REbuilding a sense of PLACE (REPLACE): The socio-cultural role of 3D technologies in increasing community resilience after natural disasters.

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Natural disasters are causing the destruction of landscapes and built environments more frequently than ever before. These events have a profound impact on communities. When they lose their physical home, communities also risk losing their identity which makes them particularly vulnerable. Heritage (both tangible and intangible) is essential to both an individual's and a community's definition of identity, self-understanding, and sense of place. It makes places culturally significant and expresses the social meaning of life within a community. For many people, the loss of cultural heritage through disaster is equivalent to losing an arm or a leg: 'you grieve for the loss, you eventually learn to adapt, but you never fully recover'. When considering such losses, we need to explore ways in which we can rebuild not only the lost heritage but also the sense of place, to help communities heal and recover socially. This will build their resilience and increase their ability to prepare, respond to, and recover from future shocks, especially in areas where natural disasters are recurrent. High-definition 3D technologies (e.g. laser scanning, photogrammetry, rapid prototyping) are recognized as having a great potential to enhance heritage and place recovery. However, to date, nobody has explored how local communities have responded to 3D technology-led interventions and which interventions can best help communities to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. Thus, digital projects are undertaken without any evidence as to whether these interventions have the power to increase community resilience by enhancing social recovery, rebuilding a community's sense of belonging to a place, and helping communities to reclaim ownership of their local heritage. Literature on the role of 3D technologies for documenting and recovering lost heritage is often outcome-centred and focuses primarily on the tangible aspects of heritage (i.e. monuments, buildings) as an end product of recovery, rather than on a co-ordinated use of 3D technologies to support communities through the HMC. Based on these premises and to integrate 3D technologies effectively in the HMC it is time to: 1. Understand how 3D technologies can serve the needs of a community to rebuild a sense of place after their loss. 2. Design and test 3D technologies that can promote community resilience, defined, according to the Sendai Framework, as the capability to absorb adversity, deal with change and continue to develop (i.e. bouncing back better by building back better), and aid communities during the various phases of the HMC. I want to investigate, demonstrate and bring into national and international focus the impactful role of 3D technologies in helping communities to rebuild a sense of place after experiencing a natural disaster. To do this, we must consider a complex but homogeneous cultural context with a long history of recurrent disasters. This in-depth longitudinal study is crucial for clarifying the role of 3D technologies for increasing resilience and empowering communities during the various stages of the Hazard Management Cycle. I will study and compare a number of communities in Italy, a country that sits on significant geological fault lines and has regularly been hit by earthquakes in recent years that have resulted in not only loss of lives and heritage but also forced displacement and migration.