COMPLEX PARTICIPATORY RECONSTRUCTION
OF URBAN STRUCTURES
Co-funded by the
Erasmus+ Programme
of the European Union
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This communication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
ACTIVITIES
Three annual Transnational Project Meetings will be held to discuss the progress of the project. 2 Short-term joint staff training events, 2 intensive programmes for teaching staff, and 2 intensive programmes for higher education learners will take place as part of the Learning, Teaching, Training Activities. It is planned to present the results of the pilot testing and conduct a closing as Multiplier Events.
EXPECTED RESULTS OF PROJECT ACTIVITIES
As a result of this project, the knowledge basis for trans-disciplinary education on the holistic reconstruction of destroyed urban structures will be established. Furthermore, a complex participatory reconstruction programme for destroyed urban structures will be designed and tested.
In line with the objectives of the study, it is intended to serve as a manual for the implementation of study programmes in the fields of the reconstruction of destroyed urban structures.
PROJECT CONSORTIUM MEETING, 19th-21st February 2024, PRAGUE (CZ)
The earthquake-ravaged old town of Accumoli in central Italy serves as a model case for a participation-based reconstruction concept in the Erasmus+ project "Complex Participatory Reconstruction of Urban Structures." From February 19th to 21st, 2024, the project consortium convened at the laboratories of the Institute of Applied and Theoretical Mechanics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic in Prague to prepare for the test run of the methods and instruments developed within the project. In the last week of May this year, these will be tested under real conditions with the involvement of relevant authorities from politics and government, as well as the local population, to assess their suitability.
The physical destruction of historical settlements also significantly impacts intangible heritage, collective memories, and unwritten knowledge. This information is highly relevant for reconstruction. The values, meanings, and functions of individual buildings, squares, and infrastructures play a crucial role in the conception of reconstruction, and the local population is the carrier of this information.
Inclusion of Collective Knowledge in the Planning Process
Within the ComPaRe project, planning methods and instruments are being developed and tested. The models range from guided field trips through the Red Zone, photogrammetry-based 3D reconstructions, "Building Information Modeling" to interactive "Augmented Reality." The information gathered must be documented, evaluated, and prepared for planning. The incorporation of this knowledge through the mentioned technologies is the actual innovation of the project. Interim results will be publicly presented for the first time in Accumoli on Friday, May 31st, 2024.
Manual in Progress
The final project results will be published in a multilingual manual currently being developed among the project partners. Substantial coordination of the content of this publication took place during the working meeting in Prague. The manual will be released in paper form in February 2025 and will also include a virtual, interactive publication section. The project results will be presented and discussed in Accumoli during the project closing conference in March 2025.
Case Studies in Prague
The specific focus of thematic visits in Prague was on the laboratories of the Institute of Applied and Theoretical Mechanics. These laboratories contain mechanical testing facilities for simulating earthquake events. Other mechanical stresses on structural elements or frameworks of buildings can also be examined. Using computer tomography, the condition of building materials after external forces can be analyzed.
The project addresses not only earthquake events but also other disasters. In this context, a visit to the flood protection structures with mobile elements in the Prague-Troja district took place. Meetings in Banská Štiavnica contextualized reconstruction after fire disasters, and in South Moravia, reconstruction after tornado events.
The international partner consortium, coordinated by the University for Continuing Education Krems, includes Sapienza University of Rome, Camerino University, Czech Technical University in Prague, Masaryk University in Brno, Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. The project also involves associated partners, including the Municipality of Accumoli, the Pontifical Athenaeum Sant’Anselmo in Rome, and the association "Venti di Cultura."
21.02.2024
UWK
EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMME DESIGN WORKSHOP (C4), 3rd-6th December 2023, BANSKÁ ŠTIAVNICA (IT)
From December 3rd to 6th, 2023, a seminar took place in Banská Štiavnica, Slovakia, as part of the Erasmus+ project "Complex Participatory Reconstruction of Urban Structures" (Acronym ComPaRe). The seminar involved project partners discussing the conceptualization of teaching methods and didactic tools for the comprehensive reconstruction of historical centers destroyed by natural disasters or human actions. The project is led by the Research Lab Sustainable Cultural Heritage at the University for Continuing Education Krems.
The organizer and host of the project meeting, held in the UNESCO-listed mining town, was the Faculty of Architecture and Design at the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava. The faculty operates a teaching and research center for the preservation of historical buildings in a historic building on-site.
Central parts of the program included working sessions to coordinate the project's results, which would be published in the form of articles and a handbook. Besides coordinating the project's further progress, conceptual decisions were made for teaching activities to be conducted in the earthquake-damaged city of Accumoli in May 2024. The program also included expert lectures on the project theme and on-site field visits.
The content focus was on fire disasters and subsequent reconstruction efforts. A few months earlier, a fire disaster had occurred in close proximity to the teaching and research center, severely affecting a total of seven historical buildings, including a museum.
