The courtyards of the Seminario Arcivescovile and the University of Turin: integrated survey techniques and representation methods

The aim of the research is to better integrate survey instruments, methods and graphic representation tools. They have been compared studying two similar courtyards in the City of Turin: the courtyard of the University Of Turin belonging to the first baroque enlargement of the City (XVII century), and the courtyard of the Seminario Arcivescovile, sited near the Cathedral and the Royal Palace. This work starts from Survey and History of Architecture courses carried out by the teaching staff of the Department of Building Engineering and Territorial Systems of the Politecnico di Torino (DISET); the Department of Land, Environment and Geotechnologies (DITAG) organised the metrical and instrumental survey steps. During the research the purpose was to promote a synergic work between the two Departments in order to optimise methods and results. The courtyards have chosen because of their similarity from the typological, volumetric and style features point of view (they both have a square shape and two levels of portico), so that the comparison would have been more interesting. Thinking over the content of Drawing, the research suggests a comparison on survey techniques, representation methods of metric data and on media for graphics products. Going into more depth, the relationship between symbolic and photographic languages was analysed. Thus, the potency of traditional drawings (plan, elevation and section) and the added value of 3d models were studied .