Documentation for Emergency Stabilization and the Integrated Conservation Planning of Earthen Architecture Settlements: The Kasbah of Taourirt (Ouarzazate, Morocco)

Abstract

ABSTRACT:Heritage recording serves as a basis for methodologies regarding diagnosis, treatment and preservation of historic places and contributes to make posterity records of our built cultural heritage. This work is not a stand-alone practice, but a part of the overall conservation of cultural heritage. Recording of heritage places should be directly related to the needs, skills and the technology that are available to the end users that are responsible for the management and care of these sites. They should be selected in a way that the future protectors of these sites can also access and use the data that is collected. This contribution explains an innovative heritage recording approach applied by Carleton Immersive Media Studio (CIMS) in the documentation of an earthen complex, the Kasbah of Taourirt in Ouarzazate, Morocco as part of the Earthen Architecture Initiative of the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI). The selected recording techniques used were carried out according to the requirements of the Moroccan team (CERKAS) in charge of the study and protection of the chosen site documented.

Authenticating Adaptation: Narrating the Incomplete Project

“…The city is also referred to as the "Door to the Desert" due to its current departure point for adventure tourism in the Sahara. Its location between the metropolitan cities of the North, the majestic Atlas mountains, and the vast Sahara has thus had a significant role in the site's adaptation in use and form throughout the past five centuries (Ekim, Percy and Ward 2013). Its current physicality narrates past events and values of the site, as well as the surrounding city and country through its structural system, composition, deterioration as well as the alterations made to its materiality, decoration and form that have developed over time.…”