Boost that GPA Re/Cappers, your lead story’s off to Harvard for a 3D exhibit taking breaths away from anyone who loves ancient architecture, photogrammetry, history, mesmerizing mysteries, and innovative approaches to old disciplines.
The subject of the exhibit? France’s Cluny, the age and story of which place it high in the running to be the GOAT of monasteries.
But while Harvard’s reality capture and exhibit encompass Cluny rather than exclusively fixate on it, the sacred ruins are no stranger to documentation, or even augmented reality…
…by almost 15 years.
In 2011, a multidisciplinary team from Arts et Métiers ParisTech and CNRS (
French National Center for Scientific Research) captured Cluny's surviving remains and decorative fragments. They used a FARO poly-articulated arm with a Metris ModelMaker probe to achieve sub-millimeter accuracy for lapidary elements like capitals and friezes. This included scans of fragments from the destroyed Gothic façade, enabling the reconstruction of an 8-meter-diameter rose window based on curved stone blocks.
The workflow involved merging 1,600+ scanned files into a unified 3D model, integrating hypothetical elements like choir stalls for 270 monks based on historical records. The team developed real-time AR models and pre-computed simulations, enabling immersive visualization of the nave, portal, and choir. Four on-site AR terminals allowed visitors to overlay digital reconstructions onto physical ruins, while a 15-minute stereoscopic film contextualized the abbey’s original grandeur.
By combining engineering, archaeology, and digital imaging, Arts et Métiers ParisTech established a benchmark in heritage digitization, and transformed public and academic understanding of Cluny.
As for Arts et Métiers ParisTech? Oh, nothing big, they’ve just developed a reputation as big as Cluny at its peak, for “high-speed machining, digital modelling and virtual imaging.” - straight from a campus ON CLUNY ABBEY. And now as we’ll soon highlight, a different campus on another continent is writing a new chapter of the Cluny chronology, this time commemorating the man who a century ago laid the groundwork.
So the next time someone says Clooney looks good, thanks to reality capture, you can one-up ‘em with an even better looking one. C’est bon!
(French language video, but worth!)
What’s Cappenin’ This Week
Time is relentless. Great structures rise and fall, leaving behind fragments - some physical, others in memory. Reconstructing the past has always meant relying on sketches, speculation, and the fallibility of human perception. But today, reality capture allows us to turn ruins into digital records more enduring than stone itself. And some Harvard heroism is proving it, while extolling the man whose early 1900s efforts made it all possible.
Harvard might be an institution. But it’s now a portal too. Image credit The Harvard Gazette
The college’s Envisioning Cluny: Kenneth Conant and Representations of Medieval Architecture, 1872-2025 exhibition showcases the tale of Cluny III. This colossal medieval abbey once dwarfed Notre Dame, but was nearly obliterated after the French Revolution.
While early 20th-century historian Kenneth Conant painstakingly mapped its remains by hand, modern Harvardites have built upon his work using photogrammetry, generating hyper-accurate 3D models of the site. For a medieval mystery and beautiful homage to human and history alike, travel back in time below with The Harvard Gazette’s six-minute read with superb visuals (psst; Sketchfab models near the end!)
Late 2024 saw a bunch of mysterious crafts flood the sky. 2025 has already experienced how delicate our airspace can be. And any Re/Capper not new in town knows the profusion of industries with growing drone intrigue. So, there’s not a scenario in which the skyrocketing of drone flights is not dangerous - it inherently sorta is, given the inevitable combination of ineptitude and bad actors.
But who better to safeguard our drones, than the crack techies and pilots of NASA? Probably no one, if this IASMS - a spinoff of the image below - is any indicator.
NASA may always look to the stars, but they sure are looking out for us. Image credit Unmanned Airspace
The aerospace aces are making heavy progress with the In-time Aviation Safety Management System, which will provide real-time monitoring, assessment, and risk mitigation for operators who may have nada to do with NASA. A key goal of IASMS is to transition safety assurance from a manual, reactive approach to an automated, proactive system; good lookin’ out AI & ML anomaly detection! The most promising and perhaps surprising development so far? A 12-pilot BVLOS simulation framed around hurricane relief and recovery.
NASA’s four-minute read below details the many experiments, the help of colleges, wildfires and package delivery, the Advanced Air Mobility mission, electric taxis, and a whole payload more.
