Expeditious survey of historic timber roofs. An applied research for Palazzo San Felice in Pavia, Italy

In recent years restoration progressively passed from an interpretation as isolated event aimed at ending decay processes, to an idea of continuous planned conservation able to prevent decay phenomena. Within the planned conservation process the start phase requires a detailed study of the consistency of building artefacts and that serious degradation phenomena are not ongoing; the process should therefore start with a long and expensive study and with a series of extraordinary maintenance works. It is therefore essential to reduce starting costs by establishing protocols for expeditious surveys. In this process, roof has a crucial importance, since most forms of degradation are induced by infiltration of water from roofing. The paper proposes a system of expeditious surveying and filing for roof of large historic building complexes and the pilot project carried out in spring-summer 2014 for its application to the case study of Palazzo San Felice owned by the University of Pavia.