Historic Preservation 2.0

May 2009

By David Basulto — Filed under: Heritage ,Software , Sketchup

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As an architect, I have been involved/consulted on historic preservation proyects. Most of them never materialized, even after spending a lot of time/money between interested parties (government, institutions, communities). It´s Not that it was a waste of time, but after seeing what some communities are doing with almost no official support/money and just driven by their passion, it´s pretty much clear that it can be done in another way.

Let me show you an example: a group of architecture students from Universidad de Talca, in the south of Chile, decided to spend their summer working with a community in Lebu, an old city that was very active at the beginning of the last century thanks to coal mines nearby. Beautiful wooden buildings were erected during the bonanza, but once the coal mines started to shut down, the city lost its economic base and entered into recession until today. All of this beautiful buildings were endangered because of lack of maintenance, and as of today some of them have even been demolished.

So, these students decided to teach the community how to use Google SketchUp as a way to help them preserve their historic buildings. Being a free tool, all they had to go was to get a space and some computers. The local authorities helped them by providing a space for the workshops, and lots of people got interested on this program. They gathered old plans from the city hall and some historic archives, and each one of the 24 assistants to the workshop started to learn how to model in 3D using one of these historic buildings as a case study.

In two weeks everyone learned how to use Google SketchUp, and submitted 24 detailed models of their historic buildings to Google 3D Warehouse. As of now, 20 of these buildings made it to the 3D layer on Google Earth.

No experts panel, no expensive funding, no pricey software… just the motivation of a group of architecture students and the local community to preserve their historic buildings.

About David Basulto: Graduate Architect. Co Founder and Executive Editor of ArchDaily.com. Architecture geek.

Cite:
Basulto , David . "Historic Preservation 2.0" 19 May 2009. ArchDaily. Accessed 09 Feb 2012. <http://www.archdaily.com/22690>

Comments (15)
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etty says:

This is a pretty awesome project!

# May 19, 2009 at 13:37

john pool says:

Amazing and really Inspiring. Congratulations.

# May 19, 2009 at 14:41

ed says:

So much you can do with so little. A true example here.

# May 19, 2009 at 14:55

Gustavo Aranda Sotomayor says:

Congratulations for Cristian and its work group! Like inhabitant of Lebu and future architect, all innovating idea to the benefit of the conservation of the patrimony and the preservation of our identity is valued.

Hopefully initiatives as these are imitated and valued by the pertinent authorities to give continuity them in the time!

An affectionate greeting for M2H Architecture

# May 19, 2009 at 19:20

MdosH Architecture says:

Hi, we are MdosH Arquitectura (4 students of architecture in Chile), we did this project in the last summer, for more information you can visit http://www.mdosh.tk or http://www.modelalebu3d.blogspot.com

Really, thanks for all your comments, we are very happy for those, because we never thought that we would be here.

# May 19, 2009 at 20:52

Roberto Baraxa Schwencke says:

I´m very grateful to have been able to participate in the project modelA lebu 3D. I want to show how the project is important for the comunity. I hope that the community can use this software to influence the future of their own city.

# May 20, 2009 at 01:16

Arman says:

Congratulations!

# May 20, 2009 at 06:18

eg says:

good job, I’ve been meaning to do something similar for all the demolished buildings at my school’s campus…

# May 20, 2009 at 08:22

SA says:

Check out McMinnville, Tennessee in Google Earth, and turn on the 3-D layer.

Lat 35°41’9.00″N
Lon 85°47’8.55″W

# May 20, 2009 at 12:01

Paul Lee says:

This is a great idea. We are hoping to do something similar in Ireland. The only problem here is that the colleges and ITs don’t seem to want any outside help!

We hope to keep going in any case.

Well done to all involved.

# May 21, 2009 at 04:37

yasna says: