An IoT Smart Infrastructure for S. Domenico Church in Matera’s “Sassi’’: A Multiscale Perspective to Built Heritage Conservation

Abstract

Architectural heritage is perhaps the most important marker of the Italian and European landscapes. Over the last decades, its strategic relevance for local economic development has led to prioritize tourism-oriented promotion objectives. Therefore, new light has been thrown on once unknown resources that have thus received the attention of tourists interested in new visit experiences. To this end, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have delivered a crucial support mainly in terms of public attraction and creation of new cultural offers. However, new urgent challenges now face tangible heritage, whose physical existence is jeopardized through extreme events and poor maintenance. Unexpected intense visit flows represent in themselves a further threat for sensitive heritages. ICTs have then to cope with more complex conservation tasks and the Internet of Things (IoT) can facilitate appropriate solutions. The paper presents a smart sensor-based infrastructure for the structural monitoring of S. Domenico Church in Matera, an emblematic city for the concerns described, which also highlighted the need for a wider conservation concept also embracing context and fruition issues. The article introduces the case study and its delicate environment, and the technological background of heritage monitoring solutions; the proposed IoT infrastructure is then described, discussing its potentialities and IoT contribution to creating more holistic and multiscale perspectives to heritage conservation.