Migliorare la conoscenza e la gestione del patrimonio costruito storico attraverso BIM ed ontologie

The historical built environment is acknowledged as a value both as material and cultural resource to be preserved. Usually, however, there are difficulties that do not allow to effectively analyze and document it. Difficulties arising from building characteristics, site characteristics or other exceptional events make it impossible to use only traditional theories, tools and techniques. On the contrary digital technologies give the opportunity to improve and expand the comprehension of complex artifacts. The objective of our research is to elaborate and propose a theoretical and methodological framework to improve the comprehension and management of the historical built environment with digital technologies. The recorded information can be essential to plan and manage a recovery plan and/or a maintenance program taking into consideration also aspects linked to cultural diversity and environmental sustainability. In this paper we will deal mainly with the constructive and relational characteristics of historical buildings. The constructive peculiarities point out the constructive system of an artifact (number, type and material of technical elements, etc.), whilst the relational peculiarities represent the relations among the internal components of the artifact and other external elements that could be of various kind (persons, places, etc.). To analyze and document these peculiarities we used mainly BIM software (for the digital 3D reconstruction) and an ontology editor (to represent and organize the relational peculiarities), both applied to a case study: the Boekentoren, one of the most important historical buildings in the city of Ghent.