RE-WRITING THE CONSTRUCTION HISTORY OF BOUGHTON HOUSE (NORTHAMPTONSHIRE, UK) WITH THE HELP OF DOCU-TOOLS®

Abstract. The tablet-based software docu-tools digitize the documentation of buildings, simplifies construction and facility management and the data analysis in building and construction-history research. As a plan-based software, ‘pins’ can be set to record data (images, audio, text etc.), each data point containing a time and date stamp. Once a pin is set and information recorded, it can never be deleted from the system, creating clear contentious-free documentation. Reports to any/all data recorded can immediately be generated through various templates in order to share, document, analyze and archive the information gathered. The software both digitizes building condition assessment, as well as simplifies the fully documented management and solving of problems and monitoring of a building. Used both in the construction industry and for documenting and analyzing historic buildings, docu-tools is a versatile and flexible tool that has become integral to my work as a building historian working on the conservation and curating of the historic built environment in Europe. I used the software at Boughton House, Northamptonshire, UK, during a one-year research project into the construction history of the building. The details of how docu-tools was used during this project will be discussed in this paper.