About

The KNOW.it project

KNOW.it / Transition in Digital Age: KNOWing our background to refine our future is a 24-month PRIN PNRR research project focused on the “virtual return” of Italian-built heritage located overseas, with a special emphasis on Brazil. By combining historical-archival investigation with advanced digital documentation, the project develops a new, replicable way to identify, interpret, model, and communicate this often overlooked legacy. KNOW.it bridges scientific rigor and public accessibility through integrated digital models, a cloud-based hypermedia archive, and social-media for both specialist and non-specialist audiences.

KNOW.it aims to make a dispersed and largely unknown heritage visible, understandable, and shareable through a structured workflow and high-quality digital outputs. The main objectives are: defining a cognitive approach to Italian-origin architecture overseas (including its formal, stylistic, and technical-constructive features); standardizing a workflow for acquiring existing sources (1D/2D), interpreting information, and building semantically structured 2D/3D models; creating an innovative system for “virtual return” through a cloud hypermedia archive, metaverse development, and social-media communication; and producing an operational protocol that ensures qualitative control, repeatability, and usability by broader categories of users—not only technical experts.

Between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Italian migration to South America carried not only labor but also knowledge, building traditions, and design culture—shaping the architectural identity of many cities. In Brazil, alongside well-known figures, numerous lesser-documented architects, engineers, master builders, artisans, painters, and decorators contributed to public buildings, private villas, and eclectic or Art Nouveau decorations. Yet much of this legacy remains fragmented in archives or entirely undocumented, especially at the scale of everyday urban fabric. KNOW.it focuses on significant Brazilian contexts - particularly the cities of Jaú and São Carlos (State of São Paulo) - where Italian communities had a strong presence and where architecture still bears traces of imported techniques, forms, and stylistic vocabularies. By integrating archival sources with photogrammetry, UAV survey, and laser scanning, the project reconstructs both present conditions and lost or transformed architectures, enabling new interpretations of how Italian architectural culture was adapted, reconfigured, and embedded within Brazilian urban histories.

The project is carried out by a consortium of three universities, bringing together complementary expertise in representation, digital heritage technologies, and multimedia communication. The Principal Investigator is Prof. Alfonso Ippolito (Sapienza University of Rome), coordinating research on survey, digital modeling, and the scientific foundations of representation. Prof. Cristiana Bartolomei (University of Bologna) leads activities related to archival research, knowledge structuring, and ICT tools for cultural heritage documentation and dissemination. Prof. Davide Mezzino (IULM University) contributes expertise in multimedia, multi-platform content, and digital environments - including metaverse-oriented solutions and open education approaches. The consortium operates through coordinated work packages that connect archival study, field surveys, 3D modeling, hypermedia archiving, and communication strategies into a single validated workflow.