RESEARCH METHODS + LEADERSHIP
THE “ACEH METHOD”
WHAT IS THE “ACEH METHOD”?
The Aceh Method is a rich experiential, social and creative process. The creative aspects are realised in drawings, photogrammetry and then the curation of all of these for digital dissemination. It offers a practical means to document, record and communicate traditional building types, techniques and vernacular knowledge-based practices through in-the-field cultural immersion for the research team.
The approach has four core characteristics or collaborative activities; these include: VERNADOC (vernacular documentation), a method of studying and documenting vernacular architecture that involves the production of high quality measured drawings created in-the-field; the digital capture of buildings using tools like Gigapan, photogrammetry and other photographic techniques enabling virtual reality ‘walk throughs’; the digital recreation of buildings that have been lost and exist only in memory through the collaging of archival materials sourced from global collections; and the collection of memories and oral histories through informal conversations and immersion in the social spaces of the community. In their proposal for the initial pilot study, Nichols et al. state that their aim is to create an archive where analogue processes inform the digital and then the digital reimagines and augments the analogue to capture, reenvision and safeguard Acehnese built heritage.
The proposal was to move towards an integrative notion of heritage whereby people, their heirlooms and living environments are considered as a holistic narrative comprised of experience and qualities of the natural and built environment that are inseparable in order to make a small contribution to the community’s sense of identity through built form In the case of Aceh, they also aimed to return the beginnings of an archive to a region without access to its own pusaka (heirlooms).
The Aceh Method began as a small, collaborative research initiative between scholars of architecture and urban history from UniSA and scholars of architectural history from UnSyiah. Since then it has slowly and organically developed into an archival methodology, in collaboration with both international and domestic (Indonesian) student groups and communities of place, first in Aceh, and later in Bali. In essence, the primary objective of the Aceh Method is to create an easily accessible and discoverable, multi-modal, online vernacular architecture archive with, and for, a community directly affected by the loss or future endangerment of their built heritage. The four characteristic activities of the Aceh Method outlined above are not unique in themselves, or even unique to archival practice, rather it is the fundamentally collaborative nature and iterative, grassroots development of the process that makes the Aceh Method special.
GIGAPAN - DIGITAL CAPTURE
The GigaPan device is a motorised mount that holds a digital SLR camera and sits atop of a camera tripod. The GigaPan automatically takes a series of images with the number of columns and rows based on the field of view of the camera. These images are then imported into the GigaPan Stitching software that combines the images into a spherical view.
The GigaPan device
The GigaPan spherical view
The GigaPan columns and grid view
The GigaPan flattened spherical view
DIGITAL VR - ONSITE RUMBIA HOUSE
The scanning results, digital and manual through VERNADOC methods, adopted to construct a VR model of a Rumbia House for an accessible archive of vernacular houses.
Rumbia House, Lambunot Village, Indrapuri, Aceh Besar
PHOTOGRAMMETRY
The drone captures details such as the make-up of the ground plane (e.g. gravel, grass, etc.) important to the intent of the research: what details are necessary and what are not? The aerial photograph from the drone is a record of what the sensor of the camera captured at that point in time, at the altitude and location.
The aerial view of Pinggan Village, Kintamani, Bali, Indonesia
DIGITAL AR AND MIXED REALITY
The digitising of vernacular settlements allows future studies to access and learn off site and on site.
Digital mixed reality of Pedawa House, Bali, Indonesia, projected in South Australia
On site digital AR of the Jacka House, Burra, South Australia
“The immersive nature of VERNADOC allows history, ways of seeing and understanding vernacular space to be captured from different perspectives. The capture of information occurs in analogue and digital formats that compliment and support choices around what is the focus of the research. The collation and dissemination of information is going to be piloted in a multimodal form using mobile friendly web technology for our Acehnese friends.
As a spatial field of enquiry, the user interface designed in VR aims to immerse the researcher in a vernacular environment.
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