Surveying Heritage Building in Ahmedabad : Empowering Local Action and Skills for Heritage Conservation

‘Surveying Heritage Buildings in Ahmedabad, India: Empowering Local Action and Skills for Heritage Conservation’ conducted a workshop from 25th -30th March 2021 for the students of the Masters in Conservation and Regeneration program at the Faculty of Architecture, CEPT University. It is a mutual effort of the Center for Heritage Conservation and Nottingham Trent University. Hence on-site training sessions were coordinated and delivered by the CHC team, while Dr Bernadette Devilat L. taught the theoretical and technical aspects with support from Mrudula Mane.

It introduced students to the advanced technique of 3D LiDAR Scanning as a potential tool to document heritage structures and aimed to develop local capacities for recording, surveying and protecting non-monumental heritage assets in India, which we achieved through a blended approach.

The workshop design was Day 1: Introduction to the Technology and Days 2 & 3:  Exploration of the Applicability of the Scanner for data collection in the historic neighbourhood of Ahmedabad. Two houses Grade III listed heritage houses were 3D scanned during the workshop. The scanned buildings are located in the densely populated traditional area known as Zaveri Wad in Kalupur ward. Jinagya Awas Trust, an organisation of a local community, supported the workshop by facilitating access to these heritage structures. The post-processing and image creation through 3D dense-point-cloud-data training sessions included data management, registration of scans and bringing together the various spaces, visualising, and discussing the results while reflecting upon the site experiences. 

This workshop is a part of the parallel project to the 3D for Heritage India, ’a sustainable reconstruction method for seismic-prone heritage areas of India based on an advanced recording technologies research grant, and GCRF Nottingham Trent University supports it.