A proactive approach to the conservation of historic and cultural Heritage: the HeritageCare methodology

Abstract

Presently, no systematic policy for the preventive conservation of the built cultural heritage exists in SouthWest Europe. Current approaches for inspection, diagnosis, monitoring and reactive conservation are normally intermittent, unplanned, expensive and lack methodical strategy. The available financial resources are scarce and are mostly addressed to listed buildings. Besides, owners and stakeholders often reveal reluctance to invest in preventive conservation and maintenance programs. In view of these considerations, and driven by the principle "prevention is better than cure", the HeritageCare project has developed a system for the preventive conservation and maintenance of the built heritage. The main aim of this paper is to briefly describe the methodology, including its three levels of service, and present the main results of the implementation and validation of the service level 1 on a case study belonging to the Portuguese architectural heritage.

Structural Health Monitoring and Management of Cultural Heritage Structures: A State-of-the-Art Review

“…Concerning cultural heritage management, although an increasing number of countries are encouraging open cultural heritage data and promoting its safety and reuse, systematic digital tools for the preventive conservation and management of cultural heritage are still lacking [144]. Within this scope, it is worth mentioning the recently concluded EU project "HeritageCare-Monitoring and Preventive Conservation of Historic and Cultural Heritage" [145,186,187], which developed a series of standardised protocols, based on the IoT and Web-GIS system, for the diagnosis and management documentation of built cultural heritage. One of these tools, a web platform combining the latest advances in geodatabase models, interoperability protocols and digitization strategies, named PlusCare [186], was exploited to integrate all data acquired during the digitization of two ancient churches [172].…”

Termografia de infravermelho e mapa de danos na inspeção de uma igreja histórica em Olinda (PE)

“…O estudo da preservação de edifícios antigos é um assunto relevante e bastante discutido no setor da patologia das construções. Muitos pesquisadores sugerem que as tratativas de edificações antigas necessitam de uma abordagem multidisciplinar, pois a heterogeneidade dos materiais utilizados e as intervenções já realizadas nas edificações podem colaborar para um diagnóstico impreciso ou um tratamento inadequado, segundo as restrições estabelecidas pelos órgãos de conservação ou pelas normativas de preservação patrimonial (ARÊDE, COSTA, 2003;CARDOSO, 2008;BEGONHA, 2011;LANNES, 2011;GUERRA et al, 2012;CANTINI et al, 2013;MORAIS et al, 2019;CARDINI;BINDA, 2020;ROCHA, 2017).…”

Digitization of Cultural Heritage Buildings for Preventive Conservation Purposes

“…By leveraging the latest advances in digitization and smart technologies, this system employs standardized yet flexible data collection protocols (StandardCare, PlusCare and TotalCare) to progressively track the condition of existing heritage and store baseline information for future comparative analysis [2]. In line with the European standards relevant to this field [3], [4], [5], the HeritageCare methodology aims to streamline the conservation process of historical buildings, whether listed or not, by helping the respective owners and managers minimize or prevent damages in their properties with the scheduling of priority-based maintenance actions [6], [7].…”