3D MODELING AND VISUALIZATION OF ARCHITECTURE AND LANDSCAPE

The study presents the results of architectural and vegetation survey missions in the UNESCO site of Quinta da Regaleira in the city of Sintra, Portugal. The different types of connecting elements of the epigean and hypogean architectures in the Park are analysed through the disciplinary tools of architectural design. Surveys and models of some of the connecting elements are proposed for an understanding of the site and its subsequent protection and valorisation through digital documentation. Of great interest is the architectural and social relationship that the site establishes with the city of Sintra.The survey of epigean architecture considered the following: the Casa da Renasceça, the Capela, the Cocheiras, the Estufa, the Oficina das Artes, the Loggia dos Pisoes, the Casa dos Ibis, the Torre da Regaleira the Terraço dos Mundos Celestes and the Fonte da Abundância.The survey of underground architecture considered the following architectures: the Gruta do Labirinto, the Gruta da Leda, the Lago da Cascata, the Gruta do Aquario, the Gruta do Oriente, the Portal dos Guardiães, the Poço Imperfeito and the Poço Iniziático.The work constitutes a complete and accurate analysis, represented through technical drawings, in different scales, digital point clouds and 3D modelling for the visualisation of the architecture in the Quinta da Regaleira in Sintra.

The Role of Landscape Design in Cultural Rural Areas. A Didactic Exercise to Experiment a Research-by-Design Process Applied to an Italian UNESCO Wine Site

Rural landscapes all over the world are subject to great transformations, first being the continuous and slow depopulation of towns and villages. It is a dramatic phenomenon that causes devastating consequences for environmental systems and for the tangible and intangible heritage of entire territories. The situation becomes more ambiguous when it comes to cultural landscapes, especially those internationally recognized as exceptional (i.e., inscribed on the UNESCO (The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) World Heritage List). In this case, the risk is to abandon agricultural production in favor of consumerist tourist economies, which can damage the territorial authenticity. In this paper, we question the role of the landscape design in strengthening territorial resilience. In particular, a composite and interdependent action has been proposed between landscape design and implementation of a multifunctional agriculture model, oriented towards tourism. To undertake this investigation, a master’s thesis work on Landscape Architecture has been examined as an opportunity to test the research-by-design method through the didactic process. The application case is the Italian UNESCO site of Vignale Monferrato, a depopulated rural village, characterized by abandoned land and buildings. The paper concludes by outlining replicability application scenarios for the proposed model.

Learning from vernacular settlements. The role of traditional mitigation measures in Amalfi Coast

Vernacular settlements are mostly made up of buildings whose exceptional stability is testified by their survival over the centuries, even under natural and anthropogenic wounds. The unesco site of the Amalfi Coast shows a vast repertoire of cases to learn about the surviving examples of vernacular techniques and their structural qualities. It is possible to appreciate constructive protection measures that highlight the ancient actions to ensure the built environment's safety. This research aims to represent an effort in the knowledge of the traditional mitigation measures, often considered simply as local architectural elements, analyzing a large number of protective devices on the Amalfi Coast, to take the right actions in the future recovery, conservation, and maintenance operations.

SPATIAL 3D DOCUMENTATION OF HISTORICAL MINING REMNANTS IN FORESTED AREA IN THE ERZGEBIRGE/KRUŠNOHOŘÍ MINING REGION UNESCO SITE

This contribution deals in the possibilities of 3D documentation of historical mining relicts hidden in the forest. On the Czech – German border, in the Ore Mountains, several historical mining relicts are located there. There are interesting underground spaces (historical mines), some of which have recently been made available for visits by tourists. But there are many relicts on the surface that are linked to mining and are not known or on the fringes of interest. These are mining pits, dumps, water works, remains of buildings and historic entrance roads. Many of them are in forest areas, were not documented or archaeologically explored, and have recently been devastated by amateur collectors equipped with metal detectors who unfortunately destroy unexplored localities to find interesting relicts. For the basic documentation and delimitation of these objects, aerial laser scanning (ALS) and personal laser mobile scanning (PLS) were used; some finds were documented by close-range photogrammetry.

