Ricerc@Sapienza

A group composed by some researchers of ‘Sapienza’ Università di Roma and informative experts of the Istituto superiore per la Conservazione ed il Restauro and the Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione is working on the definition of an Territory Information System dedicated to the management of historical centres within the context of the Charter of the Risk of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities. This study wants to give answers to some different exigencies. We remember among them: 1) gathering information about the historical town in a homogeneous and systematic way; 2) allowing a comparable evaluation of the state of conservation and vulnerability of the urban historical buildings; 3) establishing the level of the risk of the urban historical buildings; 4) helping the scheduled management of the conservation interventions.
The ‘scalar’ nature of the data collected allows to describe, evaluate and direct the information on different levels, related to the historical centre in itself, its individual components (Urban Units and Spaces) and its aggregate constituents (Building Units and Fronts).
The text particularly describes some possible diverse applications of the TIS tool for management of historical buildings and historical centres. These applications gather exigencies already expressed by experts, stakeholders and politicians or even prefigured by law but lacking shared and coordinated regulations. We remember among the existing needs: the cataloguing of the historical centres; the assessment of urban building vulnerability and – in relation with the territory dangerousness – of the actual risk level of loss; the identification of the authenticity level of the buildings components and of the whole historical settlement; the possibility of overlapping data in calm condition and during the emergency (especially in case of earthquake); the use of tools for the over time monitoring of the single building units.
The proposed system has been defined in the general architecture and in the required report models; the report models related to the Historical Centre and the Urban Units, have already been digitalised and are fully usable (the latter is under validation).