Safeguarding Endangered Built Heritage In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa – Pakistan: A Digital Restoration Approach

Abstract

The built environment is a product of both historical and contemporary civilizations, and it represents norms, values, architecture, the environment, and constructed heritage in the form of buildings that have been passed down through the ages. Cultural heritage is a part of our past that has been transformed, faded, or lost due to various internal or external causes. The goal of preserving and restoring the constructed legacy of the past for the benefit of the current and future generations is achieved through conservation, documentation, media, and various strategies. The main purpose of this study is to explore various means for getting the implicit knowledge from heritage available to be used effectively by the present generation and pass it to the future generations. There is an urgent need to preserve Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province's built heritage due to challenges in the form of natural and man-made disasters that impact the built heritage in the area. Due to the pandemic (Covid-19), our built heritage has become inaccessible for people to visit.  The current digital era of advancing technology provides an opportunity for protecting and restoring built heritage through digitalization, which is accessible to the public, including the community, organizations, students, professionals, and researchers. The research paper will focus on using various advanced technologies to create virtual and augment[1]ed reality in built heritage sites in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, with the aim of protecting and restoring these buildings. The knowledge visualization theory basic concepts are utilized to streamline the various aspects of the digitalization of heritage. The presented conceptual framework can be used not only to document and propagate the traditional wisdom to be effectively utilized and made available for multidisciplinary scholars. This methodology will be used to create knowledge for other researchers and scholars for cross-examinations, conducting qualitative analysis as well as can be used. Research materials for further researchers were made available by knowledge reconstruction, which used visualization technology to turn embedded knowledge of architectural heritage into explicit knowledge.