Issue 654: Review of CRMba

In the 57th CIDOC CRM & 50th FRBR/LRMoo SIG Meeting, the SIG resolved to start an issue where to discuss the scope of CRMba.

As it now stands, the model is not particularly relevant if one is not working from an excavation archaeology perspective, but one relating to risk analysis and architectural conservation (i.e., if they're not treating buildings as stratigraphic units but as as architectural units and cultural heritage units that require preservation/restauration). The SIG needs to explore if expanding the scope of CRMba is possible to allow describing architectural and conservation data, or if such a task calls for a new model. 

Things to consider: 

• CRMba was not supposed to be a part of CRMarchaeo in the first place; rather it concerned free-standing monuments (typically churches), not buildings embedded in archaeological layers.  
• However, CRMba depends on 5 classes from CRMarchaeo, which makes it a de facto model about building archaeology, which is about documenting observations concerning the development of structures; for instance, looking at the wall of a building and how deeply embedded it is in the ground in the present, how high from the ground it originally stood at, etc.  
• The Notre Dame case should ultimately be describable in terms of CRMba (a revision therefore is necessary).
• CRMba needs to be properly maintained and extensively reviewed to be brought into sync with CRMbase and extensions. At the moment, nobody is maintaining CRMba. 
  • Wrt sustainability: if no one is interested in maintaining a certain model, then the SIG should issue some statement that <Model Extension a> is compatible with CRMbase up to version 6.2.1 (f.i.); and <Model Extension b> up to version <x.y.z>.
  • PIN tried to use CRMba for conservation and risk analysis, but it was impossible to use. It was completely orthogonal to the perspective assumed by architects.
     

Decisions: 

• Contact Paola Ronzino to get additional information about the data used to validate CRMba (HW: AG)
• Form a group to review CRMba – in a separate issue. First create a road map, assign a time frame to do that, etc. (HW: TV to coordinate)