DEDICATE (DEsign's DIgital Curation for ArchiTecturE)

In recent years great advances have been made in our understanding of long-term preservation of digital data. What is far less well understood is how the tools, techniques and procedures work within particular communities of practice, particularly in the commercial sector and in the public administration. Where complex digital data, such as 3D models and CAD/CAM are involved, potentially significant technical issues and attendant risks are increased.

In effect, collections of these digital records are spread over repositories with relevant differences in scale, policies and functions. The vast majority of these assets is represented by documentation held by Architecture practices and neither intended for ingestion in national repositories nor for long term retention in commercial archives. Cultural heritage stakeholders, such as public institutions and academic investigators, and building control authorities are potentially at risk by disappearance of these digital products. Indeed, these assets bear multiple information vital for the built heritage management and study, such as for example the detailed record of the interventions on the historical buildings and their analytical documentation.

The heterogeneity and complexity of these digital objects, as well as the prevailing role of institutional repositories in establishing preservation and curation policies for the digital assets, discourage architectural practices from both implementing specific curatorial procedures and maximising the value for all parties in the long time management and retention of their digital assets.

For these reasons, this project is aimed at developing specific policies, procedures and requirements for insuring a sustainable curation in the long term of these assets in the context of practices and other informal repositories.

In order to achieve this goal, given an estimated time for this project of nine months, the investigator will: a) undertake an audit of both the assets produced and held by select Scottish Architecture practices, municipal building control authorities and building contractors and the infrastructure and procedures implemented for their preservation and reuse; b) examine the cultural and economical suitability of preservation best practices for commercial repositories; c) produce specific guidelines, recommendations and a workflow description for this curatorial framework.

This investigation will be conducted at the Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute of the University of Glasgow (HATII) which is one of the world's leading centres for computing and information studies in the arts and humanities. The involvement of HATII in the international project 3D-COFORM (Tools and Expertise for 3D Collection Formation) will benefit the Researcher with a wide network of international expertise on 3D documentation and representation of Built Heritage.

This research will assess six partners' repositories, two for each of the categories analysed by this study. Among the Architecture practices that have already agreed to participate in this study are the prestigious firms Keppies and Page & Park. These will offer a representative selection of the records held in their digital archives to be audited and disclose their production and retention procedures and infrastructures to the investigator scrutiny.

The policies, requirements and procedures that will be delivered by this study will offer Architecture practices and assimilable stakeholders, such as the Museums and small and medium archives retaining Built Environment related records, the state of the art knowledge to manage and exploit their digital data whilst reducing the risks of data loss.

Since many European Building Regulation authorities have already established, as part of a Building Warrant application, the compulsory deposit of CAD files, it is likely that also local authorities will adopt in the near future this policy. In this case, local Building Regulation authorities could adopt the recommendations produced by this study to implement consistent and affordable curatorial procedures in their digital repositories.

An accurate digital documentation of Built Heritage is still an expensive activity although many initiatives have intended to enhance its affordability, nevertheless, its validity is rapidly consummated by the obsolescence of the production technology so causing an increase in costs. But, this research will contribute to enhancing the efficacy of investments in digital documentation of Built Heritage since, by prolonging their reliable usability, it will assure the viability of their use and reuse in order to derive new products as well as the management of the pertinent intellectual rights. For example, despite the obsolescence of technology and formats, some information resulting from past research could be still useful to some stakeholders for investigation, dissemination and governance purposes or the entertainment industry, but without an adequate curation of digital assets this would not be possible.