Landscape quality of farm buildings: The evolution of the design approach in Italy

Rural buildings have undergone deep changes with the historical transition from traditional agriculture to industrial society. This paper discusses these trends in Italy, focusing on major changes in agriculture, design approach, and land-use planning, referring to some regional cases and relative building typologies. The analysis of the main historical treatises on the subject of farm building design allowed us to evaluate how the evolution of the technical approach influenced the architectural quality of rural buildings. This latter was traditionally based on a close relation between aesthetic values, functionality, and simplicity, broadly acknowledged only recently, as shown by the loss of landscape integration of farm buildings constructed in the last decades. By analysing the processes of reuse of historical buildings and construction of new farm buildings, we have found out different and time-evolving ways of referring to rural heritage and identity. In some cases, they have been considered important references, even through typological evolution aimed at combining traditional values with new needs and available techniques. In other cases, old farm buildings have been considered unsuitable things of the past, or rather have inspired new constructions based on an idealized and mystified concept of rurality. Since landscape integration of rural buildings plays a crucial role in the EU concept of agriculture, the choice of architectural quality postulates to be adopted for the design of new rural buildings is a key theme. Both consistency with pre-industrial tradition and typological discontinuity must necessarily consider consciously the relationships with historical buildings, whose important values have increasingly come to the fore over the last years. Once consistency with historical farm buildings is assumed as a design postulate, contemporary interpretation of traditional typologies through modern building techniques is a very challenging and topical field of study. Various degrees of consistency with traditional typologies are possible. Therefore, this approach calls for the development of analytic and metadesign methods aimed at decomposing rural building typologies into their essential physiognomical features, allowing designers to modulate them to meet ever-changing requirements.     

An architectural assessment method for new exterior additions to historic buildings

The design approaches of new exterior additions to historic buildings have been among the ongoing debates in the field of architectural conservation. The aim of this study is to develop an assessment method, which can be used to determine the compatibility in architectural expression of the new addition in relation to the characteristics of a historic building. This method is based on the architectural analysis, which includes environmental relations, building-lot relations, mass relations and the facade composition of the historic building both before and after the new addition in relation to the value of a historical building. In this study, a selected group of historic buildings in ?zmir, Turkey with new exterior additions was analysed with regard to their exterior architectural characteristics in order to evaluate the compatibility of the new addition, by employing the use of contemporary conservation principles. The importance of this study is to guide architects to form the basis of a decision for developing an integrated approach in designing new additions in the course of the actual design process. On the other hand, the proposed method can be evaluated as a contribution to the emerging field of heritage impact assessments as well as scientific assistance to local governments to criticize specific projects of cultural heritage assets submitted for appraisal. Analysis results showed that the value of the historic building should first clearly be identified and a new addition should bear the identity of its own period. However, instead of altering the scale or form of the historic building, a new addition should complement and contribute to the sense of proportion, disposition and historical pattern.     

传播学视角下的城市文化建筑设计与传播策略研究

信息时代到来,以互联网移动终端为主要传播途径的社会信息共享效率大大提高,大众需求也随之提升.大量城市网红建筑及"打卡点"的出现表明建筑设计传播过程已不能忽视当下新媒体传播环境对其造成的影响.这些建筑作为城市文化的重要传播载体,成为社会公众与城市文化生活联结的"桥梁".运用传播学理论对建筑设计传播过程进行解读,以与公众社...     

论甘南藏区传统民居的类型、演化及其保护

传统民居是指按照传统方式建造的具有地域性或民族性特征,供家庭或家族居住使用的民间建筑。以清朝至民国时期甘南藏区传统民居为研究对象,通过系统的梳理、比较、分析认为:甘南藏区传统民居在其发展过程中,先后有帐篷、板屋、碉房、土木平房、土木二层楼房等多种形制的建筑风格;甘南藏区的居民由于不同的生产、生活方式使其在发展演变中表现出传统型、混合型以及商业型3种模式;藏族传统民居具有地域适用性强、多功能的土平屋顶、建材多就地取材、民居内部格局深受风俗习惯的影响等特征。     

