3-D system to protect Istanbul’s cultural assets

Istanbul’s cultural assets and historical streets are being scanned by lasers to record every detail so replicas can be made in the event of an earthquake. The historical peninsula has been completed and now it is the Bosphorus’s turn to go under the digital knife. Experts laud the scanner’s efficiency, but warn of becoming too overly dependent on technology.

Istanbul Metropolitan Planning Center, a division of Boğaziçi İnşaat Müşavirlik AŞ, or BİMTAŞ, has more than 30 experts working with a three-dimensional, or 3D, laser scanning method that uses special cameras to scan historical buildings and collect data at 20 kilometers per second. Experts at the headquarters are able to acquire drawings of the historical buildings simultaneously as the data flows that then contribute to the creation of exact replicas cast from plaster. The system has an error margin of 1 millimeter in 100 meters.

Ahmet Ağırman, general director of BİMTAŞ, spoke to Hurriyet Daily News & Economic Review about the center’s work. "The software used for this project totally belongs to us; it is one of a kind. We are using this system to acquire exact replicas of the artifacts in case of destruction. Before, we had to wait 1.5 years for surveying and restoration work. Now, the waiting period is only one month."

Ağırman said the whole historical peninsula had been scanned over 1.5 years and they had created exact replicas of silhouettes from historical streets. He said they were in negotiations with the Regional Directorate of Foundations and they were planning to record all of Turkey’s cultural assets with this software if the necessary approvals were granted. Also, BİMTAŞ projects are not limited to Turkey. Ağırman said the historical Mostar Bridge in Bosnia-Herzegovina would be scanned on Jan. 15 and they were in negations with some European countries and with the Organization of the Islamic Conference.


Ağırman said the project was inspired by the earthquake of 1999 in the Marmara region. BİMTAŞ was founded in 1997 as an engineering services and consultancy firm. Ağırman said they had started work in Istanbul right after the earthquake and had prepared an inventory of the city’s building qualities.

Civil engineer and BİTMAŞ project manager M. Rifat Sağlam said the three-dimensional laser scanning method is a new technology. "In the past, to survey a building we used to examine the formation of the front parts of the buildings. The new technique makes it so much easier and the three-dimensional aspects of the system afford another advantage because we can acquire 3D models of the buildings."

Sağlam said with this scanning method, replacing dilapidated historic buildings with ugly concrete boxes would not be possible anymore. "We will have detailed documents of Istanbul’s historic structures and the system can measure a historic structures’ earthquake resistance."

Ağırman said, "The data we acquired was terrifying. Zeytinburnu was in the most danger. Of the 16,000 buildings in the district, 2,295 were about to fall to pieces at the slightest tremor."

Urban transformation for Zeytinburnu

BİMTAŞ has worked with more than 200 lecturers from mainly Istanbul Technical University, Boğaziçi University, Yıldız Technical University and Middle East Technical University to form a master plan for an earthquake. "With this plan, a road map has been formed for primary matters for Istanbul to handle," said Ağırman, adding that they had started working with Zeytinburnu because it was facing the greatest risk.

"We are not only conducting surveys, we have also prepared a plan for urban transformation," said Ağırman. "We are planning to increase the quality of the city, the life and the buildings simultaneously. Buildings are cheap but land is expensive in Istanbul. We will overhaul the buildings in the areas where land is expensive."

Ağırman said they would begin work toward urban transformation this month in the Sümer district of Zeytinburnu. "An apartment in Zeytinburnu is worth approximately 75,000 or 80,000 Turkish lira. Within the urban transformation, the prices of these buildings will climb to 200,000 lira. The owners of the homes will repay their debt of 30,000 lira over 20 years. In return, their buildings will be reinforced internally and externally."

According to Sağlam the technique is used in the United States and England. "There is a department at Berkley University where they work with this technology under the name 3D City Modeling. Sweden and Poland use the 3D laser scanning technique not only for buildings but also in every means of urbanization and city planning and for the environment," he said.

Alongside these projects, BİMTAŞ is preparing to conduct scanning work on the historic Grand Bazaar ahead of Istanbul’s year as the European Capital of Culture in 2010. Ağırman said the project was extremely difficult. "The streets of the Bazaar are there but the original pattern has been destroyed. We have historical data about the Grand Bazaar from which we will prepare our project."

According to the manager of the Civil Engineer Chamber Cemal Gökçe following the latest developments in technology is important. "The data from computers is not always correct," he said. "I say yes to technology, but architects should have their own perspective and use traditional tools for their work."