The study concerns Italian masonries and focuses on the historical, medieval and modern mortars. In every regional investigated context (Piedmont and Po Valley area, Umbria-Marche region, Apulia and Sardinia) a wide variety of materials, with different chemical-physical characteristics, has been used and these differences determine also different structural behaviours.
The project aims at improving our knowledge about historical mortars in order to deepen the conservation of Italian built heritage, especially in the seismic risk zones. To achieve these results we will take samples on which we will perform analyses to investigate how much the different mechanical and cohesion properties affect the vulnerability of the ruined or collapsed structures.
Thanks to this information it will be possible to reach great advances in prevention, maintenance, protection and preservation of historical buildings: 1. Deepening the study of historical technical know-how on how to build complexes structures, on their vulnerability and maintenance; 2. discerning material deterioration processes and instabilities due to the masonry properties; 3. Identifying tests and procedures suitable for static verification procedures; 4. Recognising effective techniques for consolidation and conservation, prevention and degradation deceleration; 5. planning a multidisciplinary analytical protocol for the characterization of masonries; 6. Organizing the surveys-derived information and the other results in an open GIS database system.
Further details will concern the history of construction techniques, with particular regard to the relationship between local resources and construction sites. Another important topic will be the role of different components and additives during the preparation of mortars and their level of hydraulicity.
The materials will be studied both in situ and in laboratory, on different observation scales: the territory, the buildings, and the materials.
The innovative features of the research consist in providing and sharing information of high scientific and historical content, which are mainly important for the knowledge of the Italian architectural heritage. Decoding the information contained inside the buildings - in their constitutive materials and in the same executive techniques - is a fundamental process that broadens the historical-technical knowledge itself and leads to the awareness that, in every element of the factory (like a fragment of plaster or a trace of colouring), both the natural world and his culture are represented.
The project will provide a substantial advancement of the knowledge about building techniques and a guide to conservation and restoration actions both in prevention and in post-earthquake intervention. These new acquisitions will be expressed in guidelines or in a compendium of the consolidation and structural preventive restoration interventions, according to the analysis of the damage in relation to the typological and material abacuses predisposed, with particular attention to the definition of a list of priorities. This approach is particularly useful for the planning of bodies responsible for the protection and the safety of places where there is a high concentration of high cultural value buildings, but a chronic lack of funds. The acquisition of an advanced level of knowledge on masonries and building materials could also reduce to minimum the restoration interventions, favour the reversibility of each addition and aid to respect the authenticity of the work, in a planned maintenance perspective. Moreover, it allows evaluating over time the conservation of the characteristics of the materials and the techniques used, to improve their properties and their compatibility from a chemical-physical point of view.
The areas characterized by highest risk lie within larger "fragile" territories that are now abandoned and underdeveloped. Improvements in diagnosis and design favour less costly interventions, and therefore allow us to positively influence traditional architectures in large areas, with a plan that would achieve high quality in residential, infrastructural and cultural heritage, with extensive non-intensive practices. As showed by recent events, instead, different models and more burdensome post-earthquake interventions are not only devastating in terms of preservation of historical memory and cultural and social identity of places, but also unsustainable with respect to the size of the territories involved. The project develops documentation methods, which could be applicable also in other geographical contexts, and its IT supports ensure the constant updating and implementation of the data. Thanks to GIS, our data can be consulted every time everywhere and this system offers a reference for the progressive growth of knowledge on the topic identified. Moreover, the results achieved will be a concrete 'start button', a reference of practice and method, for an international extension of the study. The increased knowledge on traditional mortars and materials that have historically served to protect them, allow a dual way of action. First of all, the design of compatible materials for the rehabilitation or improvement of performance; subsequently the development of new 'sustainable' mortars, produced with a low energy impact, and the high performance in regulating the balance of buildings. The last two topics already exist in Central Europe, but an adequate support for research and development does not yet seem to exist.
The state of the art although extended to a vast historical and contemporary bibliography, can be increased both in the field of historical technical literature, regarding to the most recent updates of archaeometry, science and engineering of materials and the preservation of materials of architecture. The processing, circulation and effective reception of technical knowledge in the territories under examination will be better understood; parallelisms and differences will be highlighted. Understanding the specificities and conventions of the different genres of literature that convey these contents is an essential preliminary, it helps not only to recognize them, but also to go back to their actual sources and to verify their adaptation and re-elaboration.