Digital Mediated Techniques for the Knowledge of the Evolutionary Peculiarities of the Built Environment: Three Case Studies

The following work is part of a Ph.D. thesis, having as its general objective the use of ICT in the knowledge and documentation of five peculiarities of the built environment. The built environment is acknowledged as a value both as material resource and cultural heritage to be preserved. I believe that digital technologies give the opportunity to expand the knowledge of complex artifacts and reflect on traditional problems in a different way. In this paper I will deal with the interpretation, representation and communication of the features defined as "evolutionary". With the analysis of these features I want to pay attention to the time variable declined in two different ways, both united by a progression of human actions over in time. At first, I consider the transformations that have affected an artifact or a settlement during the course of centuries or years, and have influenced the present configuration; secondly I examine the various realization phases of an artifact, characterized by a montage of its technical elements. To represent and communicate the different phases of construction I do not use dynamic motion, but a sequence of static single frames, where each frame describes a phase and can be described in turn and fulfilled by other textual information. Consequently, I will present three case studies: the medieval village of Castelnuovo (Italy), damaged by an earthquake; a raw earth house, located in Figuig (Morocco); a trabocco, a pile dwelling construction used for fishing, located along Abruzzo’s coast (Italy). Then, for each case study I will present the objectives, some issues that have to be faced and a methodology that involves the use of software such as AutoCAD and 3ds Max. In the latter part of the work, the results will be presented and commented.