RICERCA ITALIANA     

Research program

Integrated Methodologies for the Survey, Drawing, Modelling of Urban and Architectural Environment.

University Co-ordinator

Università degli Studi di FIRENZE - PROGETTAZIONE DELL'ARCHITETTURA - ()

Research Unit Leader

Emma Mandelli

Description

Premise
A careful analysis of the meanings that the term "model" assumes in the architectural lexicon shows some categories within which is
possible to include those particularly important meanings for this research :
A. Model as a "real" object, which is proposed for being copied
B. Model as representation or reproduction of a "mental" object
C. Model as representation or reproduction of a "real" object
D. Model as track: scheme, example.
As a first step, it is necessary to differentiate the meaning of the two words: representation and reproduction, reporting the word representation to the representation (2D or 3D) of architecture (real or just imagined) on a bidimensional support and the term reproduction to the three-dimensional model (maquette).
However, it is necessary to premise that, due to the support of computer technologies in the architectural research, the term model has assumed a great deal of meanings in comparison with the recent past, so that also the two terms, representation and reproduction, have acquired a further meaning, which is fundamentally linked to the possibility of realizing some virtual maquettes to represent both projects (ideas) and "real" objects.
The digital technologies - intended as an articulated whole of hardware and software - that intervene in the job of the architect are competing, in general, to compose new typologies of architectural reading, that enrich the preceding ones.
The last of the examinable categories foresees the investigation of a series of realized examples of "digital integrated models" to reach the coding of some protocols that enable to constitute a guide for the realization of a virtual maquette.

Goals
The central goals of the present proposal of research will be to analyze the possibilities that the actual technologies offer to acquire architectural data, building plots, whole installations or portions of territory, to integrate them, to correlate them and to effectively represent them through the computer tools in virtue of specific finalities. The general reference aspects of research to be deepened are linked to the above listed meanings, and precisely:

1) The analysis of the model in its historical development of tool for the planning (conceptual, real or as a numerical and geometric verification) represents the necessary reference for the understanding of the role that such tool has nowadays.
It is well known that precise theoretical and technical norms regarding the drawings have always been used. Then, we can make hypothesis about the existence of an oral corpus of rules and suggestions to realize models and to use them in different situations. It is immediate that the connective relationship between technician and buyer was founded on a common language, and surely the model more than the sketch was the reference of such a language, as the only explicit material and three-dimensional form. In the Renaissance workshop the model had again a dynamic role: not the goal of the executive planning, but rather the tool to reach this. The model is the plastic matter that continually is transformed and discussed, to finally define itself in the perfection of the sketch, tabula scripta of the final decisive intentions. The research starts from these presuppositions to investigate the new possibilities offered by the virtual modelling.

2) The analysis of the digital model for the knowledge: stereometric models and integrated survey for the comprehension of figures from the past and the ideation of the actual scene through the new technologies.
In the outstanding moments of the history of architecture and of its representation, the monuments (construction and representation) always manifest an exceptional effort of geometrical science. Especially before the formalization of the descriptive geometry, construction and representation are inclined to manifest themselves as models (often grand models) of contemporaneous advanced geometrical researches. The geometric structure, which supports the bearing figures of symbolic meanings, can be made plain and analysed in its complexity and its articulations. In such a way, both the geometries’ attitude (historically present in architecture to generate meaningful forms ) and their links with the course of the scientific thought can be put in evidence, investigating their figurative and analytic implications.

3) The analysis of the digital model for the project: the virtual model as a tool for the verification of the formal, structural and perceptive characteristics of a project. Peculiarity of the creations of some planners is the complexity of the forms of their architectures, which is not describable with geometric entities standards, neither directly with traditional graphic elaborations. Those planners often operate according to two principal positions:
- By means of plastic models manually created by model makers and subsequently digitalized. The necessity to reproduce the geometry of their architectures is so much important since the accurate digital three-dimensional model of the plastic becomes an essential step for the following processes of development and workmanship.
- Through modelling software that allow the management of surfaces with a complex geometry, which can be hardly managed with the traditional systems of representation.
In both cases the CAD tool, with its own functions of advanced modelling, constitutes a solid departing step for the whole trial that conducts to the realization of the work.
Steps of research

1° step of research:
the documentation Retrieval, verification and insertion of the acquired data (documents, papers and surveys) regarding the objects of investigation - through traditional and computerised tools - within some database of common use according to standard and/or relational forms.

