DSA - Digital Support for Art. Process and Tools to Realize a Large Sculpture in a Heritage Urban Environment

This paper reports on a research project oriented to support the communication for, and realization of a sculptural masterpiece within an urban context in the historic centre of Rome. The sculpture has been installed just a few months before the 2017 eCAADe, thus enabling conference participants to explore the final output in situ. While the whole process of creation of the art piece is outlined, our focus is on the description of implementing various technologies like laser scanning, Virtual Reality (VR) and Numerical Simulations that have been used to accomplish the relevant tasks. The general field of investigation is how digital tools and a VR approach to modelling, simulating and developing sculptural components of an artwork could facilitate the workflow between artist, client, designers, engineers, urbanists, archaeologists, art foundry fabricators and public authorities. Methodologically, an action research approach was adopted for this project, primarily for its ability to link between research and practice in order to solve a realistic multidisciplinary problem in its actual setting.