Arches is an open source data management platform which makes it possible for meaningful organisational change. Jointly funded by the World Monument Fund and the Getty Conservation Institute, it has evolved into a powerful asset management and GIS tool.

Why Flax & Teal?

We have conducted Arches workshops with the Arches team to build a roadmap for integrating the Arches software with modern DevOps flows, and are the leading team in doing so.

As open source leaders, Arches naturally fits into our service expertise, we have run community events combining Arches platforms and Virtual Reality spaces, to push Arches’ technical capabilities.

We have utilised Arches not only for large cultural heritage institutions, but for research-based organisations focused on data management.

Digitally transforming cultural heritage

We are currently in the process of delivering a long-term digital transformation project for Northern Irish public sector, migrating all of their current and historic heritage- based data to a customised Arches HER (Historic Environment Record) instance.

They required a secure and accessible database capable of holding more than 200,000 records safely and without data loss. This has involved site visits, workshops and detailed data modelling exercises, and has been supported on the technology side by Kubernetes, Python-in-the-cloud, Ray data workflows and deployed to GKE.

• Kubernetes infrastructure flows

• Custom workflow development

• Custom dashboards for business processes

• Secure and stable development, staging and production instances

• Hosting available on-premise or in cloud

Stable and secure data repository for researchers

We have deployed, and are currently hosting, Arches as a data repository for a large- scale international cross-disciplinary research project on urban policy (Tomorrow’s Cities).

This involved interviewing a range of researchers, from social scientists to geologists, to establish a common base of requirements, and ensuring UKRI (UK Research and Innovation) compliant documentation and data management.

Tomorrow’s Cities is being conducted with a range of institutions in Scotland, Nepal, Kenya and Turkey and, indirectly, governmental stakeholders to inform risk management for urban disaster planning globally.