2° step of research:
The three dimensional representation of the four great scales of the built elements: architecture, building, town and territory.
Architecture:
development of digital three-dimensional models of the more representative Tuscan architectures - through systems of numerical control starting from integrated digital surveys- with a knowledge purpose (geometric, structural and morphological and verification monitoring of the static conditions and the material degrade).
Besides the assignment of "introducing" in a solid form characteristics that in their bidimensional representation do not always result of clear interpretation for generic users, in the actual context the digital model also "dynamically" explores the forms and monitors the state of maintenance. In all of those cases in which the geometric and technological genesis of an architectural work is not known it is possible, through the mathematical study of their surfaces and curves , to digitally reproduce the studied object, with the purpose to formulate - comparing various hypotheses - a theory on the used constructive method as near as possible to the reality. Therefore, such a reproduction of the object requires the use of specific software, to profit at the best of the characteristics of the acquired data and to allow an efficient passage among the punctiform surveyed data and the continuous data (in polygonal geometry, NURBS, parametric or hybrid) with the smaller compromise in the precision of the same survey.

Town:
In recent times, a great progress has been achieved in the field of laser scanner survey, both under the operative and the acquired data management points of view. But rarely in the urban scene, adequate information on the quality of the surveyed objects corresponds to the extreme precision of the metrical data. The acknowledgement of these surveyed objects is still based on systematic operation of reading and filing.
The necessity to experiment new computerised solutions rises from these considerations: new solutions to relate the three dimensional “point cloud” geometric model of an urban sector to a database containing the information about the quality of the urban environment (and vice versa). This will allow obtaining an integrated platform of data that, if considered in their whole, create the overall image of a town that public administrations have the task to preserve.
The potentialities tha such a new tool (effectively operating as a SIT 3D) can offer are extremely present, as they will allow a more effective and conscious apporach to the necessary “system of knowledge” for the management of the historical architectural heritage.

Territory:
reading of the ways in which the societies of the past gained the conquest of the territorial control.
The facility of study of the geometries of the celestial and earth spheres that 3D CAD programs offer, the use of the GPS system, the possibility to have "the earth at home" that the internet offers, make possible studies unimaginable before, turned to the exploration of ancient formality of approach to the territory. Some studies, that we have already conducted and partly published, have shown that already in the XIIth and XIIIth century the realization of the urban sketch proceeded with scientifically rigorous methods and strategies, with the use of tools borrowed from astronomy and mathematics. Observing some events of the territory, the hypothesis of operations turned to the realization of structures finalized to its knowledge and its rigorous control, preparatory to the editing of geographical maps can be advanced.
Beyond bringing back to the light ideational paths which were deleted in collective memory, the objective of this analysis is also to propose the rationes of so many signs, of which Tuscany and then Italy are sprinkled, abandoned to the most total carelessness, for the loss of meaning owed to our ignorance and not to their irrelevance. The logics that we have suggested were of primary importance in the reconstruction of the infrastructures that contributed to organize the orders of the territory and to delineate its image both as landscape and as a paper model according to the so many finalities.

Field experiences
In the complexity of this project, some experimentation has already been realized by the group of research.

Architecture
Particularly, a 3D survey has been carried out for the study of the curve of the arcades of Ponte Santa Trinita in Florence, with the purpose to individualize their primitive form. Another investigated field of application in act is linked to the verification of the theories elaborated by different researchers on the dome of S. Maria del Fiore in Florence. Comparing the three-dimensional model of every theory and the real one of the studied object, elaborated by means of surveyed data, it is possible to establish the constructive technique employed by Brunelleschi.
Other experimentations have been developed on monumental architectures and on architectural complexes in Tuscany and mainly in Florence.

Landscape and territory
As it regards the representation of the territory, some digital models of survey by means of laser scanner (from the cloud of the points to the three-dimensional dynamic vision) of portions of territory and its architectures have been recently realized. Such representation has allowed to investigate the morphological characteristics and to individualize the parameters for following thematic analyses and for the control of the same territory.
The procedure has been experimented in the case of the recent survey of the city walls of Massa Marittima (GR) and in the study of the territory of the national park of the Cinque Terre (SP).