Storage Information Dynamics in Restoration Works

In construction industry, knowledge is mostly generated in the projects that each firm performs nevertheless many companies are not able to capture lessons learned on site. The paper presents a case history about a restoration work of a Church located in the center of Milan. The peculiarity of this case is linked to the dynamics of information storage that have characterized the past and current intervention and to the relevant effects that have produced in the final result. First, the historical documents found through a careful research, together with the preliminary tests and chemical analysis of the different surface layers, led to a façade color appearance reinterpretation. Secondly, the presence of archive documentation concerning the restoration carried out twenty years ago led to a knowledge of the object that has allowed the designer and the group of restorers to identify an intervention methodology capable of bringing the surfaces to the state prior to 1993 and, from there, to design a restoration able to preserve the surface and rebalance its chromatic aspect. Finally, during the operations, works have been recorded through reports characterized by photographs and videos of the different intervention procedures, actually available on a specific free-access website. To this purpose, it has been granted the access of specialists to the scaffolding, developing specific procedures, and organizing the workplace in order to allow easy shooting. This documentation will be a useful tool for knowledge, survey and dissemination of restoration, both for young and new restoration professionals, both for planning and designing future interventions on the façade. Moreover, the paper illustrates the synergic relationship between the BIM technique and the information storage process. BIM is useful to schematize in a simplified method the object of the intervention and to give an organized structure of the related information. So, the use of BIM linked with photographs and video reports allows a simplified and organized management of the information and the optimization of the execution phase from either an economic and operational point of view.