Preventive conservation of built cultural heritage in Southwestern Europe : heritageCARE

Abstract

Conservation and maintenance of buildings with cultural and historic value in Southwestern Europe lack of a systematic and regular approach. Specific measures are usually undertaken only when elements and materials are significantly affected. As a consequence, considerable investments and time are required to solve the problems, although public financial resources are scarce and usually devoted to listed buildings. So far, there is not an integrated system in support of heritage management in the SUDOE region that includes monitoring, inspection and preventive conservation. Facing this scenario, the HeritageCare project (Interreg-SUDOE) has been launched to implement a methodology for the preventive conservation and maintenance of built cultural heritage in Portugal, Spain and France. Through a consortium joining public and private partners and associated entities, the objectives of the project are: the definition of an integrated methodology for inspection, diagnosis, monitoring and preventive conservation of heritage constructions within the region; the assemblage of advanced technologies for the implementation of this methodology; the standardization of methods and tools through the development of guidelines for preventive conservation, and the creation of an online 4D platform for information exchange and assets management. The main goal is to create a joint non-profit, self-sustaining entity that will use the methodology and tools in both in public and privately-owned buildings (either listed or not) throughout a coordinated strategy in the three countries. The methodology is designed according to three service levels of growing complexity: in Service Level I, qualified teams perform detailed on-site inspections at regular intervals and elaborate specific reports for the owners. In Service Level II, more complex information about the building is incorporated in the 4D database, such as full 3D photogrammetric surveys, data from monitoring systems and an inventory of assets. Finally, management models with the help of hBIM technologies are developed in Service Level III. With regard to the main tasks of the project, a damage atlas has been developed to include in the database the most typical damages that inspectors may find both in buildings and assets. After having integrated this database within the virtual tool, 60 case studies have been inspected in order to test the methodology and its tools for the Service Level 1. Some aspects and problems detected during the process have been improved in order to carry out the inspections for Service Levels II (15 case studies) and III (3 case studies), which are currently in progress.