Typological GIS for knowledge and conservation of built heritage: a case study in Southern Italy

A typological GIS is a system designed to store, analyse, manage and visualize geo-referred data about the built environment. It allows interactive queries to explore spatial relationships between buildings, improving the knowledge of the built heritage at different scales. For example, by running space-typological analysis, it is possible to extract information about the most used typologies in the existing buildings at different levels, from the urban scale to the construction detail. This knowledge shows a great potential in building design applications and may provide support for a correct design in urban renovation projects aimed to keep the character of the considered area unchanged and preserve its cultural and historical value. This work presents the first phase implementation of the typological GIS of an historical city centre set north of Naples and shows some examples of possible GIS queries for typological investigation of built environment at different detail levels.