Resilient Storage: Enabling Heritage Institutions to Effectively Manage High-performance Storage Areas

Abstract

Heritage institutions find themselves increasingly compelled to lower costs related to energy use, without disowning their primary task of optimally preserving the collections they are entrusted with. Now, more than ever, resilience, autonomy and cost-effectiveness are key to managing heritage sustainably. With over 1,000 museums in Belgium, the energy savings that its institutions may obtain by optimising their indoor climate management represents an important opportunity to alleviate strain on institutional budgets, and to help reach the ambitious energy-saving goals Belgium and the EU have set for themselves. Heritage institutions must be proactive in implementing such strategies, choosing from among a long list of measures to optimise their climate systems and indoor environments. This can be an overwhelming task. Indeed, museums and heritage institutions often lack in-house expertise to tackle these issues, which is why clear, practical and intuitive protocols, tools and concrete examples are required. As a case study and presentation of research-in-progress, this article describes Resilient Storage, a Belgian project that aims to validate a protocol to optimise the functioning of climate systems in museum storage areas. Developed by the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA) and KU Leuven, Resilient Storage assembles an interdisciplinary team of public representatives, museum staff and experts in energy performance and conservation. It aims to help stakeholders optimise storage area management, simultaneously reducing its carbon footprint and optimising its preservation conditions. Resilient Storage aims to unearth synergies among these stakeholders, promote collaboration, develop a common language and transmit expertise to Belgian's small and medium-sized museums.

Keywords:

• storage areas
• energy performance
• preventive conservation
• protocol
• national strategy, case studies

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to warmly thank the partners of Resilient Storage: FARO, Vlaams steunpunt voor cultureel erfgoed, Musées et Société en Wallonie (MSW), urban.brussels, the Belgian Comic Strip Centre, the FeliXart Museum, ICOM Belgique Wallonie-Bruxelles and ICOM Belgium Flanders. Their unique expertise enriches the project.

This project would not have been possible without the financial support of the Brussels-Capital Region (urban.brussels), the Flemish Government (Department Jeugd, Cultuur en Media) and the Fédération-Wallonie Bruxelles. We warmly extend our thanks.

Notes

1 Passive standard building and energy consumed 15 kWh/m2/year maximum. Directive PEB (2010/31/UE), LUE, 2010, Art. 9.

2 All the Belgian and Walloon cultural institutions listed on the Portail Wallonie Museum (http://www.federationwallonie-bruxelles.be/) were contacted by e-mail. Of the 342 institutions contacted, only 250 email addresses were valid. At the closing date of the survey, we had collected 47 answers (18.8 per cent) (De Bruyn 2017). Similar problems affect Flemish institutions, as highlighted by the data gathered by the Fonds Culturele Infrastructuur (FoCi, a funding program for improving the Flemish infrastructure) and observations made by the KIK-IRPA Preventive Conservation Unit during the RE-ORG Belgium programmes (KIK-IRPA 2018).

3 As a National Committee, ICOM Belgium has the particularity of being divided in two sub-committees, ICOM Belgium Flanders (for the Flemish community) and ICOM Belgique Wallonie-Bruxelles (for the French community).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Geert Bauwens

Geert Bauwens is project lead at CHARP and Postdoctoral Researcher at KU Leuven. He holds a Master’s degree of Applied Sciences and Engineering: Architecture. After completing his architecture internship at BOB361 Architects in Brussels, he undertook PhD research which involved measuring and analysing the actual energy performance of buildings. During his years as a PhD candidate he was secretary of the IEA EBC Annex 58 project. He currently leads a subtask of the IEA EBC Annex 71 project. At the end of 2015, he founded the CHARP incubation project, which offers services and develops software to monitor energy performance and indoor climate within buildings.

Estelle De Bruyn.

Estelle De Bruyn is Project Manager of the KIK–IRPA’s Emergency Plan and Project Coordinator of Resilient Storage and Climate2Preserv. She focuses on the translation of sustainability in heritage work. Her projects aim at developing concrete initiatives to assist the Belgian cultural sector in initiating a sustainable transition. She earned a degree in conservation-restoration of graphic art works from ENSAV La Cambre in Belgium, and became a specialist in preventive conservation through internships at the Canadian Conservation Institute and ICCROM. She joined the Preventive Conservation Unit of the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK–IRPA) in 2018, where she works as a scientific collaborator.