Preservare e attivare patrimoni digitali : il caso CA–O–RD agli Archives de la construction moderne – EPFL. Communication présentée à Digitalizza la cultura 2025 : Partecipazione, diversità e patrimoni digitali, SUPSI, Manno, 30 octobre 2025

The “Digitalizza la cultura 2025” conference offered the Archives de la construction moderne (ACM) at EPFL an opportunity to present their work on the preservation and promotion of digital architectural archives. Founded in the late 1980s within the ENAC School, the ACM are dedicated to collecting, preserving, and providing access to the archives of architects and engineers, reconciling heritage preservation with the evolving needs of research. The digital transition—marked by the arrival of hybrid collections combining analogue documents and digital files—led to an initial assessment: more than 4 terabytes of data distributed across servers and obsolete media. These findings laid the groundwork for a sustainable preservation strategy tailored to the specific challenges of architectural archives. Launched in 2024 with the support of the Open Research Data program, the CA–O–RD project brought together two complementary tools: Morphé/AtoM for archival description and Archivematica for long-term digital preservation. Today, efforts focus on structuring and opening metadata in line with the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable), to strengthen interoperability and data reusability for research. This approach positions EPFL within a broader movement toward open science and the responsible stewardship of digital heritage.