The research underlying this paper examines the variety of approaches taken to record and simulate Roman architectural spaces. I will consider different motivations for the linking of creative digital practises to architectural studies and introduce the core terminology, including the implications of alternative graphical processes which in turn define the anatomy of digital worlds. This modelling anatomy is one that has been artificially structured around a discrete sensory taxonomy and so this paper will problematize such an approach, suggesting we might concentrate more usefully in the nature of the encounters our modelling affords, the memories it evokes and creates and the impact of factors such as perceived status on the representation choices made for given examples of architecture.
Having modelled past environments, we are increasingly able to augment them, and to bring their digital manifestation into the physical world. The paper will therefore also point towards the consequences of this fluid interaction in the context of, for example, mixed reality, gamification and accessibility. Does our striving for visual or acoustic realism miss the opportunities of more expressive modes of interaction, where replication of physical phenomena is less significant than a reflection on the spaces as lived and as socially constructed?