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weSteady is an app based on crowdsourcing which collects information on the conservation status of the building heritage

Natural calamities exist: they cause damages and are impossible to predict. In this context, a well-timed prevention could control the consequences. However, it seems impossible, given the limited resources, taking care simultaneously of the entire existing building heritage. Therefore, it’s necessary to locate what is most susceptible to seismic risk and define the intervention priorities.

Many different kind of census forms and risk maps, which consider the various parameters that describe risk indices, were designed over the years. However, due to elevated implementation costs, the experiences of volunteer mapping have remained pilot projects and, till today, there are no valid instruments for prevention. For this reason, it would be necessary to create standard forms that are easy, fast and inexpensive to produce and fill out.

To realize the project we thought to involve the professional associations of engineers and architects, to give their voluntary contribution, and we developed an app for tablets in order to map all the buildings at risk, make a photographic survey and fill out a complete but synthesized form. All of the collected data are then published online in an Open Data format, building the first distributed database on collapse risk for the entire Italian and European building heritage.

ACHIEVED RESULTS

weSteady has been selected among the finalists of the first edition of Scintille (2014), the call for ideas promoted by the Italian National Council of Engineers.

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