Towards the BIM implementation for historical building restoration sites

Dealing with the renovation and restoration of historical building heritage often means facing several difficulties which not only concern ways of representing the ancient building and the design ideas, but also the phases of on-site interventions. The designers must always take into account a range of possible and compatible solutions that avoid endangering the cultural significance of the historical building. Traditional methods are often time-consuming and barely efficient, because they are related to the exchange of two-dimensional and paper-based support information. Building Information Modelling (BIM) may represent an answer to these problems, allowing users to model the three-dimensional compounds of the building and to link a variety of information to it. The aim of this article is to propose an innovative approach to the construction management of historical building interventions, based on BIM technologies, and explore different issues such as: parametric modelling of historical buildings, starting with laser scanner survey: LoD (level of detail) definition and measurement accuracy, with relation to modelling procedures; parametric modelling of the site and the several phases of restoration work in a fixed schedule (4D dimension); 3D graphic representation of safety procedures and related tools. The subject of the case study is the SS. Nome di Maria church (Italy), built in 1748, which was seriously damaged during the earthquake that occurred in Italy in 2012. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.