Recognizing the Design Patterns of Complex Vaults: Drawing, Survey and Modeling. Experiments on Palazzo Mazzonis’ Atrium in Turin

This paper shows the results of research advances on complex vaulted systems produced by the integration of laser scanner survey techniques and three-dimensional modeling for the geometric interpretation of built architecture to recognizing the geometric matrices of the design conception. The integration between TLS techniques and digital modeling methods led to the definition of new workflows, aimed at optimizing the use of data and at refining the quality of the geometrical interpretation. The process incorporates the traditional activities of freehand drawing of eydotipes, aimed at a deep understanding of the peculiar characteristics of the artifact. In particular, from these procedures new opportunities for the research arise to better understand the relationships between survey data, geometric matrices and compositional rules. The case study presented here, the atrium of Palazzo Mazzonis in Turin was chosen among a small number of atria that present characteristics of originality and uniqueness in a panorama of realizations strongly characterized by compliance with well-established compositional schemes.