Static Requirement and Type’s Complexity in the Diagnostics Phase

The preservation of a historical building, whatever its architectural or artistic value, is more effective when based on an in-depth understanding of the building’s development, materials and constructive techniques. In fact, the protection and conservation of heritage buildings entails varied and sometimes even alarming aspects; however, they help us to identify the commonly called “architectural emergency”. This is essentially related to the size and the great number of cases to resolve and – together - to the limited availability of usable resources and experiences. So, it’s necessary to optimize in a better way the limited finances and resources allocated to restoration efforts. Faced with a degraded monument, the renovation designer must answer three main questions: “if” to perform a restoration, “where” to perform a restoration and “how” to perform a restoration. To these questions it is possible to add another one that regarding the economic aspect: “when” to perform a restoration intervention . In order to respond adequately to these questions, it is necessary to advance “step by step”, through easily defined procedures: the identification of degradation, the determination of its causes, the assessment of residual safety and, finally, the appropariate intervention and definition of its execution method. So the preliminary action is the research of all information about the monuments; this information is required to describe the structure and all the transformations that it has suffered; in this situation, it becomes essential to know the history of the building, from its construction until the last modification that it has undergone. In the first phase of data acquisition, the direct recognition of the building characteristics and the survey of the checked alteration, should be complemented by research of design documentation and of events that have affected the structure during all its life cycle.