The Architecture Digital Archives Project in Taiwan

Prof. Feng-Tyan LINNational Cheng Kung University

(NCKU)ftlin@mail.ncku.edu.tw

Content Organization Scope Classification Meta-data conclusions

http://www.teldap.tw/en/project_1.php

The Organizational Framework of Taiwan Digital Archives Expansion Project

Map and Architecture Thematic Group

Institutional project: The Map and Remote Sensing Imagery Digital Archive

Project (http://www.ascc.sinica.edu.tw/gis/soda/e-main1.html)

Projects by Requesting for Proposals: There were 32 projects from 2004 to 2011. Projects were proposed by universities. Most projects were in southern (9) and northern (6) Taiwan.

Guideline of architecture digitization

What is Architecture? Oxford dictionary:

the art or practice of designing and constructing buildings

the complex or carefully designed structure of something Article 4, Building Law (Taiwan)

Architecture is a construction which is built on land or underground, with roof, beams, columns, or walls for individual or public use.

A construction built by well prepared plan and techniques.

Scope

Three kinds of objects:(1) Architectural constructions(2) Documents, maps(3) Oral histories :

interviews with master workers

Principle of selecting objects

world heritage or scarcity important buildings whose culture or

technique is to be lost important buildings which are endangered, to

be removed, or demolished important buildings which have cultural,

political, military, or other significances, even they are not listed in historical buildings yet.

Historical sites or buildings Representative buildings in different periods

A traditional village in Peng-hu islands

http://huachi.teldap.tw/index_1.html

A master worker’s oral history and manuscripts

http://140.116.213.228/website_she/

Traditional Hakka house

http://140.116.213.228/main/2012/

Historical building in NCKU digitized by LIDAR

http://140.116.213.228/11042011/index_B_3d.html

Building of Court of Justice, Tainan

http://da.sju.edu.tw/trhmda/archive-pd.php?Step=3&ExcavationType=21&ExcavationClass=建築物 &Level=&ExcavationName=&page=&DataType=image&id=1142

Classification by chronicle It clearly shows the process of building

type development. Dictionary of Taiwan Architecture (2007)

Austronesian, Dutch and European, Chinese, Western-in-Ching-dynasty, Japanese, mordern.

An Illustrated Handbook of World Architectures (2008) Ancient time, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome,

Middle Ages, Renaissance, 16-19 centuries, modern

Classification by forms

Climate and geographical factors affect architectural forms.

Wong (1993) classified Chinese dwellings into 22 categories, such as rounded/square earthen building, Fujian, Guangdong, Ganlan, etc.

Taiwanese dwellings, influenced by Fujian and Guangdong styles, can be further classified based on the taxonomy above.

Classification by functions

Illustrated Handbook of 500 Japanese Buildings since 1860s (2008) Government, industry, public facility,

school, house, and military Lee (2003) classifies Chinese

traditional architectures into: Castle wall, gate, fort battery, school,

temple, house, garden, monument, tomb

Cross-classification Dictionary of Taiwan Architecture

(2007) Classification by chronicle Classification by form, material,

construction, and usage

Multi-definition Researchers may define their own

classifications in a systematic way. Meta-data should record classification methods. It is possible to build up ontology and use XML

to map corresponding terms among different classifications.

Ontology has different meaning in philosophy and computer science. Philosophy: the being of the things. Computer science: (object oriented) data structure

for representing the things.

meta-data Data about data

A database describing background information of collected objects (books, maps, materials,…)

8 aspects to be filled:basic information, relationship with other objects, physical attributes, construction, style, actors, activity, reference.

Every record in meta-data is corresponding to a digital file, such as an image, a vector based model, a taped audio file, etc.

There are relations of parent-children and brother. The relations should be recorded.

Object relation in meta-data

3D model

Front view

Side view

Top view

Sectional view

door window

legend：

Parent-childrenbrother

Conclusions A national project to promote digital archives (

http://catalog.digitalarchives.tw/). The scope, classification, and meta-data for

digital archived architectures have to be studied further.

Only a small portion of valuable buildings and villages have been archived.

In addition to technology and data, it also involves issues of administrative, financial support, intellectual property, and value addition.

Thank you for your attention!