Architecture
The research area of the WeSa project, that is located at the research unit "Digital Reconstruction" of the Department "Digital Design" at the TU Darmstadt, works on 3D computer models or digital reconstructions, which have the potential to merge already existing and to generate new knowledge in the context of the scientific genesis process. The fusion of knowledge is done by the transfer of knowledge in three-dimensionality. There are several different ways and techniques to generate knowledge, depending on the project intention and participation. In the case of the joint project WeSa, this principle is applied mainly in the interdisciplinary collaboration between the disciplines of architecture and history of art. Here, the cognitive process happens during an alternating process between phases, in which the different research areas of the project generate new knowledge independently, and phases, which are characterized by interdisciplinary exchange and discourse.
The research area of architecture is focused on two content points, from which new insights about stone formats can be gained by building three-dimensional models. Firstly, by transferring the already existing marine and stone findings of Rohrsen and Döverden into a three-dimensional model. And secondly, by the photogrammetric recording and further processing of various facades of the to be examined sandstone deposits, such as the facade of the Leiden or Amsterdam town hall. Furthermore, the finding of a stone city gate in the sunken Batavia existing in Fremantle is researched in a further photogrammetric recording. The results of these recordings and measurements will be synchronized with the results of the archive work of the research area of art and economic history regarding the historic contracts and stone lists and will ideally lead to a module catalog which reproduces the prefabrication principle of the stones.
Furthermore, the transport routes of the “East Track” and the “West Track” and the used vehicles, lifting tools and ship types are reconstructed and simulated by using 3D technology. This also happens in close cooperation with the research area of art history and its results. The three-dimensional computer models of the different means of transportation form the basis of the verification and exploration of the shiploads and historic loading techniques and will help with the examination of the loading capacities and the stone delivery lists found in the archives.
The synthesis of the photogrammetric recordings, the simulations and the results of the art history helps to understand the prefabrication and the organization of the stone trade better.