Heritage visualisation and potential speculative reconstructions in digital space : the medieval church of St. Anne in Famagusta, Cyprus

Abstract

This article is concerned with the 14th century church of St. Anne’s in the historic walled city of Famagusta, Cyprus, as a site for transdisciplinary investigation embedded in, interrogated by, and disseminated via, digital space. The principal tool to create the foundational model and database of this historic structure was HBIM (Historic Building Information Modelling), beyond which further experiments were conducted in Padua and Singapore into the scholarly and pedagogical potential of VR, AR, and curated 4D interactive historic spaces. Such non-invasive systems of analysis are most welcome in a city where the legalities of conducting work ‘in the field’ are complicated by political and economic considerations.