It's been over seven months since the wildfire ripped through Lahaina, destroying or damaging more than 2,000 structures, including the centuries-old historic buildings that earned the town a National Historic Landmark designation.
While state officials have said rebuilding West Maui's town could take three to five years, there have been calls to build much of the damaged sections to their original stature.
Students at the University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa School of Architecture have learned to recreate facilities using artificial intelligence and virtual 3D modeling through a course called "Rebuilding Lahaina in Mixed Reality."
The class is taught by professors Hyoung-June Park and Kyung Hoon Hyun in collaboration with the school's dean, William Chapman.
"Using this digital heritage technology aids people in creating or reconstructing a building more accurately," said Hyun, a design computing specialist from Hanyang University in South Korea.
The UH class has about a dozen students working on recreating some of Lahaina's historic buildings, including the Wo Hing Society Hall, the Baldwin House, the Masters' Reading Room and the Old Lahaina Courthouse.
According to Hyun, students used the same technologies as experts did to redesign the Notre Dame Cathedral that burned in Paris in 2019. Builders, architects and engineers have used cutting-edge technology to work with 3D models of buildings and their surrounding areas.
"We want students to expand their creativity to think of more than simply rebuilding what was destroyed, but also what they can do with this new 3D model that they created," Hyun said. "They can add values or communal experiences within the community of Lahaina."
The project's primary goals include preservation through memory and engagement through sharing, according to Park.
"Preservation through memory is like not only we want to have a photo-realistic reconstruction of the building itself, but also at the same time we want to share the experience people had in the previous buildings," Park said.
He explained that the advancement of such technology would allow people to view Lahaina remotely as it was before the Aug. 8 wildfire — and interact with sounds and avatars.
Jennifer Rodriguez Flores, a senior majoring in environmental design at the School of Architecture, said the course helped her understand the importance of historic preservation through architecture.
"This course is helping us become more aware of how relevant and important all this technology is going to be used and how relevant and important it is in the future."
She said the most challenging part of the project — she and her group worked on at the Wo Hing Society Hall — was finding updated documents.
"It was a bit difficult to make it completely accurate," she said. "But I think there was a lot of success because we are very detail-oriented."
While the project focused on a few historic buildings, Chapman said much more could be done using AI and 3D virtual modeling.
"You can take it back to different eras, and visit Lahaina in 1840, visit Lahaina in 1900, and visit Lahaina just before the fire," he said. "I think those are all potentials."