Methodological bases for documenting and reusing vernacular farm architecture

For the last decades, many traditional farm buildings have lost their original function because of the great changes in the European agricultural sector. The respectful conversion of these derelict constructions to adopt new economic or social uses constitutes an interesting practise to protect the rural landscapes and to set in motion complementary gainful activities to the agricultural production. The starting of a regional or local scheme to protect the built heritage in a particular rural area requires an appropriate knowledge of construction techniques and typological characteristics of the traditional architecture. According to the practical experience of the author in Central Spain, this paper deals with the proposal of methodological bases for data collection and subsequent analysis of the vernacular constructions in a particular rural area. The systematic assessment of the suitability for reuse of old agricultural buildings by multicriteria decision-making techniques to ensure the preservation of the most valuable examples is also discussed.     

Spectroscopic analyses of Hellenistic painted plasters from 2nd century B.C., Sicily (South Italy)

In the present work, an analytical characterization of painted plaster samples coming from ancient buildings dated back to 2nd cent. B.C., located in Licata (Sicily, Southern Italy), has been carried out. The investigation has been performed through different spectroscopic techniques: X-ray fluorescence (XRF) using an handheld energy-dispersive XRF analyzer, scanning electron microscopy equipped with an Energy Dispersive Spectrometry microanalysis detector (SEM-EDS) and Fourier transform infrared absorbance spectroscopy (FT-IR). The main goal is to identify the plaster and pigments material. In particular, the XRF investigation of surfaces is the first step for a preliminary elemental characterization. Then, through SEM-EDS measurements, a quantitative analysis of the chemical composition of the plaster and the pigmenting agents along with eventual components related to deterioration processes has been obtained. Finally, FT-IR absorbance spectra have proven to be a useful tool to investigate the molecular nature of the used materials.     

基于数字化技术与装配式生产的乡村建筑风貌规划管理研究

近年来中国农村住宅的装配化比例快速增加,新型建筑材料和建设模式对传统乡村景观形成了较大影响.以东北地区为例,对乡村建筑风貌的历史发展进行梳理,基于对现状情况的深入调研,总结影响当今乡村建筑风貌的关键性问题,并结合建筑数字化技术,从规划与管理的角度提出乡村建筑风貌解决策略.认为东北地区近年乡村住宅建设技术正在发生系统性变...     

Principal Component Analysis in monument conservation: Three application examples

Multivariate statistics is a well-known and invaluable tool in archaeological science but its use is limited in monument restoration. The aim of this work is to demonstrate the effectiveness of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) on the characterization, technology and weathering condition investigation of building materials from historical monuments.Towards this aim, three examples are given:The first one is a provenance and technology investigation of the Aghia Sophia (Istanbul, Turkey) bricks, some of which had to be replaced due to weathering, during recent restoration works. It was proved by PCA that the original clay, used for the construction of the bricks, is not similar to the clay of other contemporary constructions in Istanbul but presents high similarity to the raw material of the bricks from a contemporary church in the island of Rhodes (Dodecanese, Greece). Additionally, the technology of the bricks was studied by mercury intrusion porosimetry, strength tests and Scanning Electron Microscopy. The use of PCA gives a very comprehensive way to present the difference in the technology of the dome bricks.The second presents a classification of mortars from medieval (Byzantine) monasteries, based on their microstructural characteristics (porosity, reverse hydraulicity ratio) and strength measurements. The PCA grouping gives an illustrative diagram depicting the correlation between mortar syntheses and resulting characteristics.The third case shows an example of the correlation between environmental pollution data and data from the weathering layers of marble surfaces (patina composition, orientation of the monument surface, etc.).     

Recording and documenting the chromatic information of architectural heritage

One essential approach in preserving architectural heritage is the documentation of 3D geometries and surface textures of historic buildings. For example, precise colour information, excluding lighting effects, is an intrinsic property of the surface materials of building interiors and exteriors. However, while colour information has been recorded for small sample areas, it has not been accurately documented on the scale of entire building surfaces. This is critical, because building materials decay and their colours fade with time. The goal of this project is to develop a method to assist in recording and documenting the chromatic information of interiors and exteriors of historic buildings with low cost and high efficiency. The method takes advantage of emerging high dynamic range imaging (HDRI) technology, which can store rich information about colour and illumination through digital photography. By recording the colour information, in addition to the geometry and texture information obtained through other existing technologies, we can achieve more complete documentation for architectural heritage. In this paper, we discuss an overview of the problem and present our algorithms for utilizing computer vision techniques to retrieve chromatic information of historic buildings. We also present and discuss our experiments and results of applying our method to studies of lab objects and the Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Forbidden City, Beijing.     

