Workshop program

20th May — Workshop Day

Time Phase
09:00–10:30 Introduction & Tour of Artifacts
10:30–12:30 Repair Strategy Generation
12:30–13:30 Lunch
13:30–14:30 Consolidation and Zine Preparation
14:30–15:30 Results: Comparative Presentations
15:30–17:00 Guided Discussion with ETH Construction Heritage and Preservation

09:00–10:30 — Introduction & Tour of Artifacts

What happens. Introduction and Presentation: damage as prompt, the VLM-based mobile workflow. Participants then walk through the artifacts on site, guided by the team.

What participants do. Open the workshop link on their phone or tablet. Take a first set of observations on each artifact and follow the workflow for one example file.

Deliverable. Each participant has the tool running on their device and an initial set of notes/photos for at least one artifact.


10:30–12:30 — Repair Strategy Generation

What happens. Each participant uses the mobile interface to:

  1. Capture inputs — photographs, short text descriptions, sketches, measurements of the chosen artifact and its damage.
  2. Inspect the spatial model — Participants verify it against the artifact.
  3. Prompt for repair strategies — generate at least two alternative procedural repair plans for the same damaged artifact.

Deliverable. A verified spatial model and ≥ 2 alternative repair strategies with their explicit step sequences.


12:30–13:30 — Lunch


13:30–14:30 — Consolidation and Zine Preparation

What happens. Refinement and comparison. Participants create final images or sketches of the repair and prepare the zines (small booklets).

What participants do. For all generated repair strategies, generate a zine:

Zine Generation - you can follow this link to create your own zine.

Deliverable. Per participant: a set of PDF A4 sheets, ready to print. Please upload the zine PDF and the zip files to drive.


14:30–15:30 — Results: Comparative Presentations

What happens. Each group presents the comparison, not a single answer. The presentation makes the trade-offs explicit: what is gained and lost across feasibility, care, and future use.

Deliverable. A shared body of compared strategies across all artifacts — the raw material for the discussion that follows.


15:30–17:00 — Guided Discussion with ETH Construction Heritage and Preservation

What happens. Laurence Crouzet, Wen-Shan Cui, and Adrian Pöllinger (ETH Zurich) respond to the proposals from the perspective of preservation practice, material knowledge, and established repair methodologies. The discussion moves between specific repair decisions and the broader questions the workshop raises: where does AI usefully augment repair work, where does it mislead, and what kinds of human judgment remain irreducible?

Outcome of the day. A documented set of compared strategies and a recorded conversation about how to read, weigh, and decide between them.