Digital Records, Heritage Conservation and Post-earthquake Re-construction in Chile

by Bernadette Devilat L.

Overview

The conservation of built heritage implies constant intervention. One form of intervention is reconstruction, which, in the context of disasters, usually tries to bring buildings and places back to their previous state and is contested in heritage discourses. This book challenges reconstruction as a replica to physically preserve damaged built heritage by critically examining a context of constant change resulting from earthquakes – Chile – advocating for the digital record to be an analytical basis for design, following the principles embedded in historical domestic architecture.

Beyond monumental heritage, the focus is on the living heritage of the historical settlements of Tarapacá, Zúñiga, and Lolol, built with local resources and sustainable techniques. The book proposes re-construction as an alternative methodology, based on 3D-laser-scanning, photography, and questionnaires, to analyse the as-built condition of earthquake-affected buildings, consider risk mitigation, and recognise adaptation to earthquakes and subsequent reconstructions. This is relevant for seismic-prone areas and built heritage at risk in general.

This book is aimed at researchers, academics, and practitioners in architectural conservation and is also a valuable resource for authorities and stakeholders involved in post-earthquake scenarios.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781040330234
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	05/30/2025
Series:	Routledge Research in Architectural Conservation and Historic Preservation
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	292
File size:	16 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Bernadette Devilat L., also known as Bernardita, is an assistant professor at the Department of Architecture and Built Environment of the University of Nottingham, part of the Architecture, Culture and Tectonics Research Group, where she teaches and leads research projects as Principal Investigator. She graduated as an Architect in Chile with a Master’s in Architecture at the Pontificia Universidad Católica, followed by a PhD in Architectural Design from the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. Her research includes critical and novel uses of accurate recording technologies – mainly 3D-laser-scanning – to conserve built heritage at risk with case studies in Chile and India. She co-founded the Tarapacá Project, created after the 2005 earthquake in Chile; and DLA Scan Architectural Studio with built projects in Chile. She has research and teaching experience at all the universities listed, and Nottingham Trent University. She has published, given guest keynotes and lectures, exhibited and presented her work internationally, and received prestigious awards.

Table of Contents

List of figures

List of abbreviations

Acknowledgements

Preface

Introduction

Situating the argument

Earthquakes in Chile

Re-construction and record

Structure of the book

Chapter 1: Built heritage conservation

1.1. A brief history of conservation

1.1.1. Initial attempts

1.1.2. Rome and beyond

1.1.3. Middle Ages

1.1.4. From the Renaissance

1.1.5. The becoming of heritage

1.2 Why conserve?

1.2.1. Living heritage: tangible and intangible

1.2.2. Sustainability and economic value

1.2.3. Tourism

1.2.4. Memory and the construction of history

1.3 How to conserve?

1.3.1. Concepts of intervention in built heritage

1.3.2. Reconstruction and re-construction

1.3.3. Time in built heritage restoration

1.3.4. Continuous conservation

1.3.5. Two intervention extremes

1.4. Concluding remarks

Chapter 2: Recording heritage buildings

2.1. Architectural representation, building and measuring

2.1.1 Building as recording

2.1.2. Architectural treatises

2.1.3. Other records

2.2. Surveying buildings

2.2.1. Hand-measuring method

2.2.2. Photography

2.2.3. 3D imaging

2.2.4. 3D scanning using projected light

2.2.5. 3D-laser-scanning

2.3. The rise of digital recording technologies

2.3.1. Products from the 3D record

2.3.2. Designing from the 3D scan data

2.3.3. The paradox of the complete record

2.3.4. Record and archive

2.3.5. Continuous modelling and design

2.3.6. Visual replica

2.4. Concluding remarks

Chapter 3: Record and reconstruction in the face of destruction

3.1. Potential destruction

3.1.1. The record

3.1.2. Rebuilding as replica

3.1.3. The paradox of the original

3.2 Recording for re-construction

3.2.1 Documenting to manage risk

3.2.2 Post-destruction assessment and documen

3.3 Post-earthquake intervention of heritage areas

3.3.1 Building techniques in reconstruction and re-construction

3.4. Concluding remarks

Chapter 4: Reconstruction of heritage areas in Chile

4.1. Built heritage in Chile

4.1.1. Continuous destruction because of earthquakes

4.1.2 Heritage stance

4.1.3. Recording heritage buildings

4.1.4 Mitigation of heritage damage

4.2. Case studies

4.2.1. Two earthquakes

4.2.2 Chilean heritage areas

4.2.3. Tarapacá

4.2.4. Zúñiga

4.2.5. Lolol

4.3. Reconstruction after earthquakes in Chile

4.3.1. Emergency period

4.3.2. Permanent housing

4.3.3. Post-earthquake surveys

4.3.4. 2005 Earthquake

4.3.5. 2010 Earthquake

4.4. Persisting challenges

4.4.1. Emergency period

4.4.2 Reconstruction process

4.5. Concluding remarks

Chapter 5: The record

5.1. Data capture on-site

5.1.1. Documenting the built environment

5.1.2. Inhabitants' perception

5.2. Visualisation

5.3 Limitations

5.4 The record for analysis

5.4.1. Post-earthquake surveys

5.4.2 Architectural design, heritage elements and the sustainability of the new “heritage” dwellings

5.4.3. The paradox of authentic reproduction

5.5. Concluding remarks

Chapter 6: Re-construction alternative

6.1. Documenting to mitigate risk

6.1.1. Mitigation retrofitting

6.1.2. Integrating inhabitants

6.2. Designing from the record

6.2.1. Time

6.2.2 Spatial use: the inhabited record

6.2.3 Sustainability and materiality

6.3.2. Spatial use: the inhabited record

6.3 Re-construction

6.3.1 Tarapacá – memory

6.3.2 Zúñiga – use

6.3.3. Lolol – in-between

6.4. Concluding remarks

Conclusions

Methodology

As a post-earthquake documenting tool

As a basis for analysis and design

Going beyond the buildings

Implications

New Buildings for old

Mitigation as conservation

Continuous transformation

Projections

References

Index

Editorial Reviews

It is easy, in countries where buildings can be expected to last for thousands of years if they are very well built and maintained with care, to believe that restoration back to the original is the be all and end all of preservation. But buildings of this nature are rare, and historical continuity over long periods to support continuous maintenance is close to non-existent. In addition, buildings are continually repurposed, and this will inevitably have an impact on their fabric.

Chile, with highly active earthquake zones and a rapidly developing culture and economy, is a petri dish in which concepts of conservation can be exposed to extreme challenges, and this book is a really welcome, erudite, and significant contribution to the subject. As society moves forward, it is plausible to believe that in many cases, a complete record of past buildings will become more significant than the retention of a few of the actual buildings.

Professor Stephen Gage, The bartlett School of Architecture, UCL

Relics, remnants, and records are something of the past that remains in the present, thresholds of knowledge that signify possibilities of the future. Bernadette Devilat’s book is bringing a novel and much needed discussion on the nature, form, and urgency of records, memory in the digital age as some form of contemporary Noah’s Arch to interpret the past to preserve some form of future of architecture and built environment in general. She is offering care and cautions, erudition and innovation with what'she calls re-construction to a field of practice often left in a hurry to measure success, evidence, and novelty. Across disaster studies, architecture and digital design, Bernadette Devilat’s book is a needed reading for all interested in an architecture of hope.

Professor Camillo Boano, Polytechnic of Turin, Italy; and Development Planning Unit, London

From the Publisher