Tag: architectural survey

CDASH in Your Pocket

Posted on by cambridgehistoricalcommission

CDASH is now available on mobile devices!

CDASH, the digital version of the Cambridge Historical Commission’s architectural survey, documents the built environment of the city through newspaper clippings, articles, photographs, atlas details, ephemera, correspondence, and much more. The CDASH user interface has been upgraded for enhanced use on your mobile device as well as an improved desktop experience. One useful feature lets you explore buildings and historical resources near your current location.

Historical map marking Henry W. Longfellow School overlaid with a vintage photo of children running outside the school building

Experience history in the field:
📍 On your GPS-enabled device, tap the Find My Location cross hatch (𖦏) and allow the site location permissions to zoom to your location on the map.
🗺️ The blue location marker then dynamically traces your point of view and orientation on any of the antique or contemporary base maps available in the Layers menu.
🕵️‍♀️ Tap a marker, and you’re ready to delve into Cambridge history on location!

Illustration showing a historical map with a highlighted Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory location and an associated newspaper article about the laboratory building.

Unearth bygone landscapes, peruse the history of your house, and examine the evolution of our streets, all from your phone. Visit https://cdash.cambridgema.gov/ to learn more and start exploring today.

Aerial map with location pins and landscape plan for the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research courtyard, including Windsor Street and Osborn Street entrances

Cambridge Digital Architectural Survey and History (CDASH) Now Available

Posted on by cambridgehistoricalcommission

Following a multi-year effort, The Cambridge Historical Commission has made its extensive architectural survey records available to the public digitally through the Cambridge Digital Architectural Survey and History (CDASH) project! 

In its original paper form the Cambridge Historical Commission’s Architectural Survey fills 10 filing cabinets of physical materials detailing the history of the city’s built environment. The collection documents nearly every building in the city, demolished or extant, through newspaper clippings, articles, photographs, atlas details, ephemera, correspondence, and more. Now available online, users can browse over 131,000 pages of information covering nearly 15,000 distinct places in the city. Explore this resource at cdash.cambridgema.gov.

Examples of resources that can be found in CDASH

The user interface and the administrative back end for CDASH have been created with the popular open-source repository and discovery platform Omeka-S. Customizations to Omeka-S showcase the versatility of geographic referencing as a means of linking data from diverse sources. In its current form, CDASH is best accessed with a computer. In the coming year, we hope to bring CDASH to small screens and in the field as a GPS-enabled mobile app.