From October 2010 to 2012, we were involved in a project with a number of European partners, looking to teach local groups the importance of recording the heritage of their surroundings and providing a primer in skills required to document and share the story of their old houses online.
With partners from Turkey, Italy, France, Spain, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Wales, we had a very varied team, both in language and skills. DJA's role in the project was to supply advice on how to record the houses and make best use of common digital tools such as camera's, smartphones etc. We also had the task of providing a laser scan record of important houses in some of the countries. All of the documents, guides and house records we assembled were shared on the projects website at AboutHouses.eu, but here are some of the highlights:
House recording toolbox and template
The idea of the toolbox was to provide short videos that could be used to educate and remind students of the key points when recording a house, reinforced with a printable template document that would guide them through the measuring and recording of the house. Due to the requirement for all content to be created in 7 languages, we decided to use a slide based video system, rather than a narrative voice over. Split in to 8 segments, each some 40s long:
Cofio Cwmorthin
In Wales, we did a variety of work with the crew at Cofio Cwmorthin, a team in North Wales that are researching the history of the valley of Cwmorthin above Blaenau Ffestiniog: