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Chapter 12
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-0675-1.ch012
ABSTRACT
Although widely employed within the Architectural Heritage conservation process, Information and
Communications Technology (ICT) techniques still present many serious issues for the discipline. Current
research highlights a possible methodological approach to devise an ICT instrument that could sup-
port activities for Cultural Heritage conservation, while maintaining full respect for the specifcs of the
discipline. Reviewing current ICT and Architecture Engineering and Construction (AEC) applications,
it is possible to note that the proposed approach is at the moment reversed: modelling does not arise
as the projection of a future object, but rather from the knowledge needed to represent an existing site
as accurately as possible. The proposed goal, refecting the operative methodology of the conservation
process, seems to ofer a greater range of representativeness and to resolve, at least, some of the critical
topics that have arisen from the application of ICT to Cultural Heritage to date.
INTRODUCTION
The importance within the conservation process of recording building information is required above
all by the inherent features of cultural heritage, namely: cultural value, uniqueness, unrepeatability, and
non-reproducibility. These features refer entirely to extant historical buildings, determined historically
in close relationship with the physical context (Benjamin 1936, p.8). Issues arise from the specific
characteristic of historical architecture that may not be considered a single creation, but rather an open
work resulting from complex transformations built up over time through an involved interaction between
Drawing, Information,
and Design:
Tools and Perspective for Conservation
Donatella Fiorani
Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
Marta Acierno
Sapienza University of Rome, Italy