Heritage Resilience Against Climate Events on Site - HERACLES Project: Mission and Vision

Abstract

Europe has a significant cultural diversity together with exceptional ancient architectures and artefact collections that attract millions of tourists every year. This incalculable value and global assets have to be preserved for future generations. The effects of floods, extreme wind storms or rains on these assets are clearly identifiable but it should be worth to note that all these effects are seriously amplified on ancient and fragile assets where advanced techniques, commonly used for modern buildings and structures, cannot be applied to preserve their originality. Moreover, ancient paintings as well as ancient structures, are very sensitive to environmental parameters (e.g. level of moisture in the air, temperature, etc.) and their relative quick leaps undermine the asset from the inside (mould, thermal stress, etc.). Again, in order to preserve ancient buildings and artefacts, dedicated technique, material and methodologies have to be applied to these important and valuable heritages. In order to address all the above challenges, the concept underpinning HERACLES project is to propose a holistic, multidisciplinary and multi-sectorial approach with the aim to provide an operative system and eco-solutions to innovate and to promote a strategy and vision of the future of the CH resilience. The HERACLES vision will be tested in Greece (Koules Fortress in Heraklion and Knossos Palace) and in Italy (historical town of Gubbio - Town Walls and Consoli Palace).