Characteristic damage concentration: a new damage index for historic interiors

A crack-by-crack documentation and characterization of damage for historic interiors is often an extremely resource-intensive process resulting in either the investment of an enormous amount of resources or a low-quality record. Neither situation readily lends itself to longitudinal studies. To overcome this situation, a new damage documentation system is devised for the recording and categorization of damage for the interior spaces of historic structures. In this paper, the system is presented in the context of an early 20th century American church that was experiencing on-going damage. The structure was evaluated three times over a six-year period. The graphical results enable visualization of the progression of damage over time and an acute understanding as to its spatial distribution.