From sky to shelter : transforming cultural heritage preservation through space data and stakeholder collaboration on Malta’s historic roofs

Abstract

Set within the rich fabric of Malta’s architectural heritage, traditional roofs do more than carry the marks of time but also reflect the cultural and everyday lives of past generations. This paper emerges as a synthesis of a learned discussion held during a two-day technical stakeholder engagement workshop convened to dissect the multifaceted aspects of recent studies, linked to the conservation of Maltese traditional flat roofs. This event was based on landmark research in Malta which, through the lens of both conventional measurements and state-of-the-art remote sensing methodologies, as well as theoretical underpinning, aspires to expose new possibilities on the interdependent connection between architectural heritage, local building materials, and modern scientific investigation. This paper highlights how traditional research boundaries regarding the identification, monitoring and preservation of Malta’s traditional roofs, mainly to understand their behaviour, can be overcome. Across the stakeholder reflections captured at this workshop, the strongest shared message was that Malta should now decisively embed the current conversation on the preservation of heritage within the general discourse of roof performance and its mechanisms, and behaviour in a changing climate, as, using co-temporal satellite-UAV-in situ evidence, we can now explain thermal evaporative behaviour credibly and in a way that can stand up to modern membrane-based narratives. At the same time, stakeholders wished this proof of concept to be made actionable by closing the practical gaps, translating the results into guidance, capacity building, and policy-relevant uptake. At its core is the necessity for improved multidisciplinary cooperation between remote sensing and data merging specialists, researchers, architects and heritage professionals, fostering a mutual partnership to carefully gather and utilise information for the preservation and valorisation of traditional historic roofs for future generations and to exploit their characteristics even possibly for new build.