ABSTRACT
After Juneteenth, formerly enslaved African Americans in Texas founded hundreds of historic Black settlements known as freedom colonies. Later, freedom colonies' populations dispersed, physical traces disappeared, and memories of locations vanished as descendants passed away. In the absence of buildings and legally recognized borders, intangible heritage—stories, ephemeral traditions—define a sense of place. Betraying the perception that these places have disappeared, founders' descendants express commitments to freedom colonies by returning periodically to plan commemorative events, rehabilitate historic structures, and steward cemeteries. The Texas Freedom Colonies Project (The TXFC Project), a team of faculty and student researchers, documents settlements while supporting descendant communities' historic preservation aims. By making diasporic publics legible and increasing the visibility of communities' settlement patterns and remaining extant features, The TXFC Project elevates stakeholders' concerns in urban planning domains. In 2020, COVID-19's social distancing requirements challenged diasporic descendants' efforts to foster social cohesion. Consequently, The TXFC Project hosted a Facebook Live "talk show,” leveraging social media platforms to amplify freedom colony descendants' work. The team analyzed event transcripts revealing cultural adaptations to socially restrictive conditions during Juneteenth commemorations and indicating that virtual storytelling helped territorialize widely dispersed, unbounded places for stakeholders facing natural and human-made disruptions.
ABSTRACT
Fresh air became a luxury good in times of Covid-19 pandemic. After lockdowns' stringency is over, former enclosed activities have been adapted to be held in open air spaces, reinforcing the importance of well-designed parks, squares and sidewalks. This paper will address one of the most iconic Brazilian public open spaces: the Copacabana promenade, designed by Roberto Burle Marx. Extending 4,5 kilometers alongside Rio de Janeiro's waterfront, the three sidewalk lanes are a social living spot, housing multiple activities. Appealing to tradition, Burle Marx designed a Portuguese stone mosaic, but innovated by proposing modern and patterns. It is an exceptional case of heritage-valued public landscape combined with social appropriation and very intense use. Unfortunately, Copacabana promenade's integrity has been constantly threatened. Many pubs and restaurants extended their structures over the pavement, ruining both the sidewalk materiality and the landscape;a number of potholes denounce the lack of appropriate maintenance - even if both the stone mosaics and the vegetation designed by Burle Marx are listed as municipal and state heritage. The promenade is also included in the "culture landscape” of Rio de Janeiro, listed as a World Heritage by Unesco, in 2012, highlighted for its contribution to the outdoor living culture. The case of Copacabana Promenade suggests that not always is materiality the real heritage. In some cases - such as some landscape architectures - materiality renovation is a requirement to design conservation and the fundamental document to heritage preservation is the paper and not the stone. © Design: Social Commitment and Quality of Life, Proceedings.All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Building heritage contributes to the historical context and industrial history of a city. Brick warehouses, which comprise a systematic interface between components, demand an interactive manipulation of inspected parts to interpret their construction complexity. The documentation of brick details in augmented reality (AR) can be challenging when the relative location needs to be defined in 3D. This study aimed to compare brick details in AR, and to reconstruct the interacted result in the correct relative location. We applied photogrammetry modeling and smartphone AR for the first and secondary 3D reconstruction of brick warehouse details and compared the results. In total, 146 3D AR database models were created. The AR-based virtual reconstruction process applied multiple imagery resources from video conferencing and broadcast of models on the Augment® platform through a smartphone. Tests verified the virtual reconstruction in AR, and concluded the deviation between the final secondary reconstructed 3D model and the first reconstructed model had a standard deviation of less than 1 cm. AR enabled the study and documentation of cross-referenced results in comparison with the simplified reconstruction process, with structural detail and visual detail suitable for 3D color prints.