Pablo RODRÍGUEZ NAVARRO / Filippo FANTINI
(Instituto de Restauración del Patrmonio, Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain)
Outline: In the High Atlas Mountains in Morocco there are small towns of earth still preserved, in the last years they are disappearing as their residents migrate to modern cities, and latest case to Europe. This valuable Heritage has been the subject of our research over the past three years. Here we present a paper for the application of 3D simulation on the archaeological remains, with the main objective to analyze and to make assumptions about their original shape and evolution.
Abstract: We are convinced about the need to investigate and to document this sustainable architecture used as the traditional habitat and, at the same time, characterized as a high value Heritage. Until now the subject was not studied and analyzed with the proper attention. For this reason, we have surveyed and represented, taking the architectural drawing as the first tool, the earth constructions of the Outat Valley in Midelt (Morocco). This work allowed us to perform comparative analysis about dimensions, constructive techniques and formal features; the main outcome has been the “key” for the interpretation both of the general design process and the reasons of details otherwise unnoticed. The situation of these small cities built in earth, mostly converted back to earth due to natural deterioration; often doesn’t let us know the original typological models and their subsequent evolution.
With the main objective to get an urban reconstruction of this evolutionary process, we have developed 3D models of the existing archaeological persistence taking as example the Ksar Tatiouine. The synthetic analysis of these models has led us to create completed volumes to show a full three-dimensional simulation of the Ksar and its constructive evolution.
Usually we refer to the two-dimensional analysis for the study of architectural types originated by archaeology. In this case, the two-dimensional analysis of the design is based on the conversion into three-dimensional models; a further treatment of the model is its texturing with the use of realistic lighting and high quality images, this processing, combined with the actual imaging solutions allows to read pathologies and structural phenomena in act in these buildings with a more versatile tool at our disposal to face the preservation of structures in risk of disappearing.
Keywords: Earth architecture, urban archeology, architectural typology, 3D modeling