The aim of the research project “Modeling the Morphology and Dynamics of Roman Mediterranean Port Cities,” funded by the LABEX Intelligence des Mondes Urbains of the University of Lyon, is to reconstruct lost urban spaces of antiquity while facilitating possible interactions between two scientific communities often brought together in our field: archaeologists and architect-computer scientists. It focuses primarily on a collaborative and interactive environment allowing these communities to interact by jointly and incrementally formalizing the scientific hypotheses that will serve to reconstruct the studied urban and port spaces in three dimensions. The concerted formalization of an urban space at a given period requires numerous interactions: verbal exchanges, visual demonstrations, iconographic comparisons, and morphological hypotheses. It is nourished by expansive preliminary documentary work constituting a state of knowledge at a given moment. However, we believe that when it comes to collaborating between heterogeneous communities, whose words, descriptions, understanding, and interpretation of space draw from different visual and scientific cultures, 3D visualization alone—as detailed and eloquent as it may be—is unable to provide the same interpretative keys to different disciplines. Debates pertaining to synthetic images, for instance, may deprive those who fail to master digital tools of a nuanced space of expression, which can ultimately unbalance the interpretations and shaping of the studied spaces. We have therefore decided to reconsider the nature of this interaction space by reinventing the REACTABLE© (Reactable Project Homepage, https://reactable.com/, last accessed 2025/05/13.), which is essentially a backlit translucent horizontal surface on which tangible objects are placed in order to manifest the appearance of their digital 3D double on a large screen, for example. Echoing what D. Schön calls the “reflective conversation with the materials of the situation” characteristic of the mental disposition of individuals in situations of exchange and debate, we endeavor to enrich possible levels of interaction between transdisciplinary communities by using concept-objects belonging to the real world that allow each individual around the table to participate in exchanges bolstered by the same capacity for interaction.
Imagining Roman Port Cities: From Iconographic Evidence to 3D Reconstruction
This paper investigates how ancient iconographic evidence can support the digital reconstruction of Roman Mediterranean port cities whose waterfront architectures are now largely lost or fragmentary. The study combines archaeological data, historical texts, and a corpus of more than 260 ancient visual sources—including frescoes, mosaics, coins, reliefs, engraved stones, and glass flasks—to identify recurring symbols, urban forms, and architectural typologies associated with Roman ports. Rather than treating images as literal depictions, the authors interpret them critically as coded representations that can still reveal elevations, monuments, warehouses, piers, and scenographic waterfront compositions absent from surviving remains. To translate this knowledge into spatial hypotheses, the research employs parametric and generative modelling tools capable of producing multi-scale urban simulacra and testing alternative reconstructions. User-friendly modelling interfaces are developed to enable archaeologists to directly manipulate hypotheses without relying exclusively on technical specialists. The project demonstrates how procedural 3D environments can become analytical instruments for understanding vanished port landscapes, urban morphology, and the role of harbours in the Roman imperial world.