Through the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Early Career Research Grant scheme, we have secured funding to develop the project further. Using the grant, we will scan vaults at five further sites, bring in an additional researcher and technician, archive our data digitally and make it available publicly, create a travelling exhibition with associated outreach events at key sites, support the publication of a book, as well as enabling a second symposium on vaults with research and industry partners.
We will continue to use digital technologies to identify and explore the geometries of medieval vaults at key sites in England, enabling new readings of gothic design and construction. The grant will focus on the design process of masons and clients, particularly how practical 2D geometries are projected into 3D, as well as issues of construction such as stone-cutting, installing scaffolding and formwork, structural issues and site management. We will also investigate factors leading to innovation in vault design, when and where these occurred, as well as the transfer of ideas in the above areas across sites of vaulting locally, nationally and internationally.
The AHRC funded project ‘Tracing the past: analysing the design and construction of English medieval vaults using digital techniques’ will commence in September 2018 lasting until February 2021.
