Advanced Practice & Technique in Conservation
Heritage documentation technology
You cannot conserve what you have not recorded. Before a single repair, a monument must be measured, drawn, photographed and filed — precisely enough that the work can be understood, monitored and, if the worst happens, rebuilt. This elective is the TECHNOLOGY of that recording: why documentation is a charter obligation (the Venice Charter's Article 16), the spectrum of techniques from a tape measure to a laser scanner, geographic information systems that hold a whole historic city as queryable layers, photogrammetry that turns ordinary overlapping photographs into a measured 3D model, and the discipline of turning raw data into an archived, metadata-tagged record that will still be readable in fifty years. When Notre-Dame burned in 2019, a 2010 laser scan of a billion points made faithful reconstruction possible — that is what this course is about. The conservation philosophy is a companion course; here the subject is the survey, the scan and the record.
The syllabus
Five units — from why we record to the digital archive.
Transcribed from the official B.Arch syllabus. All 5 units are live as full interactive lessons, each with original diagrams, a self-assessment quiz and a studio task.
Course outcomes
What you should be able to do after completing all five units (CO1–CO6, from the syllabus).
Explain why heritage is documented and the standards and bodies that require it.
Choose appropriate documentation techniques for different scales and components.
Use geospatial data and GIS — including historic maps — for heritage.
Explain and apply photogrammetry to document heritage in 3D.
Display, query and report documentation data as an archived record.
Distinguish data from documentation and address digital preservation.
The technology of recording heritage (L1 · T0 · S3; 150 marks). Every diagram is original Studio Matrx work; the standards and techniques are verified (Venice Charter Art. 16, CIPA, Historic England survey levels, the photogrammetry principle). This course owns the SURVEY, the SCAN and the RECORD; for conservation philosophy, charters and Indian conservation practice, see the companion Architectural Conservation course.
You cannot conserve what you have not recorded.
The survey, the scan, the GIS layer, the orthophoto and the archived record. Read the five units, study the diagrams, then test yourself.
Studio Matrx is a tribute to Amogh N P. The curriculum is free, forever.