Search Results (3)

This article relies on a combination of digital and analog data to analyze the 2D urban development of al-ʿAqaba and Jallūm districts in the Old City of Aleppo. The dataset consists of vectorized historical maps of the city spanning various historical periods. The oldest map in the collection dates back to the 1900s. Additionally, there are high-resolution orthomosaics created from a 3D model obtained through Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) and Aerial Photogrammetry techniques. Through the analysis and integration of these various data types, the article proposes an analog-digital workflow that tracks the alterations in the urban fabric of the designated study area. The analysis primarily examines the alterations in the city’s two-dimensional layout and the distribution of mass and void. Tracking the changes in the street network of the studied area is the main goal of this research, along with recognizing the spatial changes in the built environment. The article identified changes in both the open spaces and the street layout. Full article

The rehabilitation and sustainable transformation of residential heritage of the Old City of Aleppo (Syria) is one of the most pressing issues to regain the livability of this city. This research paper aims to gain insight into the residents’ conditions and needs by studying/mapping/analyzing the status of the residential heritage and the interventions on it during the aftermath of the city’s devastation. It also intends to provide a better understanding of the residents’ attitude towards living in the Old City, their expectation for its reconstruction and transformation, and the difficulties they encountered in the process. In fact, in order to start a collective reconstruction and transformation process, it is important to understand the readiness of the inhabitants and their financial capabilities to engage in this process. A combination of research methods was used to explore the above-mentioned issues and their relation to the socio-cultural sustainability. These methods included: gathering data in the field (specifically, Al-Jalloum, Al-Farafra and Al-Aqaba, three neighborhoods in the Old City of Aleppo, were used as case studies), and setting up a questionnaire (Winter 2020) and conducting interviews (Summer 2021) with 39 returnees and their families. AutoCAD and Excel programs were used for data visualization. This research has highlighted the main problems and factors that have affected the interventions on courtyard houses in the Old City of Aleppo since 2012—the outbreak of the Syrian War in Aleppo City. Lack of funds and craftmanship, high costs and long bureaucratic procedures related to the enforcement of the regulations have been identified as the main causes that discouraged the residents to carry out repairs in a proper way. Full article

Very high-resolution (VHR) optical satellite imagery (≤5 m) is nowadays an established source of information to monitor cultural and archaeological heritage that is exposed to hazards and anthropogenic threats to their conservation, whereas few publications specifically investigate the role that regularly acquired images from high-resolution (HR) satellite sensors (5–30 m) may play in this application domain. This paper aims to appraise the potential of the multispectral constellation Sentinel-2 of the European Commission Earth observation programme Copernicus to detect prominent features and changes in heritage sites, during both ordinary times and crisis. We test the 10 m spatial resolution of the 3 visible spectral bands of Sentinel-2 for substantiation of single local events—that is, wall collapses in the UNESCO World Heritage site of the Old City of Aleppo (Syria)—and for hotspot mapping of recurrent incidents—that is, the archaeological looting in the archaeological site of Apamea (Syria). By screening long Sentinel-2 time series consisting of 114 images for Aleppo and 57 images for Apamea, we demonstrate that changes of textural properties and surface reflectance can be logged accurately in time and space and can be associated to events relevant for conservation. VHR imagery from Google Earth was used for the validation and identification of trends occurring prior to the Sentinel-2 launch. We also demonstrate how to exploit the Sentinel-2 short revisiting time (5 days) and large swath (290 km) for multi-temporal tracking of spatial patterns of urban sprawl across the cultural landscape of the World Heritage Site of Cyrene (Libya), and the three coastal ancient Greek sites of Tocra, Ptolemais, and Apollonia in Cyrenaica. With the future development of tailored machine learning approaches of feature extraction and pattern detection, Sentinel-2 can become extremely useful to screen wider regions with short revisiting times and to undertake comparative condition assessment analyses of different heritage sites. Full article