The Digital Spatial History Lab is dedicated to temporospatial analysis of historical and contemporary environments employing computational tools. We use digital historical methods to pose larger questions about society, religion, culture, or medicine by reading the built environment.
DSHL projects range from urban to building scale in spatial terms and from centuries to minutes in temporal terms. At present the DSHL focuses on the Mediterranean capitals of Rome and Istanbul from the thirteenth through the twenty-first century, using 3D simulation, VR, ontological modeling, mapping, and agent-based modeling.
The lab examines the street shrines of Rome as an expression of vernacular devotion, revealing hidden communities while exploring forces that shape individual devotion from politics, to urban infrastructure and tourism. The Istanbul project focuses on the history of Ottoman/Turkish psychiatry by analyzing and mapping medical spaces, and by reconstructing the daily life and medical routines within mental hospitals.
