The Course aims at providing the students with all instruments necessary to reading, representing, analyzing an architectural element in all its different aspects (metric, structural, formal, etc.) according to an as much as possible scientific approach.

There can be no doubt that the first step in approaching this task is setup a Knowledge System capable to collect, interpret and store information about the artefact.

The components making up this system, however, are of various types: quantitative, first and foremost (essentially resulting from surveying operations), but also qualitative. While the former can and must be channeled through a rigorous scientific approach, the latter draw on the surveyor’s sensitivity and interpretative flair, that show themselves, at times even intuitively and extemporaneously, capable of attaining levels of understanding that are denied to simple “measurement”.

In studies of architectural elements (both on the large and the small scale), this process is particularly marked: not only is it necessary to construct a multidisciplinary database that is as consistent and rigorous as possible, but many different skills must be integrated in order to suggest interpretations that transcend the sectorial.

While the qualitative component lies in the reign of irrefutability (in the sense proposed by Popper), to the quantitative one belongs the Survey, one of the most powerful and reliable tools developed over the years in order to achieve what Descartes used to define profound knowledge. It actually implies the idea of measurement, that is to say the possibility of turning into quantity some qualities of the studied phenomenon (in this case an artifact, a building, a site, etc.) by using the ratio between the measured quantity and an appropriate unit of measure.

Let us try to clarify this fundamental point, firstly from a linguistic point of view: the term Survey refers in fact to a very structured process that leads to the construction of 2D or 3D models starting from a real object. The whole workflow can be broken-down into several different tasks of which, certainly, the designing of the Survey represents the first crucial step of the whole process. It is during this phase that goals, priorities, required equipment and products (even in terms of deliverables) are defined. The acquisition of data (capturing, surveying) represents the operational implementation of the survey project leading to the database corresponding to a simplified model of the objectual complexity made out from the metric information. All subsequent tasks in the survey process dealing with selection, interpretation and representation of acquired data actually lead to the models (3D, 2D-drawings, etc.) that somehow contribute to enlighten the investigated phenomenon.

All activities will address the problem of designing and implementing such a scientific survey. In this framework lectures and workshops will focus on the survey design, the difference between direct and instrumental surveying and finally on the problems connected with the planimetric and altimetrical surveying (polygonals, trilateration, triangulation, forward intersection). This theoretical information will always correspond to practical activities by a concrete application consisting in the survey (direct, instrumental, massive) of an historical building and the production of standard deliverables (plan views, elevations, sections).

Getting into details these are some of the main subjects discussed during the course:

History of architectural survey

Survey throughout history: theory, methodologies and instruments. The historical analysis will start from the classical ages, cross the Middle Ages and the Renaissance up to the great surveyors of the XIX century.

Hints about  History of Cartography, ancient Metrology and the mutual relationships between ancient units of measure will be given.

 

Survey methodology

Theory of measure, the concept of uncertainty, rules to be observed while taking any measurement.

Direct survey: general problems, instruments and techniques, traditional methodologies.

Instrumental and photogrammetric survey: general problems, instruments and techniques, traditional methodologies.

The massive survey technologies: 3D scanning, Structure from Motion (SfM).

Urban survey: general problems and methodologies.

The Survey oriented to restoration and retrofitting of buildings.

 

Graphic representation technique of surveyed data.

Graphic and representation standards, conventional symbologies

Representation scales and information content

Thematic cartography for architectural survey: dating, crack mapping, materials, state of conservation of surfaces.

Cataloguing standards according to I.C.C.D.