Project's Aim

The aim of the project is to create a digital twin of the city of Gdańsk, recreating its current form and the historical development of the urban fabric. This interactive urban model will be used to create varied applications, animations, holographic projections etc. for the purpose of education and gamification and will be used by various teaching and research institutions. The innovation of the project is to create virtual urban environment, reconstructed based on historical and urban research, with a special focus placed on the historical nuances related to the spatial development of the city. The following tasks are planned: - historical research (archive research, in-situ research, laser scans, photogrammetry using drones), - creating the base model of the current urban form based on various geographical databases, numerical elevation models etc., - creating overlays for the digital, interactive base model, presenting the historical phases of the urban development of the city: (1) 19th century - before the war damages, (2) - 17th century - Gdańsk golden era and the completion of the modern fortification system, (3) - renaissance transformation - foundation of the Italian style bastion fortifications of the western front, (4) middle ages - Gdańsk as the largest city of the mediaeval Poland and a member of the Hanseatic League, - creating tools and applications to share the model - presenting the results of the project to the general public. The proposed project is of high applicational potential. It can serve for the purpose of urban and architectural education and can help to raise the social awareness related to the history and heritage, and to the spatial development of the city in the dynamic environmental and economical conditions. It is planned to use the model as an urban planning tool, to simulate the potential directions of the spatial development of the city (also in the context of the climate, social and economical change). It may be also further developed into an urban game to promote local urban history, as well as building and strengthening the identity of the city inhabitants. The model will also serve for creating a web application, a hologram or a sketchfab as a tool to promote research results, to be shared in museums and to individually explore the model and the spatial development of the city, including the possibility to apply the VR environment into the digital model.

Project Manager

PhD Eng Arch Joanna Badach