Assessment of the decision-making process for re-use of a historical asset: The example of Diyarbakir Hasan Pasha Khan,Turkey

The requirements of historical environments that are related to social and economical changes sometimes necessitate the re-use of historical buildings that no longer serve their functions. Deciding how to re-use historical buildings is a difficult problem when the concerns of decision makers are not aligned. This paper proposes a methodology for the appropriate re-use of historical patterns that have lost their original functions and discusses the results of such re-use. Appropriate re-use can result in a sustainable preservation of both historical assets and the environment. Thus, the respectful conversion of structures for new uses based on economic and social needs ensures the authenticity of the structure and of the historical environment. In this study, the historical pattern of Diyarbak?r Hasan Pasha Khan was evaluated through the application of the proposed method. Adaptation of the structure required knowledge of traditional construction techniques. The results reveal that the proposed methodology can be effectively used for historical patterns to prioritise between various re-use criteria. This methodology can be applied in the context of re-use problems and provides solutions for such problems in historical buildings.     

Making architecture compete: open-ended accumulation meets objectification and singularisation in the UK construction industry

Sociologists over the last two decades have taken inspiration from actor-network theory to suggest that competition, like ‘the market’, takes place through a dynamic of detaching objects from one set of relations and reattaching them within another: objectification and singularisation. Yet there has been little theorisation of how competition differs between situations. To approach this question, we can ask how competition, as a process of objectification and singularisation, interacts with other patterns of movement. Ethnographers have described one such pattern in the everyday work of architects. Here a building emerges from an ever-increasing number of ‘versions’, images and models, in an open-ended accumulation. This study considers the interaction between, first, the objectification and singularisation of competition and, second, the open-ended accumulation of architectural work. To do so, I examine architectural competitions in the UK. I draw from document analysis of one competition for a school in northern England, as well as interviews with architects about their work on competitions. This study concludes that architectural competitions repeat the multiplicity of architectural work but in a more delimited form. Multiplicity is not ‘cut-off’ so much as winnowed down through an explicit process of selecting images and blocks of text.     

Efficiently capturing large,complex cultural heritage sites with a handheld mobile 3D laser mapping system

Accurate three-dimensional representations of cultural heritage sites are highly valuable for scientific study, conservation, and educational purposes. In addition to their use for archival purposes, 3D models enable efficient and precise measurement of relevant natural and architectural features. Many cultural heritage sites are large and complex, consisting of multiple structures spatially distributed over tens of thousands of square metres. The process of effectively digitising such geometrically complex locations requires measurements to be acquired from a variety of viewpoints. While several technologies exist for capturing the 3D structure of objects and environments, none are ideally suited to complex, large-scale sites, mainly due to their limited coverage or acquisition efficiency. We explore the use of a recently developed handheld mobile mapping system called Zebedee in cultural heritage applications. The Zebedee system is capable of efficiently mapping an environment in three dimensions by continually acquiring data as an operator holding the device traverses through the site. The system was deployed at the former Peel Island Lazaret, a culturally significant site in Queensland, Australia, consisting of dozens of buildings of various sizes spread across an area of approximately 400 × 250 m. With the Zebedee system, the site was scanned in half a day, and a detailed 3D point cloud model (with over 520 million points) was generated from the 3.6 hours of acquired data in 2.6 hours. We present results demonstrating that Zebedee was able to accurately capture both site context and building detail comparable in accuracy to manual measurement techniques, and at a greatly increased level of efficiency and scope. The scan allowed us to record derelict buildings that previously could not be measured because of the scale and complexity of the site. The resulting 3D model captures both interior and exterior features of buildings, including structure, materials, and the contents of rooms.     

