Historical building research

“Historical building research" investigates buildings and intensively deals with the historical object: it measures, draws, analyzes and interprets it. In distinction to its sister discipline of archaeology, historical building research mainly examines buildings above ground, i.e., buildings from all periods (incl. modern times) that are largely preserved and in many cases even used in their original function. In addition to archival research, the main basis for this is to record or document the building, which leads to the depiction of the building in plan drawings and 3D models. Historical building research in the German-speaking world represents an internationally exemplary way of dealing with the historical building stock from a scientific, monument preservation and planning point of view.

The historical building research community comprises various occupational groups such as architects,   architectural and art historians, and preservationists. These represent equally diverse institutions in science and practice, from universities and research institutes to independent architecture, building research and monument preservation offices, as well as monument offices and authorities at the municipal and state level, to cathedral building lodges and building culture foundations. It is therefore a very diverse specialist community. Their internal communication across the boundaries of science and practice is to be improved. Synergies will be created through a systematic exchange of research data and information. The following important needs were identified in a survey of the specialist community:

• to be able to find research data through a central point of access
• possibility to make research data available and to store them in the long term
• to improve online publishing

Until now, there has been no subject-specific research data infrastructure for historical building research. The baureka.online platform closes this gap. It is designed as a central research data platform for thematically internationally positioned historical building research in German-speaking countries and oriented towards the above-mentioned needs. Here, research data is centrally indexed and made available. Baureka.online is to be realized as modules in two project phases.

1. Module baureka.index: central point of access for finding research data
2. Module baureka.storage: to archive and publish research data, and to make them citable
3. Module baureka.papers: Open Access Data Journal, which enables the digital publication of scientifically analyzed and interpreted building research data.

Through its Research Data department, FIZ Karlsruhe contributes information science expertise and extensive experience in the implementation of infrastructure projects. FIZ Karlsruhe provides the IT infrastructure for both software development and operating baureka.online that is required during the project term. In designing the project, care was taken to integrate RADAR, an established research data repository, which both ensures the long-term archiving of the data stored in baureka.storage and enables the platform to be sustained beyond the funding period.

The “Intellectual Property Rights in Distributed Information Infrastructures” unit will analyze all relevant legal issues and develop a decision tree. This decision tree will be implemented as an online assistant in baureka.online to ensure that legal framework conditions can be clarified.

• Project term: 01 July, 2021 – 30 June, 2024
• Sponsor: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
• Partners:
  RWTH Aachen
  TU Berlin