Anne MOLLENHAUER | Martina MÜLLER-WIENER | Dietmar KURAPKAT | Tutku TOPAL | Mayssoun ISSA | Zoya MASOUD | Martin FLEISCHMANN | Franz AUßERSTORFER
(DAI Berlin, OTH Regensburg, Berlin, Regensburg, Germany)
Keywords: 3D-model, reconstruction, postwar rehabilitation, Aleppo, bazaar
Abstract:
In 1989 the old city of Aleppo was declared world heritage. Since 2011 the city became one of the hotspots of the armed conflict in Syria and a great number of historical buildings were damaged or destroyed. The project presented by this paper is one of the “Stunde Null” projects. Designed as cooperation between the German Archaeological Institute, the OTH Regensburg and a group of free researchers, the project aims at creating a scientifically based 3D model of the bazaar in its condition before the destructions since 2012. The model will be delivered to the very heterogeneous groups of actors involved in decision-making and planning of rehabilitation measures as an instrument that illustrates the historical monuments of the bazaar and conveys the complexity of its structures.
The construction of the virtual 3D model is carried out in a number of successive working steps. After dividing the bazaar into sectors, a pilot area was chosen.
First, a survey on available data was carried out. The most important data sources are the Syrian Heritage Archive Project (SHAP) and the University of Aleppo. Plans (ground plans, sections and facades), photographs (historical and current) and scientific research on the buildings of the bazaar were collected, evaluated, sorted and integrated in a systematic folder structure, that allows fast and easy access to the data.
The hand-made hard surface 3D model is developed on the basis of the plans and photos collected from several sources, using ArchiCAD, SketchUP and 3ds Max. Appearing differences are equalized manually.
Using virtual reality will simplify the rendering of the 3D model on different output devices. The model will contain several levels of details depending on the distance of viewer position and knowledge about the single buildings. The provided metadata will include descriptive textual information but also architectural background information.
Relevance conference:
Presenting an example for the application of new technologies to
document, understand, visualize and safeguard cultural heritage.
Relevance session:
Using 3D-methods for the virtual reconstruction of war-damaged historical area, to increase our understanding of its past in order to prepare for future rehabilitation plans.
Innovation:
The model serves as a tool for visualizing and documenting, yet its development process enables an exact verification of the available data on the buildings and the reliability of its reconstruction.