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Engineering and Technological Heritage in the Digital Era: Documentation, Preservation,...
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Engineering and Technological Heritage in the Digital Era: Documentation, Preservation, Interpretation and Futures

A special issue of Buildings (ISSN 2075-5309). This special issue belongs to the section "Architectural Design, Urban Science, and Real Estate".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2026 | Viewed by 1085

Editors

Prof. Dr. Junshan Liu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
McWhorter of Building Science, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA
Interests: reality capture; digital documentation; BIM; HBIM; immersive visualization (VR/AR)
Dr. Danielle Willkens

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Architecture, Georgia Institute of Technology (GA Tech), Atlanta, GA, USA
Interests: historic preservation; architectural heritage; documentation; digital heritage methodologies; augmented reality (AR); design
Prof. Dr. Miaole Hou

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Geomatics & Urban Spatial Informatics, Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture (BUCEA), Beijing, China
Interests: digital restoration of cultural heritage; heritage documentation; digital heritage reconstruction
Prof. Dr. María Viñals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Cartographic Engineering, Geodesy and Photogrammetry, Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), Valencia, Spain
Interests: natural and cultural heritage planning and management; public and tourist use of heritage; tourism management; heritage interpretation
Prof. Dr. Antonio Galiano-Garrigós

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Building Construction, University of Alicante (UA), Alicante, Spain
Interests: building technology; energy efficiency; sustainable development and BIM

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Engineering and technological heritage represents the critical legacies of human innovation, including massive structures like bridges, railways, canals, factories, vessels, aerospace facilities, and large-scale infrastructures. Unlike conventional architectural heritage, these sites are defined by their functional complexity, immense scale, and technical integration, imposing unique challenges for documentation, conservation, and interpretation.

In the digital era, advances in reality capture (e.g., laser scanning, photogrammetry, UAV-based surveying), modeling (e.g., HBIM, digital twins, memory twins), AI-driven analysis, and communication (e.g., immersive visualization) are providing powerful tools to record, analyze, and communicate this heritage. These methods address significant technical and conservation challenges while opening up new opportunities for structural diagnosis, asset management, technical storytelling, and public engagement.

This Special Issue welcomes theoretical and applied contributions that explore how digital tools can effectively safeguard and reinterpret engineering and technological heritage for future generations.

Relevant themes include the following:

  • Unique characteristics of engineering and technological heritage and their digital documentation.
  • HBIM, digital twins, and memory twins for analysis and management.
  • Digital methods for conservation, risk management, asset management strategies, and structural diagnosis.
  • Immersive visualization and innovative interpretation of these sites.
  • Theoretical and ethical perspectives on digital preservation.

We invite scholars and practitioners to share their innovative research, case studies, reviews, and interdisciplinary perspectives that advance our understanding and the future of engineering and technological heritage in the digital age.

Prof. Dr. Junshan Liu
Dr. Danielle Willkens
Prof. Dr. Miaole Hou
Prof. Dr. María Viñals
Prof. Dr. Antonio Galiano-Garrigós
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Buildings is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • engineering heritage
  • technological heritage
  • digital heritage
  • heritage building information modeling (HBIM)
  • digital twins
  • reality capture
  • heritage asset management
  • structural diagnosis and monitoring
  • immersive visualization and interpretation
  • conservation and risk management

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

26 pages, 44313 KB  
Article
Knowledge Representation Method for Grotto Buddhist Niches Based on Image Semantics and Ontology
by Li Wan, Miaole Hou, Jinru Li, Beibei Zhao, Bingyu Yang, Haoyue Shi and Bo Ning
Buildings 2026, 16(13), 2563; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings16132563 - 26 Jun 2026
Viewed by 205
Abstract
Grotto Buddhist Niches are important spatial carriers of Buddhist cave art, containing rich architectural, artistic, and historical information. However, image data of these Buddhist niches are fragmented across multiple scales, including visual features, cultural semantics, and spatial structures, which significantly hinders cross-scale correlative [...] Read more.
Grotto Buddhist Niches are important spatial carriers of Buddhist cave art, containing rich architectural, artistic, and historical information. However, image data of these Buddhist niches are fragmented across multiple scales, including visual features, cultural semantics, and spatial structures, which significantly hinders cross-scale correlative analysis. To address this issue, this paper proposes a multi-scale knowledge representation method based on image semantics and ontology. Specifically, we establish a five-tier semantic description model, comprising the visual feature layer, image data layer, entity layer, cultural semantics layer, and relational layer. Furthermore, using Protégé and the classical Seven-Step Method, we develop a domain ontology named Grotto Buddhist Niche Ontology (GBNOnto) to enable unified semantic modeling of multi-scale information. Based on this ontology, a knowledge graph focusing on cave imagery is constructed, with typical caves such as Cave 38 at the Yungang Grottoes selected as case studies. The resulting graph contains 892 entity nodes and 2621 semantic relations, effectively capturing the complex interconnections among architectural typology, artistic characteristics, and cultural semantics within the selected niche instances. The proposed method enables structured and associative integration of multi-scale information in grotto Buddhist niche images. It thus provides a foundational data infrastructure and modeling framework to support effective management, knowledge retrieval, and semantic reasoning. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Engineering and Technological Heritage in the Digital Era: Documentation, Preservation, Interpretation and Futures)
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34 pages, 18736 KB  
Article
Reading Layered Industrial Heritage Through Graphic Documentation: Adaptive Reuse, Morphological Continuity, and Selective Legibility at Cibali
by Saba Matin, Dilek Yasar, Ufuk Fatih Kucukali, Gamze Kaymak Heinz and Sanam Rezaeifam
Buildings 2026, 16(11), 2254; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings16112254 - 3 Jun 2026
Viewed by 368
Abstract
Adaptive reuse has become a central strategy for extending the cultural, environmental, and functional life of industrial heritage, yet the ways in which intervention logic becomes legible in multilayered heritage complexes remain insufficiently formalized. This article examines the Cibali complex in Istanbul, a [...] Read more.
Adaptive reuse has become a central strategy for extending the cultural, environmental, and functional life of industrial heritage, yet the ways in which intervention logic becomes legible in multilayered heritage complexes remain insufficiently formalized. This article examines the Cibali complex in Istanbul, a former tobacco and cigarette factory reused as a university, cultural, and museum setting, in order to explain how document-based analysis can reconstruct patterns of continuity, loss, re-construction, contemporary addition, and layer articulation. Methodologically, the study develops a multi-scalar reading protocol based on the cross-matching of historical maps, aerial photographs, plans, sections, elevations, restoration proposals, and post-implementation visual material across parcel, block, courtyard, façade, structural-system, and archaeological-layer scales. The findings show that continuity was preserved primarily at the levels of parcel structure, waterfront relation, massing, façade rhythm, and silhouette, whereas more intensive transformation occurred in interior spatial organization, void re-definition, structural re-configuration, and archaeological musealization. The study concludes that adaptive reuse at Cibali operated not as a uniform conservation process, but as a differentiated and selective regime of legibility in which some historical layers were foregrounded while others were transformed, displaced, or made secondary. The significance of the article lies in proposing a case-tested analytical protocol for reading document-rich, multilayered industrial heritage sites, while recognizing that its broader transferability requires further validation through comparative application to additional cases. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Engineering and Technological Heritage in the Digital Era: Documentation, Preservation, Interpretation and Futures)
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