Investigation of architectural typological parameters influencing seismic vulnerability of masonry buildings in historical centres: the case of Puglia.

Abstract

The paper presents a systematical study on the main architectural features characterizing existing buildings in historical centres and influencing their vulnerability under seismic actions. In particular, the first step of the work reports a macro-classification of historical centres on regional scale, obtained through a combination of multisource data with different degrees of detail, such as data from regional landscape plans, public datasets on web GIS and quick virtual inspections. After, all gathered data have been collected and processed in a proper georeferenced database, in order to analyze specific features and their geographic distribution, releasing a new taxonomy. Therefore, a regional abacus of building typologies has been defined through the main architectural and morpho-typological features influencing seismic vulnerability. The starting dataset has been compared by means of other available urban-scale data as those derived from CARTIS (structural-typological characterization for urban compartments), the procedure proposed in Italy for an extensive classification at national scale of recurring building typologies in municipalities. The result is a homogeneous macro-classification of historical centres enriched by typological information also finalized to estimate seismic vulnerability in a given area. The above procedure has been applied on the case study of Puglia region, showing a GIS tool reporting the classification for Apulian historical centres and the resulting abacus for the recurring building typologies.