Designing remote places in the post-war and pandemic scenarios. Smart surveying of the gahayr campus in mogadishu

Abstract

The study presents a part of the operational framework of the "Project for Infrastructure and Strategic Strengthening of the Somali National University", funded by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation. The project, coordinated by Politecnico di Milano, aims to reconstruct the Gahayr campus of the Somali National University of Mogadishu, which is today almost destroyed due to the civil war. The preliminary phase for reconstruction is a detailed survey of the buildings and the area over which the Campus will be re-built. In a normal situation, the team in charge of the survey would have gone on-site in Mogadishu; nevertheless, the risky local conditions and the Covid-19 pandemic made it impossible to have foreign personnel on-site. Consequently, the choice was to train a local team remotely, giving them the theoretical and practical instruments to face a complete 3D survey of the area and the buildings. Harsh times cannot stop works and activities that usually need the presence of the survey team on the field. Careful planning of the activities, the online staff training and the continuous sharing of the information permitted to get high quality 3D metric results quickly and to have at disposal all dimensional and qualitative valuable information for the project, usable in real-Time by the designers and architects without going directly on the site.