CSI – Heritage (Conservation, Survey, Investigation of the Built Heritage)

The course gives students the opportunity to deal with the technical aspects of survey and investigation on heritage buildings, with the final aim of integrating them in the decision-making process on the conservation and rehabilitation interventions.

The course will deal with the following subjects:

• Materials: history, properties and use of building materials, including both traditional (e.g. brick, natural stone, mortars) and more recent materials (concrete, glass, plastic)

• Construction techniques: specific use of materials and components and their development in time.

• Damage processes en diagnosis: survey of the state of conservation, formulation of hypothesis and validation through investigation and diagnosis of the damage process.

• Technology of conservation and rehabilitation interventions on heritage buildings: interventions at both the level of the materials (e.g. reintegration, protection through surface treatments) and of the building (e.g. intervention against rising damp, strengthening of the structure)

Analytical assignment (oral presentation (10% of the final mark) and written analysis report (90% of the final mark) on the selected case study).

Students who received a mark 5.5 or lower (in a scale from 1 to 10) are eligible for repair.

The repair consists in submitting a revised version of the analysis report. A mark will always be assigned to the repair: the maximum mark for a successful repair is 6.

The date for submission of the repair is fixed at 4 weeks (20 working days) from the submission of the original analysis report.

The maximum marking period is 10 working days.