The restoration of severely damaged churches – Implications and opportunities on cultural heritage conservation, thermal comfort and energy efficiency

Abstract

Indoor microclimate and energy performance analyses of historic buildings require tailored methodologies, because of their complexities, e.g. presence of artworks, lack of documents or project data and employed structure and materials. Given such difficulties, there are a few interdisciplinary methodologies, capable of carrying out multi-objective analyses for this kind of buildings, and they are often based on in-situ monitoring that, however, may not be able to predict the effects deriving from different conceivable technologies and control strategies. In this work, an interdisciplinary methodology is employed for evaluating cultural heritage conservation conditions, occupants 'thermal comfort and energy performance of a specific historic building category, such as churches, on the basis of experimental and numerical approach. The methodology was applied to the case study of an ancient Italian church, recently restored following the earthquake that hit L'Aquila in 2009. After the refurbishment of the church, the statistical analysis of temperature and relative humidity experimental data allowed to observe that the conservation conditions of artistic heritage just restored may be non-correct, due to remarkable thermo-hygrometric fluctuations of the indoor microclimate. Therefore, starting from the current condition of absence of HVAC system, calibrated dynamic simulation models of the church allowed to hypothesize different technological solutions able to control the indoor microclimate and to evaluate the effects on artworks preservation, thermal comfort, and energy performance. The results of the multi-scenario analysis showed that suitable conservation conditions (PIs > 90%) and thermal comfort can be obtained by employing a complex heating/cooling and humidification/dehumidification system which determines a significant increase in energy consumption.

Adaptive Reuse Decisions for Historic Buildings in Relation to Energy Efficiency and Thermal Comfort—Cairo Citadel, a Case Study from Egypt

“…In some cases, a tailored methodology is needed to suit the varied uniqueness of each historic building, and a monitoring part can be conducted as a future study by integrating sensors that can inform the indoor status and reflect the level of the thermal comfort. In addition to the suitable environment of the historical materials, a set of technologies can hypothesize how to control indoor and thermal comfort levels without negatively impacting the historic building, an iterative monitoring process needed to decide about the timing of intervention and preventive conservation which is essential to an adapted historic building [23].…”

Noncontact restoration of missing parts of stone Buddha statue based on three-dimensional virtual modeling and assembly simulation

“…Ancient monuments and artifacts are often damaged because of exposure to natural or artificial environmental factors, which can lower their historical value or significance [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]. Traditionally, functional repair and aesthetic restoration are undertaken to recover the original form of damaged monuments and artifacts [10,11]. The Athens Charter (1931), Venice Charter (1964), and Nara Document on Authenticity (1992) have been prepared to establish restoration principles for cultural heritages, and countries around the world have restored their cultural heritages according to their own rules following international recommendation [12].…”

Noncontact restoration of missing parts of stone Buddha statue based on three-dimensional virtual modeling and assembly simulation

“…Ancient monuments and artifacts are often damaged because of exposure to natural or arti cial environmental factors, which can lower their historical value or signi cance [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]. Traditionally, functional repair and aesthetic restoration are undertaken to recover the original form of damaged monuments and artifacts [10,11]. The Athens Charter (1931), Venice Charter (1964), and Nara Document on Authenticity (1992) have been prepared to establish restoration principles for cultural heritages, and countries around the world have restored their cultural heritages according to their own rules following international recommendation [12].…”