A DATA COLLECTION FRAMEWORK FOR MANAGING ACCESSIBILITY AND INCLUSION IN URBAN HERITAGE

The successful implementation of inclusive design strategies cannot overlook the development of a preliminary phase aimed at gathering accessibility data of the built environment. This set of information helps achieve two major objectives: planning measures for improving the fruition of a city and communicating to end users the opportunities to exploit places. Specifically, this is fundamental in Cultural Heritage contexts both to survey their specific features and convey their historical values. To this end, such information must be accurate and gathered quickly. This paper aims to provide a set of parameters through which it is possible to comprehensively assess accessibility of Urban Heritage environments. Particularly, such task has been carried out in a more general framework targeted to investigate, how and by which tools, the current design practice achieve the aforementioned objectives. The article proposes a geometric survey through Mobile Laser Scanning system as a data gathering tool. The semantic segmentation of the resulting point cloud is envisioned as a suitable method for the extraction of the accessibility parameters proposed. Basing on first tests applied on a case study, a UNESCO site, the article provides and discusses a final proposal for the best data processing and validation, in addition to the key tools for sharing this information.

I suoni di Mantova come strumenti di interpretazione del paesaggio. Tra turismo sostenibile ed educazione al patrimonio culturale

This article presents an educational experience in schools held by academics in the UNESCO site of Mantova and Sabbioneta. It is the result of a wider, interdisciplinary study – sponsored by MOBARTECH, an Italian research project – aimed at the co-construction of knowledge to foster understanding and interpretation of the cultural landscape from the point of view of the local community. The project led to the creation of a toolkit for citizens and tourists in which sound was the protagonist of several activities. Here we critically present insights and reflections on heritage, landscape and the sound in education.

Designing in the Cultural Rural Landscape. A Teaching Opportunity to Experiment a Research-by-Design Process Applied to an Italian UNESCO Wine Site

Rural landscapes all over the world are subject to great transformations, first of all the continuous and slow depopulation of land and villages. It is a dramatic phenomenon that causes devastating consequences for environmental systems and for the tangible and intangible heritage of entire territories. The situation becomes more ambiguous when it comes to cultural landscapes, especially those internationally recognized as exceptional (i.e. inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List). In this case, the risk is to abandon agricultural production in favor of consumerist tourist economies, which can damage the territorial authenticity. In this paper we question the role of the landscape project in strengthening territorial resilience. In particular, a composite and interdependent action is proposed between landscape design and implementation of a multifunctional agriculture model, oriented towards teaching and tourism. To undertake this investigation, a master's thesis work on Landscape Architecture is examined, as an opportunity for a research-by-design method. The application case is the Italian UNESCO site of Vignale Monferrato, a depopulated rural village, characterized by abandoned land and buildings. The paper concludes by outlining replicability application scenarios for the proposed model.

Mount Athos: Restoration of an almost Extinct Type of 18th–19th C. UNESCO Masonry OX Stable

The present paper serves the purpose of presenting an extinct type of 18th–19th century masonry building, that of an ox-stable, situated in one of Europe’s most secluded areas: The Holy Monastery of Pantokrator in Mount Athos Peninsula. Architectural drawings and surveying plots of its current state can serve as a record and reference of this UNESCO site for scholars. Adding to that, an elaborated proposal for the reuse of the building is presented together with technical drawings, which were approved by Greece’s Central Archeological Council. The masonry rectangular building is founded on natural rock with masonry pillar footings of different heights. Hence, the elevation irregularity and the different elevations of the footings of the structure present an additional challenge for the structural analysis. Structural analysis with a finite element (FE) model of the restored structure was executed with SAP2000 software. Performing lateral force and response spectrum analyses, stresses and deformations at critical points of the structure were calculated. Comparing a set of simplifying structural checks with the elastic FE analysis performed, it was concluded that the proposed design is effective in improving the earthquake performance of the structure.

SIDEWALK DETECTION AND PAVEMENT CHARACTERISATION IN HISTORIC URBAN ENVIRONMENTS FROM POINT CLOUDS: PRELIMINARY RESULTS

The definition of physical accessibility in urban environments is a topic of recognized importance by policy makers and by international organizations. A first step to address the accessibility topic is the definition and characterisation of urban elements, like sidewalks, roads, and ramps. Sidewalk inventory plays a crucial role in this phase. In literature there are several ways to extract sidewalks from a point cloud, but they are all tailored on modern and standardized situations. For example the presence of a curb is assumed as the normality and the roads are supposed to have the same width along the path. When dealing with an Urban Heritage, some difficulties arise. In fact, in an historic urban environment ground irregularities should be taken in consideration: the paving is composed by different materials, curbs are not always present, and a Z difference between road and sidewalks is not so sure. In such cases existing methodologies cannot be applied. This paper present a method to semantically segment a point cloud, labelling sidewalks and roads. Sidewalks are also characterized by detecting their pavings. The method is tested on an Urban Heritage: the Unesco site of Sabbioneta, in northern Italy. The results are promising, sidewalks are detected with a precision of 80%, main errors are in corner areas. Paving characterisation is based on thresholds derived from some samples, and the method shows an high precision (more than 90%) in all the pavings considered.