ARKIW PROGRAMME: IT applications for architectural intervention and documentation in monuments' ensembles

International audienceConcern for the architectural and urban preservation problems has been considerably increasing in the past decades, and with it the necessity to investigate the consequences and opportunities opened for the conservation discipline by the development of computer-based systems. Architectural interventions on historical edifices or in preserved urban fabric face conservationists and architects with specific problems related to the handling and exchange of a variety of historical documents and representations. The recent development of information technologies offers opportunities to favour a better access to such data, as well as means to represent architectural hypothesis or design. Developing applications for the Internet also introduces a greater capacity to exchange experiences or ideas and to invest on low-cost collaborative working platforms. In the field of the architectural heritage, our research addresses two problems: historical data and documentation of the edifice, methods of representation (knowledge modelling and visualisation) of the edifice. This research is connected with the ARKIW POLONIUM co-operation program that links the MAP-GAMSAU CNRS laboratory (Marseilles, France) and the Institute HAiKZ of Kraków's Faculty of Architecture. The ARKIW programme deals with questions related to the use of information technologies in the recording, protection and studying of the architectural heritage. Case studies are chosen in order to experience and validate a technical platform dedicated to the formalisation and exchange of knowledge related to the architectural heritage (architectural data management, representation and simulation tools, survey methods, ...). A special focus is put on the evolution of the urban fabric and on the simulation of reconstructional hypothesis. Our contribution will introduce current ARKIW internet applications and experiences: The ARPENTEUR architectural survey experiment on Wie¿a Ratuszowa (a photogrammetrical survey based on an architectural model). A Gothic and Renaissance reconstruction of the Ratusz Krakowski using a commercial modelisation and animation software (MAYA). The SOL on line documentation interface for Kraków's Rynek G_ówny. Internet analytical approach in the presentation of morphological informations about Kraków's Kramy Bogate Rynku Krakowskiego. Object-Orientation approach in the modelling of the architectural corpus. The VALIDEUR and HUBLOT Virtual Reality modellers for the simulation and representation of reconstructional hypothesis and corpus analysis