The final agenda item involved the presentation and professional discussion of a semester project by two architecture students who had participated in the project seminar in Accumoli the previous September. Involving students in the project serves to evaluate, critically assess, and adapt the teaching methods and tools developed within the project. In February 2024, a follow-up project meeting will be organized by the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague, and in spring 2024, teaching activities in Accumoli will be part of the program again.
The international partner consortium coordinated by the University for Continuing Education Krems includes Sapienza University of Rome, University of Camerino, Czech Technical University in Prague, Masaryk University in Brno, Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, and the Czech Academy of Sciences. Associated partners include the municipality of Accumoli, the Pontifical Athenaeum Sant’Anselmo in Rome, and the association "Venti di Cultura."
12.01.2024
UWK
CASE STUDY - RECONSTRUCTION OF A DESTROYED CITY (C2+C3), 18th-22nd September 2023, ACCUMOLI (IT)
From 18th to 22nd September 2023, in the earthquake-ravaged central Italian town of Accumoli, teachers, doctoral students and undergraduates developed a conceptual basis for the holistic reconstruction of the town as part of the Erasmus+ project "Complex Participatory Reconstruction of Urban Structures" (ComPaRe). Collective knowledge about the appearance of the site before the earthquake, according to one of the results of the project seminar, is a relevant knowledge base for this, along with archives. The project is led by the Research Lab Sustainable Architectural Heritage at the University of Continuing Education Krems. It develops teaching methods and didactic tools for coping with the complex reconstruction of destroyed historical centres.
"By using appropriate methods and tools to acquire knowledge about the destroyed area as a consequence of disasters, the ComPaRe project aims to create a basis for concepts of comprehensive reconstruction using the Accumoli case as a model. Furthermore, the appearance of places before the disaster should be virtually simulated," summarizes Univ.-Prof. Dipl. Arch. ETH Dr. Christian Hanus, Head of the Research Lab for Sustainable Built Cultural Heritage, the goals of the Erasmus project coordinated by the lab. From September 18 to 22, over 40 students, educators, and doctoral candidates from the institutions involved in the project gathered in Accumoli to advance on-site concept development and discuss previous findings from the project.
Collective knowledge as a relevant foundation
Many unassuming but historically significant buildings, mostly residential structures, in Accumoli were often only rudimentarily documented. In a structured exchange with the local civil society, relevant information about the structure and usage patterns is being uncovered within the framework of ComPaRe. It is evident that, in addition to this collective knowledge, archives and numerous, sometimes now-recovered, private documents are another important source of information.
Analysis of building substance
Building substance is to be assessed both in terms of its historical and art historical significance and from a constructional and functional perspective. Damages provide insights into the causes of destruction, and material analyses draw conclusions about the physical properties of the constructions. Through the use of "Terrestrial Laser Scanning" (TLS), photogrammetry, and "Building Information Modeling" (BIM) using drones, foundational plans for reconstruction can be developed. The combined use of these tools is interdisciplinary and is also taught within the framework of ComPaRe, including during the recent project seminar. All disciplines are challenged to process the information in a way that is useful and understandable for others.
Fundamental questions are often overlooked
Although fundamental strategies for the reconstruction of Accumoli have been developed at the regional and city levels, countless questions remain unanswered in the implementation of concrete planning projects. The identification of these fundamental questions, the substantive examination, and the development of solutions represent another area of responsibility that individuals from all disciplines involved in reconstruction must address.
Through the development of interdisciplinary teaching formats that address all these questions and challenges surrounding the complexity of comprehensive reconstruction, future experts are intended to be qualified for this task. The goal is to develop common curricula that will be offered by partner institutions and others in the future.
The internationally coordinated partner consortium led by the University for Continuing Education Krems includes Sapienza University of Rome, the University of Camerino, the Czech Technical University in Prague, Masaryk University in Brno, the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. The municipality of Accumoli, the Pontifical Athenaeum Sant'Anselmo in Rome, and the association "Venti di Cultura" are participating as associated partners in the project.
27.09.2023
UWK
ANNUAL PROJECT MEETING (M2), 16th-17th January 2023, BUDAPEST (HU)
A steering committee meeting took place on the first day of the annual project meeting in Budapest, where all relevant committee members were able to attend in person or online. The task of the committee will be to monitor the fulfilment of the work plan – defined in advance - and to monitor the financial expenditure. During the meeting, a budget table for each partner institution was presented and sent to each stakeholder. This must be filled in by the partners themselves, with the help of which the funding situation and status of the project as a whole and of the individual participants becomes more transparent. The ComPaRe homepage has also been created, which can be used not only to communicate the project but also to share results and data. In addition, a Google Drive interface has been created for participants to upload documents and information related to the project. This will make the overall progress of the project more transparent.
