Digital preservation of Fijian Indigenous architecture: 3D modelling for disaster preparedness and heritage conservation

Abstract This study presents the digital documentation of traditional Fijian architectural heritage through an in-depth investigation of the bure , Fiji’s indigenous house, focusing on three distinct bure types in Navala village. Although the bure has long been recognised for its cultural significance and demonstrated capacity to respond to environmental conditions and natural hazards, its continued construction is increasingly limited by urbanisation, shifts in contemporary building practices, and the progressive loss of traditional craftsmanship. These changes highlight the need to preserve not only the remaining physical examples of bure houses, but also the construction knowledge embedded within their form and assembly. This study applies an integrated digital documentation workflow combining terrestrial photogrammetry, UAV-based imaging, and LiDAR scanning to record selected bure houses that remain in good structural condition. The acquired datasets were processed to produce registered point clouds with millimetre-level accuracy, high-resolution mesh models, three-dimensional visualisations, and CAD drawings suitable for long-term digital archiving. Together, these outputs provide a detailed and verifiable record of architectural geometry, construction details, and spatial organisation. While the primary objective of the research is documentation, the resulting digital archive establishes a foundation for future applications, including post-disaster reconstruction, the transmission of construction knowledge, and improved structural understanding to support hazard response in disaster-prone contexts. The study is novel in that it presents the first high-resolution digital documentation of these bure types, explicitly situating traditional Fijian architecture within discussions of disaster resilience and proposing a transferable documentation workflow for Pacific Indigenous heritage. The outcomes offer a valuable resource for researchers, educators, conservation practitioners, policy makers, and disaster response agencies concerned with both cultural heritage preservation and resilience-oriented planning.