), and a photograph, which remains geotagged to the record.”
Some of our custom reporting needs are quite intricate, so we’ve turned to Fulcrum for guidance. Their team has been incredibly responsive and helpful.
Brannon Smithwick, Architectural Historian and Preservation Planner
Architectural Resources Group
The ability to export geotagged photos directly linked to the data ensures that all visual documentation is well-organized and easily accessible. This feature streamlines the process, improving efficiency and reducing the risk of errors when associating photos with their corresponding records.
Fulcrum’s user-friendly design enables team members with varying levels of technical expertise to contribute effectively to ARG’s projects. Smithwick says, “When I started on one of our big surveys, I quickly realized how easy Fulcrum was to navigate.” Despite limited experience with similar applications, she managed tasks like creating fields, entering choice fields, and customizing the app layout with ease. “The drag-and-drop format of the app builder made it very intuitive,” she says. “Whenever we’ve needed to make changes or updates, I’ve been able to figure it out quickly.”
Fulcrum’s easy-to-use interface enhances ARG’s team potential, allowing everyone to handle tasks effectively, regardless of their technical background.
Fulcrum’s support and extensive resources have been invaluable to ARG, especially when dealing with complex technical requirements. As Smithwick shares, “Some of our custom reporting needs are quite intricate, so we’ve turned to Fulcrum for guidance. Their team has been incredibly responsive and helpful.”
In addition to direct support, Smithwick highlights the usefulness of the Fulcrum online resources for troubleshooting and learning. “There’s a lot of great information and topics on the Fulcrum Forum. If I’m trying to figure out how to do something, I can just search it there and usually find the answer,” Smithwick notes.
Together, the hands-on assistance from the Fulcrum team and the wealth of information available through the Fulcrum Forum have empowered ARG to make the most of the platform, even when dealing with unfamiliar tasks.
Fulcrum has revolutionized the way ARG conducts fieldwork, offering significant improvements in both mobility and data security. As Ringhoff explains, “The biggest improvement is how much faster and more agile data collection has become, especially because I can now do it all on my phone. Before, I was hauling around a heavy laptop with an extra battery pack, so Fulcrum is a huge upgrade.”
This shift to mobile data collection not only makes the process more efficient but also reduces the physical burden on the team, allowing them to focus more on the task at hand rather than managing cumbersome equipment.
In addition to the convenience of mobile data collection, Fulcrum’s cloud-based system provides a crucial layer of data security. “I know it’s saved to the cloud, so I don’t have to worry about backing up,” Ringhoff notes. “With those other apps, we were constantly backing up data, and sometimes we’d lose a whole day’s worth of work because we couldn’t back it up to the cloud. That’s no longer a concern with Fulcrum.”
By combining ease of use with robust data security, Fulcrum ensures that ARG’s fieldwork is not only more efficient but also more reliable, giving the team confidence that its data is always safe and accessible.
ARG has consistently led the way in incorporating technology into its operations, significantly enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of its historic preservation work. By developing custom tools and embracing platforms like Fulcrum, ARG has streamlined its survey process, delivering high-quality results tailored to each project’s unique needs. This commitment to innovation ensures that ARG remains a leader in the field, helping communities conserve its heritage with advanced solutions.
The passion ARG has for its work is evident in the impact it has on the communities it serves. “We really love what we do, and it’s incredibly fulfilling to help communities uncover and appreciate their historical resources,” Ringhoff emphasizes. “While everyone knows about the beautiful buildings in their communities, we also highlight the significance of less prominent structures, helping to connect communities to their past and fostering a deeper appreciation for preservation.”
By leveraging Fulcrum’s capabilities, ARG not only improves the efficiency and effectiveness of its surveys but also fosters a deeper understanding and appreciation of preservation within communities served. This balance between preserving historical character and supporting responsible development is what makes ARG a trusted partner in historic preservation efforts, ensuring that the legacy of each community is carefully documented and preserved for future generations.
If you’re looking to optimize your workflows like ARG, Fulcrum can help you achieve greater efficiency across any industry. Whether you’re involved in construction, environmental management, utility services, or beyond, our platform is designed to adapt to your specific needs. Contact us today for a free demo and see how Fulcrum can enhance your project management, improve data accuracy, and save valuable time.
