ABSTRACT:The Islamic Nasrid kingdom of Granada occupied the mountainous areas of the southeastern area of the Iberian Peninsula. There, a natural border was established between the Nasrid kingdom and the Christian kingdom of Castile from 1232 to 1492. To control this frontier and establish visual communication between it and the Nasrid center at the Alhambra citadel, an extensive network of watchtowers and defensive towers was constructed.Studies have been done of individual towers, but no comparative study has been undertaken of all of them. Graphic, homogenous, and exhaustively planimetric documentation would bring together existing information on the majority of them and enable comparative analysis. For this reason, this work conducts systematic architectural surveys of all these military structures, using photogrammetry.In addition to studying the construction typology and techniques, the structural capacity of these towers has been analyzed. It examines how they have been affected by human and natural destructive forces, especially earthquakes, which are common in eastern Andalusia. Although all the historical military architecture is protected by the Spanish and Andalusian Heritage laws, many of these medieval towers and their cultural landscapes are in severe risk.The towers are being studied as individual specimens (emphasizing their differences) and as a unit in a typological group (looking for similarities and unifying characteristics). New technologies for Information and Communication are being used in order to disseminate the results among specialists and to make them available to the general public. Guidelines for restoration projects are also being formulated from the cases analyzed.
Unmanned flight systems, better known as "drones", are being progressively introduced in professional and research works. Nowadays, we are assisting a period where the advantages implied by the use of such technical means in different fields are demanded by society. It is clear to verify the power of images taken by unmanned equipment which incorporate tools for filming and photography. These systems allow to reduce costs on in-situ surveys of heritage, becoming into a key tool to understand the territory physical nature, both at a macroscopic level (urban and natural spaces), as a level of proximity unknown before (material nature of plots and buildings).
Key words: UNMANNED FLIGHT, DRONE, SURVEY OF HERITAGE
Resumen
Los sistemas de vuelo no tripulados, conocidos coloquialmente como "drones", están introduciendose progresivamente en trabajos profesionales y de investigación a través de la experimentación de las ventajas que implica su utilización. Resulta evidente comprobar la potencia de las imágenes obtenidas por equipos no tripulados que incorporan herramientas de filmación y fotografía, así como la reducción de costes económicos en trabajos para la documentación de bienes patrimoniales. Destaca así, su potencial para erigirse en una herramienta clave para el conocimiento de la naturaleza física del territorio, tanto a nivel macroscópico (tejido urbano y espacios naturales), como a niveles de proximidad inéditos (naturaleza material de solares e inmuebles).
Mass tourism, of sun and beach, continues being one of the most active sectors in both urban and regional scales. However, despite its importance, it has not been properly integrated as a study field in the training education of future architects. The School of Architecture of the University of Malaga (Spain), since its foundation, identified this lack and included the tourism as a subject in its Study Programme. The objective was to create an approach to the touristic territory from architecture and landscape. This decision has represented an exercise of teaching innovation and its experiences are the central part of this paper.
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