## 4 Case Studies
### Digital Landscape and Community Involvement of the Bamiyan World Heritage (Afghanistan)  
The third case study incorporates HCI best practices in heritage documentation into broader regional development initiatives in Bamiyan, a valley located in central Afghanistan and known for the once-largest depictions of standing Buddha figures. The project thereby  
Figure 3: Prototyping a space at the service design lab with PowerPoint and ideating a concept for gesture interaction for projected 360 images. showcases the difficulties of managing and reconstructing CH at a landscape scale in post-conflict Afghanistan. Throughout its history, the country has been subject to internal and international wars and tensions [107; 108]. These historical continuities and discontinuities have resulted in the coexistence of traditional and modern social realities, with a diverse society rich in ethnicity, religion, and culture. Therefore, HCI-CH preservation methodologies must consider the shared and contested narratives in \"post-conflict\" situations to support long-lasting valorization efforts that sustain societal cohesion. The Taliban's destruction of the monumental standing [PERSON] figures of Bamiyama in 2001 [109; 110; 111] and the fall of the initial regime pushed the need to rebuild the destroyed infrastructure of the country, causing a multifaceted and global discussion. On the one hand, reconstructions are often used to restore a monument to its presumed original state before destruction, which may refer to an \"ideal state.\" On the other hand, some argue that monuments should be left as they were destroyed, preserving the traces of the conflict and all the layers of time to serve as memorials to war. To ensure long-term preservation, it is also essential to enable local people to benefit from modern development in post-conflict situations. Therefore, the inclusion of advanced visualization tools in planning technologies is essential to enable discourse and informed decision-making. Following the destruction of the [PERSON] figures, the entire _Cultural Landscape and Archaeological Remains of the Bamiyama Valley_ received UNESCO Cultural World Heritage status in 2003. This led to the implementation of an international safeguarding program (for details of the long-year safeguarding program, see [[https://whc.unesco.org/en/activities/2/](https://whc.unesco.org/en/activities/2/)]([https://whc.unesco.org/en/activities/2/](https://whc.unesco.org/en/activities/2/)), last accessed 18 June 2024) aimed at ensuring the long-term preservation of the site and its historical value, as stated in the nomination's Statement of Significance, as the most \"Western\" testimony of Buddhism in the Central Asian region and the center of early cross-cultural exchanges between China and India. However, for generations, local people have not attributed any religious significance to the figures, as Buddhism has not played a role in the region since the spread of Islam in the 11 th century [112]. The figures were no longer considered depictions of [PERSON]. Still, they had been reinterpreted and given new identities, integrated into the mythical story of the Bamiyama Valley's Islamization [113]. While rebuilding the country with massive international support, the Afghan national government decided to develop the Bamiyama Valley into a provincial capital and a commercial and residential hub for the entire central region of Afghanistan. One obstacle to realizing this vision was the lack of accurate data on the built environment due to outdated maps at an inadequate scale and uncertainty about the exact extent of the Cultural Landscape to be protected. To address this, a plan was needed to accurately depict the physical morphology of the valley's landscape and a methodology to identify the cultural and historic elements worthy of protection.