André Jauregui

André Paul Jauregui is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Historic Preservation at Columbia GSAPP. A preservationist and trained architect, he co-founded Special Operations Executives (S.O.E.), a preservation studio with a mission to advance the field of historic preservation through the innovative application of emerging technologies. He previously served as laboratory manager of the Preservation Technology Lab (GSAPP) and as a Fabrication Fellow at the New Museum’s experimental incubator space New Inc. His work focuses on the practical applications of high-resolution facsimile technologies for the documentation, creation, and investigation of cultural heritage.

Jauregui is a native of Houston, Texas, and received his B.A. in Architecture at the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture at the University of Houston and his M.S. in Historic Preservation at Columbia GSAPP. In his thesis entitled, Limits of Heritage Reproduction in the Age of High-Resolution Scanning, he evaluated methods for filling holes (lacuna) in 3D reconstructions of cultural heritage objects. During his research, Jauregui trained in digital conservation and restoration techniques at Factum Foundation under the tutelage of Adam Lowe in Madrid, Spain. While at Factum, he aided in the fabrication of a 3D printed facsimile of Pharaoh Seti I’s tomb and designed a prototype for a backpack-mounted high-resolution book scanner capable of reaching ancient documents held in remote monasteries in Makhachkala, Dagestan (Russia).

Jauregui was N.Y.C.‘s Pitch-Distilled Young Entrepreneur of 2017 and was featured in Wired Magazine for his work with Resilient Modular Systems (R.M.S.), a startup focused on utilizing sustainable composite materials and an open source platform for producing, sharing, and monetizing construction projects in the developing world. His studio has worked with organizations and sites such as the United Nations Headquarters, the Noguchi Foundation, the 9/11 Museum and Memorial, the Tenement Museum, the American Battlefield Trust, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. His most recent work is a collaboration with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to train, organize and direct teams conducting photogrammetry of architectural sites in conflict zones working in tandem with community stakeholders in Syria, Gaza, and Iraq.

He has been involved with several award-winning television and film productions, both as a photogrammetry expert for visual effects and as a historical research consultant; most recently, season one of Dickinson, an American comedy-drama television series about Emily Dickinson, produced for Apple TV+. Additionally, his studio, S.O.E., has worked with artists, advising productions of scanning-focused work, including the inaugural SHED open call as an x-ray spectrography consultant for Farzin Lofti-Jam and Caitlin Blanchefield’s installation and subsequent publication titled Modern Management Methods Architecture, Historical Value, and the Electromagnetic Image. He is a past contributor to the PLAT architectural journal, whose purpose is to stimulate relationships between design, production, and theory, published by Rice University press—co-authoring *Digitizing Cultural Heritage Reinterpreting authenticity and contextual value in sharing 7.0*.