The first day of the meeting ended with an urban walk (Buda Castle and its surroundings) and with presentations of Hungarian examples related to the theme of the ComPaRe project (castle development presentation, red mud disaster). The presentations focused not only on the architectural, technical and damage prevention aspects, but also on the sociological impact of each damage event, whether natural or man-made (in our case industrial). With this, we wanted to draw attention to the fact that during the implementation of the program it is necessary to involve as many disciplines as possible in order to be effective.
On the second day of the meeting, the results of the ComPaRe project so far were presented and future events were discussed. On this basis, the next meeting will take place between 18-22 September 2023 for both students and teachers. Organising this is an additional task (accommodation, catering, transport, etc.) The feasibility of the programme in university education was also discussed, as well as the contribution of each participating university to the educational material. A request was made for all partners to share how and what they could contribute to the Erasmus+ programme for students and to the content of the future publications and guides. In addition, a presentation was given on the manual that is being prepared for the project - the outline of which is expected to be ready in May - and the problems and opportunities that will arise in its preparation.
During the meeting, it was also requested that partners should be informed earlier and more often about the meetings, project-related events and also about if the participation on them are mandatory or optional.
12.02.2023
BME
WORKSHOP ON RECONSTRUCTION OF DESTROYED CITIES (C1), 03rd-05th October 2022, BRNO (CZ)
The three-day workshop in Brno – the first one of the project’s learning, teaching, and training activities (C1) – brought together the members of the multidisciplinary project consortium, external scholars, as well as university students. As documented in the programme, the main goals of the workshop were fulfilled. These included to provide a historical and theoretical background to the topic of preservation and reconstruction of cities destroyed by (not only) natural catastrophes and to define the cultural, social, and material factors involved, in order to understand how to efficiently preserve and reconstruct the relevant ‘heritages’.
On the first workshop day, individual papers were delivered by leading experts in relevant fields, including the project members based at Masaryk University as well as guests from other institutions. As for the former, I. Foletti presented the case study of the medieval Armenian city of Ani and the catastrophes it has been subjected to, A. Palladino discussed how natural catastrophes may work as vectors of change based on late antique and medieval case studies, whereas O. Jakubec interpreted the 16th-century Great Fires in Prague and Olomouc as turning points of contemporary urban development and visual culture; as for the latter, E. Scirocco (Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max-Planck-Institut for Art History) talked about how art history has functioned in post-catastrophe cities and Saida Bondini (Kunsthistorishes Institut in Florence) presented the case of 16th-century Bologna and its art making in the aftermath of natural catastrophes. The second part of the workshop was dedicated to meetings of the project partners and steering committee, who met at the round table to discuss the workshop’s main outputs and their implementation in the next steps of the project, as well as the key instruments how to understand the necessities of damaged or destroyed cities. The programme was concluded by a coordination meeting with project partners and excursion to destroyed villages in Southern Moravia affected by a tornado in 2021.
The workshop in Brno resulted in the production of the first project outputs and the coordination of a joint approach for initial mapping work of students during the semester. The papers presented at the workshop will be used to introduce the theoretical framework of the main project output, i.e. the teaching and training material instructing on the reconstruction of destroyed cities. All presentations will also be freely accessible for the students of the resulting educational programme on the project website.
KICK-OFF MEETING (M1), 24th-25th May 2022, ACCUMOLI (IT)
Since the city of Accumoli, that has been destroyed during an earthquake in 2016 is the main case study for the project, it has also been chosen as the venue for the kick-off meeting. The building of the "Scuola di Ricostruzione di Accumoli", which is located above the earthquake-damaged old town of Accumoli and has been provided by the municipality of Accumoli for study and research purposes as well as for public events, served as the venue for the kick-off meeting. This facility fulfils an important function as a meeting place with the local population and authorities.
Kick-Off Meeting in Accumoli has been organized to bring all the project partners together; make a project overview; plan and coordinate the project contents and methodologies; coordinate the coming project activities and agree on the project working plan and schedule; discuss the necessary management questions (see agenda); establish the Project Steering Committee; discuss the establishment of the communication and dissemination plans, monitoring and self-assessment plan; discuss the establishment of the financial management plan and responsibilities of the partners related to its fulfilment; discuss the establishment of the indicators to measure the success of the project; visit the main site of the case study - destroyed parts of the city of Accumoli.
Meeting outcomes:
- Introduction round of the project partners.
- Project presentation by the lead partner.
- Work plan and schedule have been defined.
- Dates of the project activities and milestones have been agreed on.
- Communication Plan has been discussed.
- The members of the Project Steering Committee (PSC) have been selected.
- Project Management & Implementation has been discussed.
- Monitoring and self-assessment plan have been discussed.
- Dissemination Plan has been discussed.
- Financial Management Plan has been discussed.
- Output-related Activities have been discussed.
- Project partners have met the representatives of local authorities, as well as local architects for a discussion of project objectives and their connection with the needs of the city.
30.05.2022
UWK