The idea of reconstructing some of the main buildings of the Westergasfabriek was born to reconstruct the historical and architectural vicissitudes of a place that evolved with the city. What makes Westergas an excellent example of re-use of industrial spaces is its capability to conform to the changes in its functions and ability to respond to community needs.
The reconstruction of these Westergas buildings was created to represent some of the most iconic spaces in Westergas, some of which are still visible, others demolished.
It was possible to reconstruct them thanks to the numerous resources published by the city archive, which made numerous historical photographs and technical drawings available.
The objective was to try to reconstruct the buildings in an aesthetic as faithful as possible to reality, using the same scales as the drawings and modifying the textures to make them similar to the original ones.
The reconstruction of the buildings started from the technical drawings of the individual buildings. The reconstruction was done to scale, thanks to the scaling included in each technical sheet.
In these contexts, the precision and accuracy is different compared to a Survey-based model, but the reliability is equally high, as it was possible to reconstruct the buildings very similar to reality.
The two following images show the process of reconstruction inside Blender, the software used for 3D modeling.
In the project the Level of Detail maintained remained faithful to the details present in the technical drawings by reconstructing them. In a scale from 1 to 4 LoD 4 is a precise modeling of all components and subcomponents. If a building is the main object, this includes elaborate decorative elements and structural features (Lanjouw, J. Waagen, 2021).The image show the different level of details applied to the same portal of Zuiveringhshuis building.
Erik Champion, «Preserving Authenticity in Virtual Heritage», in Virtual Heritage, a c. di Erik Malcolm Champion, A Guide (Ubiquity Press, 2021), 129–38, https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv2dt5m8g.15.