Re-printing architectural heritage

Abstract

Additive Manufacturing (commonly known as 3D printing) technology has
become a global phenomenon. In the domain of heritage, 3D printing is
seen as a time and cost efficient method for restoring vulnerable
architectural structures. The technology can also provide an opportunity
to reproduce missing or destroyed cultural heritage, in the cases of
conflicts or environmental threats. This project takes the
Hippolytuskerk in the Dutch village of Middelstum, as a case study to
explore the limits of the existing technology, and the challenges of 3D
printing of cultural heritage. Architectural historians, modelling
experts, and industrial scientists from the universities of Delft and
Eindhoven have engaged with diverse aspects of 3D printing, to reproduce
a selected part of the 15th century church. This experimental project
has tested available technologies to reproduce a mural on a section of
one of the church’s vault with maximum possible fidelity to material,
colors and local microstructures. The project shows challenges and
opportunities of today’s technology for 3D printing in heritage, varying
from the incapability of the scanning technology to capture the
existing cracks in the required resolution, to the high costs of
speciality printing, and the limited possibilities for combining both
printing techniques for such a complex structure.