The chart of construction robots’ expected growth probably resembles that of LinkedIn AI images - más, más, más! Explosive urbanization and industrialization, safety, an aging construction workforce, and the almighty dollar have catalyzed ConBot desire.
The outlet Unite.ai noticed as much, and compiled their creme of the construction bot crop into a rigorous top 5 list.
The coolest pile driver since the advent of professional wrestling. Image credit Built Robotics
Each entry presents a granular overview followed by key features. The bots that beckon include a BIM processor extraordinaire, a surveyor that adores danger and complexity, a pile driving revelation on solar farms, a precision and endurance powerhouse that thrives on crappy terrain, and a would-be Olympic gold medalist if rebar tying ever got greenlit. Drill down on ‘em all below, with mega-company case studies and nitty gritty specs galore. Note - Unite.ai mentioned there may be compensatory links in their review.
A perfect circle ain’t really achievable in our physical world; And there certainly can’t be a perfect circular economy in AEC. But digital twins are getting us closer than ever before, primarily through resource management, energy efficiency, and predictive knowledge (a fun exhibit A resides in Cairo, with Macau boasting its own sustainable gem seen below).
Macau’s Morpheus Hotel twinned to reduce its steel use. Image credit Front
Parametric Architecture’s recent six-minute read specifies how this only grows in importance each day energy and resources remain finite. Not to mention that resource extraction is costly, time-consuming, and potentially sensitive to supply chain fissures.
The sizable piece begins with a meticulous seven steps for optimal twin deployment, graduates to benefits and challenges, detours to the McKinsey Three Horizon Model of Growth, and wraps with stunning examples and future outlooks - all through the prism of infusing sustainability with human ability.
Mile High Mayhem: Denver International Airport’s Automated Baggage System. Image credit Upgraded Points
For an airport rife with conspiracy theories, Denver International sure could have conspired better in 1995!
Toy Story is in theaters, Windows 95 is rebooting the world, and the Mile High hub is fixin’ to drop the tech equivalent of tariffs on stock markets. Say hi to the Automated Baggage System, a $560 million cautionary tale of innovation outpacing integration, a complex web of unproven technology, siloed stakeholders, a lack of real-world testing, and good ol’ fashioned hubris.
The system promised to whisk 60,000 bags daily through 21 miles of track using 4,000 autonomous carts, but it ended up as a derailed train of malfunctions, misread barcodes, and software crashes that left bags circling the airport like lost souls in a Tetris apocalypse.
The system’s collapse began with a slew of warnings, and fatal misalignment between design and reality. Architects finalized terminal layouts before engineers could map optimal baggage routes, forcing the automated carts to navigate hairpin turns never meant for high-speed logistics. By 1994, the project was already in freefall. A rushed media demo laid bare the chaos: carts collided at full speed, shredding bags and spewing clothes across tracks.
Unproven barcode scanners misread tags, sending skis to Miami and Speedos to Siberia. The software, tasked with coordinating 4,000 autonomous carts, buckled under complexity, triggering system-wide crashes during routine operations. Engineers, scrambling to meet deadlines, slashed cart speeds by 50% to reduce derailments. When the airport finally opened 16 months tardy, the “automated marvel” served just one concourse, handling only outbound United Airlines flights. The rest relied on a manual backup cobbled together in desperation. The system was phased out in 2005, replaced by a conventional alternative.
The DIA debacle wasn’t a failure of technology, but integration. Architects, engineers, and software developers operated in silos, each optimizing their piece while the system crumbled. Modern reality capture tools dissolve such isolation, forcing stakeholders to confront shared risks through shared data. Let’s tackle a few.
Clash detection: BIM could have exposed spatial conflicts between building geometry and baggage tracks, eliminating deadly sharp turns.
Digital twins: Simulating cart movements at scale would have revealed software bottlenecks and mechanical stress points, averting real-world carnage.
IoT sensors: Real-time monitoring of track alignment and cart performance could have flagged emerging failures, replacing reactive chaos with predictive maintenance.
Imagine a world where LiDAR scans of the terminal’s skeleton informed iterative track designs, where augmented reality overlays allowed contractors to see baggage routes during construction, where AI analyzed cart telemetry to predict jams before they occurred.
The airport’s baggage nightmare reminds us: innovation without integration is just expensive theater. Every scan, sensor, and simulation exists to answer one question - “What are we not seeing?”Because in AEC, the unseen is where disasters begin.
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