ABSTRACT
The Parnassus Project was set up in 2010 as a multidisciplinary approach to the effects of extreme weather on cultural heritage involving the Engineering, Hydrography and Archaeology departments at the British Universities of Bath (now moved to UCL), Bristol and Southampton respectively. As the project nears completion, this paper is an investigation into the collaboration dedicated to preserving cultural heritage in the future. The project members from engineering and archaeology have worked closely together, collecting data, using and developing a range of technologies from each discipline to analyse buildings. Buildings are three dimensional environments and assessing the effects of climate change has to reflect this. The pooling of knowledge and equipment has led to the use of a wider range of technologies than would be in use by either discipline alone. Those technologies includes total station survey on buildings using AutoCAD and TheoLt to consider stability and proximity to water and 3D AutoCAD models in AutoDesk's Algor structural analysis software to model structural integrity during increased flood risks, remote climate monitoring on/in the walls of chosen buildings together with electrical resistance tomography (ERT) on the walls to look at difference of structure, water and temperature on the outside and inside of walls for the impact of driving rain and freeze-thaw action and finally laboratory based weathering tests analysed using laser scanning and photogrammetry to quantify damage. This paper assesses the results of the collaboration from the perspective of each task and gives an overview of the results to demonstrate the possibilities and benefits of the interdisciplinary mixing of ideas, the aims of the project and technologies involved.