Building typologies identification to support risk mitigation at the urban scale – Case study of the old city centre of Seixal,Portugal

The old urban centres are marks of an historical and architectural heritage that should be protected and safeguarded. For such, it is fundamental to have a complete understanding of the genesis, regarding both building and the urban mesh. This fact is essential to the support of qualified, conscientious and sustainable rehabilitation interventions on the old building stock. The research carried out addresses the issue of the old urban centres from the perspective of the analysis and inventory of buildings features. The cataloguing process of the building typologies is presented in this work as a synthesis of the principal construction forms, with the old city centre of Seixal being used as a case study. The identification of building typologies has supported a seismic and fire vulnerability assessment of the old building stock. The assessment methodologies developed and used are based on the detailed survey and building inspection, therefore the building typology cataloguing is essential in the analysis at such a large scale. Then we discussed the strategy for the conservation actions incorporated in a broader risk management policy.     

Identification and assessment of engineered road heritage: A methodological approach

Roads built by civil or military engineers from the 18th century onwards form an essential part of our heritage, but currently considered on a very infrequent basis. They represent one of the main turning points in the development of the transport system and serve to gain a better understanding of the historic construction of many landscapes and their current arrangement and operation. Their consideration as heritage has to be made on a territorial scale. This approach regards landscape as a cultural artifact, which is undergoing constant design, construction and transformation, where the road is considered as an axis that shapes the landscape and that contains individual elements such as associated structures or buildings. One of the most important characteristics of historic roads undoubtedly lies in the fact that they are a heritage that is still in use. Many of the roads built for carriages or the first automobiles have, in fact, served to trace the current network of roads and motorways. For this reason, many historic routes have undergone considerable modification and a large percentage of their heritage has disappeared. Likewise, their original or more intact sections, that is to say those that were replaced during their gradual adaptation to the automobile in the 20th century, are not always easy to identify. The distinction and undoubted documental value of historic roads, together with the neglect and vulnerability of these assets, makes it essential to define specific strategies with some degree of urgency in order to appraise this heritage. In this respect, the purpose of this article is to establish a methodology with which to identify sections of historic roads that were replaced by new alignments. The decision to focus the work on these sections is based on the fact that the infrastructure of these and particularly the older sections, have undergone a smaller degree of change and subsequently retain their original routing and geometry and a far higher number and variety of heritage elements more intact. This has made it possible to ascertain the diversity of elements composing the heritage of historic roads and enables the classification of the same. The identification methodology has been applied to a significant proportion of the Spanish main road network on selecting some 15 sections of historic roads of very different characteristics. Files have been prepared for each of these sections on the basis of cartographic analysis and detailed field work, these files including data related to location, characteristics and inventory of historic elements forming the road's heritage and will subsequently include references to road layout (both longitudinal and cross-sectional), structures (essentially drainage works), auxiliary elements (signalling) and associated buildings (inns, roadworkers’ houses…). Finally, and on the basis of the experience gained during the research, an initial proposal is laid out for the heritage assessment of these assets, considering aspects such as historic, technological and documental singularity which will depend on the degree of transformation and definition of the section in question.     

Neither Public Nor Private: The Hybridization of Museums

This paper takes a preliminary look at the hybridization of museums – the creation of a variety of mixed forms of governance incorporating both public and private governing authorities. Using data from three national surveys of American museums, the analysis documents the mix of types of governing authority and demonstrates how this mix varies across location, over time, and by museum type. The paper then estimates the extent of hybridization using several different indicators and speculates about its implications. The United States offers a particularly informative case because the general view is that American museums are (1) either public or private and (2) predominately private. While the second part of this view may still be a useful characterization of American museums, the first is no longer a particularly helpful way of understanding American museums, or, by extension, other cultural institutions, American or not. It is increasingly necessary to view cultural institutions through the lens of hybridization rather than privatization in order to improve our ability to document and predict their institutional behavior.     

