Articles by Andrea Arrighetti

Introduction to the Special Issue 'Sistemi e tecniche di documentazione, gestione e valorizzazione dell’architettura storica. Alcune recenti esperienze'

Knowledge is an essential operating procedure in any project involving direct intervention in historic buildings. Reading the stratification of natural and anthropic events on the architecture, providing the careful evaluation of its historical-constructive complexity, is a crucial step towards a full knowledge of the formal and physical characteristics of the building under analysis. The contribution, starting from the revision of the sheets used for documenting historical buildings in areas at seismic risk within the Ministry project of the ‘Atlante dei Tipi Costruttivi Murari d’Italia’, aims to illustrate, by means of a distinctive case study, that of the Pieve di Sant’Agata, how the contribution of modern surveying technology has significantly improved the recording of archaeo-seismological data both qualitatively and quantitatively. This information, once interpreted, provides a full historical, constructive and seismic understanding of the architectures, helping the process of historical knowledge of the context under study and, at the same time, the documentation, evaluation and planning of the restoration work.

Reconstructing the development of architectural complexes throughout time is often very difficult. Buildings are usually a series of constructive actions, changes from the original project, and collapses and reconstructions due to human actions (such as demolitions) and/or natural disasters (earthquakes, floods, etc.). The building’s structure records all these events, and by using a relief map gives us the chance to understand and decode them. The archaeological relief map is thus supposed to offer a complete and concise documentation. At the same time, it must be enriched with the additional information needed for a more detailed analysis of the archaeological object itself. In the last few years, the introduction and continuous improvements of many instruments (e.g. laser scanners and photogrammetric technologies) have led to a significant qualitative and quantitative change in the recording of material structures. In particular, the possibility of combining different relief technologies - obtaining high resolution, 3D geometrically correct models of buildings or of entire archaeological sites (which could be further investigated thanks to archaeological analysis or other procedures) - has modified the archaeological approach towards the material ‘datum’ and its divulgation. In order to acquire a better knowledge of contemporary technologies, the dissemination of different methodologies - through their application in research contexts - is the best way to transmit and compare them. This article is dedicated to the presentation and detailed analysis of a photogrammetric RGB point-clouds technology, used for the relief of a room during the archaeological excavation at Aiano-Torraccia di Chiusi (San Gimignano, Siena).

In the last few years in Italy the scientific community has increasingly focused its interest on the documentation of Cultural Heritage. The evolution of relief and modeling technologies combined with an outstanding variety of software and hardware available on the market and online has allowed an increasing number of operators to produce three-dimensional models, to elaborate new reflections, studies and popular products. In the archaeological relief field, after an early preponderance of laser tools, interest has recently shifted towards photogrammetric tools, with a switch from stereo-photogrammetry to bundle reconstruction through commercial and open source software available online. In the field of Building Archaeology, the technological evolution has allowed us to continually set new goals, from the increasingly detailed three-dimensional recording of buildings, to the representation of realistic models of the construction phases and the demolition of the buildings over time. This article attempts to illustrate, through the presentation of some projects of the Laboratory of Building Archaeology of the University of Siena, the ‘mental structure’ existing before the material one, that is behind the recording of the construction characteristics of a building, by focusing on the factors that are at the base of the choice of a particular survey system and on the consequent possibilities in generating and managing three-dimensional models.