Packing the "Chinese box", a strategy to manage knowledge using architectural digital models.

The architectural design activity has been transformed due to technological advances in building knowledge management. The research proposed is based on a three years long Ph.D. work on 3D models intended as graphical informative systems, layered according to the "Chinese box" paradigm and destined to professionals and researchers in architecture. The applied case study is referred to San Vitale’s church in Ravenna, Italy: the monument was investigated through nested digital models produced by different computer programs. Passing through evolutionary steps identified as synthesis, reduction and projection, the resulting archive lowered its Complication Ratio, a numerical value inspired by fractal’s auto-similarity, indicating a recursive modification in morphologies and contents. Models so conceived are qualified as progressive knowledge-based catalogues easily interchangeable and useful to understand how new or existing architectures work. As a result of this approach, representations obtained with surveys, historical chronicles, light analysis and acoustic simulations were composed following gradual refinements: technical data were collected running parallel to bibliographic research, enriching interactive virtual models sprung from a recursive criterion destined to increase the information enclosed into an undivided, lossless, digital archive.