asBuilt Blog

Whaowhi a te kete mātauranga – Fill the basket of knowledge

Written by asBuilt | October 2020

As we’ve done since 2017, asBuilt are proud to support the School of Architecture, and Surveying students at Unitec – the future digital engineers and BIM experts who will no doubt help us all collectively shape a smarter world, digitally.

 

This lovely Te Reo phrase sits atop of the Unitec Research Symposium 2020 programme which asBuilt are proud to support with a contributory presenter segment and live Vault demo from Thomas Reutlinger, an ex Architectural Graduate at Unitec and now a BIM Engineer at asBuilt.

The event featured an audience of faculty, industry, and researchers in attendance, both in person at the Mt Albert Campus and virtually.

Left image: Thomas and student, scanning Building 01. Right-top image: Thomas co-presents at the Symposium with Sian Singh and Professor Renata Jadresin Milic on her research study: Digitalisation of New Zealand Architectural Heritage: Bringing architectural history and theory into the virtual realm. Right Bottom Image: Thomas explaining the capture process with the RTCn scanner.
 

DIGITALISATION OF NEW ZEALAND ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE

This Unitec research project aims to protect vulnerable (in the process of degradation or transformation), and abandoned historical heritage by two means. Firstly, via a multimedia presentation and secondly, via an information tool for preservation, restoration, maintenance and evaluation.

The information tool includes a digital recording of the Unitec’s ‘Building 01’. ’ This Heritage building, which has been an iconic landmark of the Point Chevalier area, has a rich history dating back to 1865, being formerly known as the Carrington Psychiatric Hospital before being acquired and adapted for educational purposes by Unitec. Since Unitec has withdrawn from Building 1, and has now been acquired by The Crown, digital documentation provides an opportunity to capture the unique character of the building at this point in its extended history and will create an insightful record as the building enters an uncertain transitional phase.

Exterior of Carrington Psychiatric Hospital - 1895. Image courtesy of Auckland Museum.

Under both asBuilt and Malcolm Archbold's supervision, students were given the opportunity to use Leica RTC360 3D Laser Scanners, drone and 360 Photography gear, across collaborative educational workshops held during the capture process of Building 1. The students are currently working with the capture data to create a virtual reconstruction of the heritage building while applying higher level industry practices.

At the symposium, as part of his presentation Thomas, used asBuilt's 3D spatial intelligence platform – Vault, to demonstrate a Point Cloud scan of ‘Building 1.

“By teaching students through this project, better use of HBIM and modern digital technologies in domestic conservation practice can be enabled. We believe that this is an opportunity that Unitec School of Architecture (as an educational institution), and asBuilt as industry leader, play a role in helping this happen”, says Professor Renata Jadresin Milic.

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