From Point Cloud To Video Projection Mapping: Knowing Modern Architecture By Using Light Projection

The ClusterLab HeModern of the Università Iuav di Venezia has been working in recent years on the study, knowledge and conservation of 20th century architecture. This interdisciplinary research group (History of Architecture, Geomatics, Building Technology, Restoration Project) intends to investigate how to analyse and evaluate the state of conservation of the materials of which the modern architectural cultural heritage is composed by identifying specific application protocols for intervention, preservation and valorisation. In 2018, the collaboration between the above-mentioned ClusterLab, the LéaV of the Ecole nationale supérieure d'architecture in Versailles and the Archivio del Moderno of the Accademia di architettura in Mendrisio - Università della Svizzera italiana, culminated in the identification of the works and career of André Bloc as a case study. In the context of this study, the Tour, the Engineer's posthumous work, was selected to serve as a sample for research on the methods of communication of the contents of the architecture, the survey procedures used and the elaborations obtained. So, after the survey campaign, which took place via topographic, laser scanning and photogrammetric methods, two different levels of restitution were conceived: the first, made according to the canonical graphic paper methods, represents the procedural and surveying information, the material characterisation and the state of decay; the second elevates the same contents by applying them to physical reality. In this phase, the research focused on the possibility of making the different projects collaborate through the technique of rapid prototyping and video projection mapping. This particular form of augmented reality was used to enrich, through the mediation of light projections, the sensory perception of the observers by adding more information and emphasising those of greatest interest, proposing an alternative way of storytelling. In fact, unlike other forms of augmented reality, in the case of video projection mapping, the observer has the possibility to interact continuously with the physical reality, whose character is static, while the transmission of data is dynamic and can range in heterogeneity. The elaborations produced were presented in form of a museum exhibit at the international conference "Arti e architettura. Il contributo di André Bloc 1950-1970", which took place in the exhibition rooms of the Università Iuav di Venezia.