Call for Papers

Chairs: Giorgio VERDIANI / Stefano COLUMBU, Italy

Session A3

The ruins always give a great suggestion, but their observation, their reading and their study allow to imagine the original aspect of the building. Every ruin has a powerful evocative aspect, but only a correct analysis permits to pass from it to a credible vision of how it was. The stones, the materials composing the walls and the remains of an archaeology site as well an existing architecture, can tell a lot. The different use of these materials together with the construction techniques are meaningful traces and evidences for the scholar, and can give confirmations or open new hypothesis about the reasons of an architecture or a part of a town.

The knowledge on chemical, mineralogical-petrographic and physic-mechanical properties of the materials used for the construction of structures (stones, mortar and concrete, bricks, etc.) may offer a valid contribution to the recognition of the different wall techniques and the construction phases of an ancient residual building starting from its mortars and giving interesting indications about its production. The technologies and manufacturing processes and preparation of these lithoid products can become very useful for understanding the cultural level of the civilization. A proper analysis of material properties in architectural structures can reveal to the researcher/scholar the technical-construction choices and intent of the constructor during the ancient yard. At the same time the reading of proportion, grids, pattern, reference models, can be a great completion to the interpretation of the original aspect of a place.

The contemporary digital tools allow to correlate these kind of meaningful data to 3D and 2D models, creating a new and powerful knowledge instrument.

This session will be aimed to collect contributions from this kind of studies, suggesting the integration between survey, excavation, geometric interpretation, inverse design evaluation, as well as geological and petrographic-physical analysis to investigate subjects from the architectural to the urban scale.