Assets
The directory of physical heritage: buildings, sites, monuments, objects, and landscapes.
OpenApplication
Heritage Community Builder
Tangible and intangible heritage in one shared record: buildings, sites, and objects side by side with living practices and stories, documented and governed by the communities and institutions who care for them.
- Communities and custodians
- Storytellers and practitioners
- Cultural institutions
- Heritage authorities
- Municipalities
- Experts and conservators
Physical heritage and living heritage belong together: a chapel and its feast day, a workshop and its craft, a square and the market held on it for centuries. This application keeps them in one record, so that documenting a place never strips it of the practices, voices, and people that make it matter.
Communities govern the living side (access classes, consent, attribution, benefit sharing) while institutions bring verified records, validation, and conservation care to the physical side. Both meet on the same trust ladder.
What it does
Capabilities
- Heritage asset directory for buildings, sites, objects, and landscapes
- Living practice profiles with custodian management
- Oral histories and audio and video stories, with opt-in transcription
- Community documentation alongside institutional records, clearly distinguished
- Condition, risk, and climate information for physical heritage
- 3D models and digital twins managed with their rights
- Consent per item and per purpose, revocable, with custodian approvals
- Access classes from public to sacred; AI training off by default
- Expert validation and community review on one trust ladder
- Map views with sensitivity controls and non-map alternatives
Step by step
An example journey
- A community and its municipality open one shared space for a historic quarter and the traditions that live in it.
- Buildings and objects are registered with photographs and records; practices and stories are added by their custodians.
- Consent is set item by item, from public to community-only to sacred; AI transcription is offered, never imposed.
- Contributions move up the trust ladder through community review and expert validation, with every step recorded.
- Condition reports and risk flags keep the physical side cared for, while transmission events keep the living side alive.
Built-in safeguards
Rights and AI in this application
One trust ladder covers everything: institutionally verified, expert-reviewed, community-contributed, AI-assisted, unverified, disputed, restricted, and intangible heritage is never open data by default.
Verification ladder AI always labelled
Where AI is involved: AI here assists with suggestions, transcription, and translation only, always opt-in, always labelled, never trained on community content without an explicit permission, and never a substitute for custodian or expert judgement.
Go deeper
Inside this application
Practices
Living heritage practice profiles, governed by their custodians.
OpenStories
Oral histories and audio and video stories, with opt-in transcription and translation.
OpenDocumentation
Community documentation and institutional records side by side, including condition, risk, 3D models, and digital twins.
OpenConsent
Consent per item and per purpose, from public to sacred, always revocable.
OpenValidation
Community review and expert validation on one trust ladder.
OpenDashboard
The custodian and institutional view: assets, practices, consent, validation, and care.
OpenHelp us shape this platform
We're looking for municipalities, museums, communities, and creators who want to put these ideas to work. If that sounds like you, we'd love to talk.