Parametric planning for the restoration and rehabilitation of architectural heritage

Abstract

Over the last decade, economic, financial and social issues have undermined the construction industry, leading to a worldwide crisis. Restoration and energetic rehabilitation have become increasingly more common within the construction industry. Notwithstanding the fact that it has a significant architectural heritage, Italy has proven not to be ready to face demanding projects regarding the rehabilitation of historical buildings. Therefore, numerous construction companies have missed out an important source of income and have left EU Structural and Investment Funds untouched. The reasons for these Italian problems include: the lack of long term programming; shortage of quality control systems as well as the lack of team work.
The aim of this paper is to show that the use of BIM – Building Information Modeling – can solve many of the aforementioned problems connected to rehabilitation projects. In fact, the efficiency and benefits of this kind of approach towards the analysis, management and planning of rehabilitation projects have proven to be significant. In order to prove the efficiency of the BIM, a study was carried out to compare the cost-benefits of both a standard as well as a BIM survey when surveying a historical building. With the aim of this research in mind, the team decided to survey the castle of Francolise, in the province of Caserta.
The aim of this article is not to show how BIM surveys work, but rather the actual efficiency of the BIM survey when used to survey historical buildings. Before starting the analysis, it is important to underline that protocols – which could define the usage of the BIM for existing buildings – have yet to be created.