3D MODELLING AND VIRTUAL REALITY APPLIED TO COMPLEX ARCHITECTURES: AN APPLICATION TO HOSPITALS’ DESIGN

There are many healthcare facilities in Spain that were built throughout the second half of the 20th century, and compose an interesting built heritage designed by outstanding architects of the architectural avant-garde. Some of them were included in the DOCOMOMO’s list of buildings to be preserved and documented. As a consequence, every intervention on the hospitals’ heritage requires a special attention and needs a deep knowledge of the building in advance of taking action. On the other hand, such a particular heritage is being continuously updated according to the new standards that derive from the current tendencies in hospital design, and also from advances in healing techniques. In this context, 3D Modelling and virtual reality should have a decisive impact on the way hospitals’ complex spaces are designed, as they become useful tools for describing the previous stages of the buildings, as well as the impacts of new proposals. They can even change our experience of the built environment. As a step forward, we are developing a methodology to be applied to hospital design where these tools, together with BIM models -and in the near future, high-end immersive VR systems- play an important role

Bullet impacts and built heritage damage 1640–1939

© 2018, The Author(s). Conflict damage to heritage has been thrust into the global spotlight during recent conflict in the Middle East. While the use of social media has heightened and enhanced public awareness of this ‘cultural terrorism’, the occurrence of this type of vandalism is not new. In fact, as this study demonstrates, evidence of the active targeting of sites, as well as collateral damage when heritage is caught in crossfire, is widely visible around Europe and further afield. Using a variety of case studies ranging from the 1640s to the 1930s, we illustrate and quantify the changing impact of ballistics on heritage buildings as weaponry and ammunition have increased in both energy and energy density potential. In the first instance, this study highlights the increasing threats to heritage in conflict areas. Second, it argues for the pressing need to quantify and map damage to the stonework in order to respond to these challenges

El arte de describir el territorio: mapas y planos históricos en torno al puente de Alcántara (Cáceres, España)

The study of the construction of the territory and the landscape at different scales has been traditionally based on written documentary sources, and to a lesser extent on the graphic ones. The cartographic sources, as well as paintings, drawings, and photographs have been often relegated to a secondary role, and thus undervalued. This fact is due to the difficulties of interpretation of the cartographic documents, but also to the obstacles to find their location, and even to access to them. This article considers the territory under the scope of the cultural heritage, and collects many historical and unpublished data about the Roman Alcantara Bridge through the analysis of historical maps and plans.<br><br>El estudio de la construcción del territorio y del paisaje a diferentes escalas se ha basado tradicionalmente en fuentes documentales escritas, y en menor medida en las gráficas. Las fuentes cartográficas, junto a los cuadros, los dibujos, las fotografías y otras fuentes no verbales han sido frecuentemente relegadas o consideradas de una categoría inferior, muchas veces a causa de las dificultades de interpretación que pueden plantear, y a esto hay que añadir las dificultades inherentes a la localización y acceso a los fondos. El trabajo reivindica el territorio como patrimonio al mismo tiempo que aporta datos inéditos para la historia del puente de Alcántara mediante el análisis de mapas y planos históricos

Impact Assessment of the Renewable Energies in the Cultural Heritage: the Case of the Way of St. James in Spain

Medieval town centres and landscapes along the Way of St. James are being affected by renewable energy sources at the architectural, urban and territorial scales. The impact is not only visual, but thermal, accoustic and electromagnetic. Visual impact of solar photovoltaic power plants – which are placed over traditional crops close to the urban borders –, and also wind farms located at the hilltops, are sometimes remarkable. Solar photovoltaic modules are integrated into ancient roofs, and small scale wind turbines are taking up the ancient urban spaces. Among other effects on animal life and vegetation, the rise in temperature, radioelectric interferences, as well as changes in the traditional land uses are noticeable, and a deep analysis is needed. Our main target is to define an integrated methodology which considers all these effects. As a part of our project premises, we work with Open Source programs. We obtained a digital terrain model – 25 m spatial resolution –, and from Corine Land Cover images we got different raster files according to our research targets. Databases where implemented from both remote sensing and measures obtained directly in the field work. We applied GIS based multicriteria decision analysis and weighted linear combination, and then we adapted GRASS tools for a better usability. Our case studies are particularly interesting due to their situation along the Spanish Way of St. James, which is an itinerary named one of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites

TERRESTRIAL AND AERIAL GROUND-PENETRATING RADAR IN USE FOR THE ARCHITECTURAL RESEARCHES: ANCIENT 16TH CENTURY WATER SUPPLY AND DRAINAGE AT THE MONASTERY OF EL ESCORIAL (MADRID, SPAIN)

Remote sensing techniques in Archaeology are increasingly essential components of the methodologies used in archaeological and architectural researches. They allow uncovering unique forgotten data which are unobtainable using traditional excavation techniques, mainly because their precise location is lost. These data are still important since they can help to prevent flood effects inside the ancient building cellars and basements, as it happened periodically in El Escorial. Wide ancient drainage galleries run more than one hundred feet downhill outside the building, ensuring that rainwater and springs were adequately drained. Nowadays their plans are lost, and the lack of documents related both to the ancient water supply and drainage systems become an impediment to solve the stains of damp on the stone masonry walls and vaults, and even other occasional flooding effects. In this case, nondestructive techniques were needed to find the ancient underground passages in order to preserve the integrity of the building and its current activities. At a first stage oblique aerial infrared images taken from a helium barrage balloon helped to find easily, quickly and cheaply the buried masonry structures. Secondly, radar pulses were particularly interesting to image the subsurface as they were valuable means of assessing the presence and amount of both soil water and buried structures. The combination of both techniques proved to be an accurate and low-cost way to find the ancient drainage systems. Finally, results were produced by means of open source software

Knowledge Through the Survey: Comparative Analysis and Reconstruction of Time-Line of the Granja de San Ildefonso

The current work has the royal site of the Granja de San Ildefonso as object research, near to the city of Segovia in Spain. In particular, this research in-vestigates the historical evolution of the royal site to compare it with the Jardines du château de Versailles and the Château de Marly with an archival approach. The royal site of the Granja de San Ildefonso was a farmhouse of Jeronimo’s monks and only later it was associated to Anjou’s Duke, Felipe V. The Duke who later became King of Spain, chosed this place to build his palace with a royal garden based on the model of French gardens with a ge-ometric grid. Nevertheless, the orography of this place forced architects to modify the typical model of French garden. In the beginning, this paper in-vestigates the structure of the park and its historical evolution through the comparisons between the historical cartography (1916) and the current state. Later, the structure of the royal site of the Granja de San Ildefonso was com-pared to that of the royal sites of Versailles and of Marly. The methodologies used allowed us to understand the morphological differences over the centu-ries and identify what the Granja de San Ildefonso and the typical French gardens differ