Deterioration mechanisms of building materials of Jiaohe ruins in China

Almost all defects of earthen buildings such as roughening, erosion, volume reduction, cracking as well as crazing, etc., have been witnessed in the ancient city of Jiaohe, an earthen architectural heritage in northwest China. In this paper, their long-term durability and deterioration due to prolonged exposure to environmental factors were studied, based on the basis of field investigation and laboratory analysis. The results indicated that the deterioration of building materials should be attributed to their basic properties, including density, particle size distribution, soluble salts, mineral, mechanical strength, etc., and interaction with environmental factors. And then, four main deterioration modes can be identified, namely: wind-related deterioration, water-related deterioration, temperature-related deterioration and chemical related deterioration. It can be concluded that the greatest deterioration was wind-related deterioration on west-north facing façades, and chemical related deterioration on the surface of building materials.     

Innovation in lighting for enhancing the appreciation and preservation of archaeological heritage

The cultural content of ancient sites highlights the importance of light, which is an essential tool for the correct appreciation of the historical value and memory of cultural heritage. This should be a new way to highlight significance of fragments in compliance of the surrounding, which has not the same characteristics, to signal a visual path, creating itineraries that involve the context. Light plays a very important role in creating emotion, suggestion, evocation and supporting the visitor experience. Innovative technological solutions should be designed taking into account the kind of landscape and morphological characteristics of the site. This paper presents the study of a sample of Italian and international case studies, seen in their historical, archaeological and museological aspects. The emphasis is on what should be the most effective lighting system for the monumental sites, one respecting the ruins and the authenticity of the site, while at the same time bringing out their architectural, historical and symbolic significance.     

The identification of organic additives in traditional lime mortar

Organic-inorganic lime mortars were widely used in many ancient buildings due to their good performance in some fields (such as caking property, water repellency, weatherability, etc.). However, many ancient buildings and sites are suffering from various degrees of damage with the development of the economy and society and appropriate conservation and restoration are needed. The application of traditional construction materials, such as organic-inorganic lime mortars, attracts more and more attention in the conservation and restoration of ancient buildings in the recent years. So, the understanding of the components of original lime mortar which remained in ancient sites is of fundamental significance. In this work a set of analytical procedures to identify the organic additives in lime mortars by classical chemical analysis is proposed. The results show that using iodine-potassium iodide reagent, Benedict's reagent, reduction phenolphthalein reagent, Coomassie brilliant blue and sodium periodate oxidation glycerin acetyl acetone method could effectively detect a small amount of starch, reducing sugar, blood, protein and fatty acid ester that remained in ancient buildings’ lime mortars, respectively. These analytical methods are easy to operate with low detection limit, high accuracy and some other advantages.     

Methods for documenting historical agro-industrial buildings: a comparative study and a simple photogrammetric method

As an important element in the cultural heritage of a people, traditional rural constructions need to be conserved over time. Graphic and metric documentation methods play a key role in the preservation of cultural heritage. In this paper different existing methods of graphic and metric documentation are analysed in order to select the most suitable for the documentation of agro-industrial buildings according to their characteristics. The selected one is a simple close-range photogrammetry method, which is affordable and easy to understand for non experts. It is based on the use of plumb lines, a conventional digital camera and monoscopic restitution. The application of the method is illustrated in a particular case consisting on the graphic and metric documentation of a windmill. Also the accuracy of the method is evaluated in this particular case.     

An application of Multicriteria Decision Making to built heritage. The case of Calcutta

Given the civic and social commitments of urban local bodies in developing countries, renovation and maintenance of all heritage buildings and sites is a financially non-viable proposition. Urban planners, therefore, need to take decisions on which heritage sites are to be protected (either in their original form, or with suitable modifications that permit commercial use without destroying their architectural integrity) and the sites to be pulled down, ensuring more efficient land use. Such selection can generate considerable dispute between policy makers and various stakeholders unless the selection process is transparent, consistent and incorporates views of stakeholders. The difficulty in creating an analytical framework to be used for grading is the multiple (often qualitative) attributes of heritage sites. How to combine the performances of heritage structures with respect to these attributes into an aggregative index is a major concern for urban planners and conservationists. This paper argues that the Multicriteria Decision Making (MCDM) method may be a relevant method for grading heritage sites. The application of this method is illustrated for several heritage buildings in Calcutta, India.