IN-PERSON London Heritages. Section A

Abstract

This paper explores ways to create factual realities where history and imaginative play come together through a re-constructed visual and auditory story-scape overlayed on the digitized site remains via XR. Focusing on the Sagalassos Archaeological Site, we reimagine the visitor experience through a design-led approach that privileges narrative interpretation over mere digital realism. Rather than aiming for technological reconstruction, we investigate how fragmented architecture and layered histories can be transformed into a curated, affective narrative journey. Informed by discussions with our research team and domain experts, our early ideation and explorations in the architectural landscape of Sagalassos, including its terraced city plan, Roman baths, and upper agora, have led us to identify our own distinctive approach. Building upon findings from the archaeology team and additional resources we have developed a conceptual framework that informs thematic pathways. These pathways choreograph retrospective movement, perception, and interpretation, leveraging narrative personas inspired by local mythologies and symbolic roles. They guide visitors through emotional and conceptual engagements with space. Through abstraction, selective reconstruction, and scenographic design principles as core elements of heritage experience. Sagalassos becomes a site of interpretive resonance rather than representational accuracy, where design choices invite visitors to inhabit both the physical terrain and the imagined lives once embedded within it. The project positions spatial storytelling as a critical design practice that works with ambiguity and the unfinished, reshaping how archaeological sites can be experienced not as passive ruins, but as dynamic narrative landscapes. This work contributes to emerging dialogues in heritage design, proposing methodologies that center affect, aesthetics, and spatial dramaturgy in the crafting of contemporary heritage experiences.