A Case Study Of GIS-aided Inspection Of Decays In Shikumen Residence: Zhang’s Garden

A GIS(Geographic Information System) is a computer-based technology for the organization, retrieval and analysis of spatially-referenced data, which incorporates functions including DBMS(DataBase Management System), mapping, image processing and statistical analysis. In the field of cultural, not least immovable, heritage management and protection, a GIS has advantages which is unrivalled by traditional methods.Shikumen residences, as a cultural symbol of and brand in the cosmopolitan Shanghai, are suffering from a daily aggravating wearing-off of the historic and artistic information they carry. Yet Ill-planned and ill-managed conservational intervention has been proved to be more detrimental to these architectural heritage than do intentional damage. Therefore, sound methods of inspection are urgently needed to understand these buildings, especially in terms of decays and deteriorations, thereby to scientifically inform conservation practices.Correspondence between attribute data, acquired through inspection, and graphical elements are required by the characteristics of buildings as entities in a three-dimensional world, which calls for a specialized technical platform to realize. A GIS could thus be employed for the database establishment enhancing decay inspection, both for data archiving as a basis for further investigation and data processing to inform conservational intervention.This dissertation therefore carries out a tentative application of a GIS to the inspection of and management for Shikumen residences in Shanghai, targeting specific problems in the practices. Zhang’s Garden, a estate of Shikumen residences, is selected as the sample area. A GIS-based database for the Shikumen residences in the area is constructed, during which specific methodologies and techniques are studied and assessed while decay identification and analysis aided by a spatial database for the area presented. Solidly-grounded on empirical data, the findings of this dissertation are hoped to offer inspirational insights into the conservation practices for architectural heritages in the future, as well as to provide operational experience and infrastructure data for the enhancement of a database for Shikumen residences on a municipal level.