Guest online talk: Documenting domestic built heritage at risk in Gujarat, India. From Ahmedabad to Bela

On the 5th of March 2025, Dr Bernadette Devilat gave a guest lecture as part of the Post Office Cultures collection. Open to all.

This talk presented her previous experience documenting heritage areas affected by earthquakes in Chile as an introduction, followed by two research projects aimed at documenting domestic built heritage at risk of earthquakes in Ahmedabad and Bela, in the region of Gujarat, India. Housing in heritage settlements is liable to deterioration, damage and destruction due to disasters and hazards. This non-monumental heritage is mainly built by local inhabitants as an economical and affordable response to local climatic and environmental conditions. When located in seismic areas, this built heritage is at greater risk due to earthquakes posing a destructive and recurrent threat. Despite this, responses are usually triggered after the earthquake, lacking mitigation strategies to diminish destruction. The fastest and most common post-earthquake approach is to build anew, yet the most sustainable is to reuse, considering the building’s embedded energy and heritage significance. However, there is a lack of relevant documentation for culturally sensitive recovery and preparedness, repairs are usually costly and slow, and large numbers of affected constructions make damage assessment difficult. This is when 3D laser scanning, one of the latest technologies for accurate and comprehensive documentation of the as-built condition of buildings, becomes key.

The first project: ‘Surveying heritage buildings in Ahmedabad, India: empowering local action and skills for heritage conservation’ focused on developing local capacities for recording, surveying and protecting built heritage buildings through a series of training activities capturing the 3D laser scan record of two houses in the centre of Ahmedabad, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The second project: A Sustainable Re-construction Method for Seismic-prone Heritage Areas of India Based on Advanced Recording Technologies”, integrated also social surveys, drone capture and photography to develop a re-construction and mitigation strategy for the historical centre of the village of Bela, also located in Gujarat. It is a fast, affordable and scalable approach to break the unsustainable cycle of buildings’ replacement and subsequent heritage loss based on its 3D scan record. The data obtained was used in a series of community engagement activities with the inhabitants, exploring the visual capabilities of the 3D technology applied towards a culture of repair, reuse, adaptation and risk mitigation. The proposed framework could improve the chances of an effective response in case of an earthquake, enhance the design possibilities of reusing existing structures, and increase preparedness and resilience in local communities. Currently, in phase 4 of this research project, we are exploring policy implementation and dissemination.

These projects have been done in collaboration with researchers and partners from the Center for Heritage Conservation, CEPT Research and Development Foundation, the Hunnarshala Foundation, the Gujarat Institute of Disaster Management (GIDM), Nottingham Trent University & ICCROM. 

This talk was also part of the Architecture, Culture and Tectonics (ACT) Research Group monthly seminars, Department of Architecture and Built Environment, University of Nottingham.