Passively conditioned zero-energy storage for cultural properties and archival material

Many types of archival material and cultural heritage objects can only be preserved in an adequate store or archive. Most museums continue to collect but the space to store growing collections is rarely expanded, and in many cases it may even be reduced in favour of additional exhibition space. Archives face a comparable situation. Every archive has the duty to conserve historical documents, which results in hundreds of kilometres of new archival documents every year to be stored and preserved. The probability that during an archivist’s lifetime a new archive building will be built or the existing one will have to be extended is about 100 %. Museums designed in the last 40 years are characterised by a series of specific functions. However, as all architectural typologies are subject to a process of change and modernisation, museums have also evolved over time to become more complex. Museums have changed from spaces of permanent exhibition, storage and conservation to public places with various functions including permanent and temporary exhibitions, study and science, storage and conservation, restaurants, commercial and education facilities and other multi-use activities. During this development, provision of sufficient storage space for collections has occasionally been overlooked. Few museums are able to store their entire collections permanently inside their main buildings. Large parts of museum or archive collections may be located in off-site storage, where they can be exposed to significant risks of damage. Although storage is at the heart of a museum’s function, in some cases surprisingly little attention is paid to providing adequate storage conditions. International standards prescribe tight climate control values, which lead to energy- and cost- consuming airconditioning systems. However, these systems do not achieve the desired results for collections nor are they affordable in the long term. Even in times of reduced cultural budgets and rising energy prices many museums and archives pour resources into unique and expensive buildings designed to meet those climate requirements and satisfy design aesthetics. Extensive heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems are installed to achieve stable environments and the high energy and maintenance costs are accepted. This situation was the starting point for a study in 2011 at the Fraunhofer-Institute for Building Physics (IBP). Its main focus was on passively conditioned zero-energy storage and archive buildings. The objective was to develop an economical and sustainable solution for a zero-energy building, which achieved conservation requirements, neutral energy balance and modular design. The Fraunhofer-Institute designed a new zero-energy storage system with the following research objectives: 1. Easy and economical storage and archive solutions 2. Sustainable planning 3. Multipliable concepts by modular components 4. Cost-efficiency by applying prefabricated construction elements 5. Providing market-ready energy-efficient concepts. Museums and archives are repositories of knowledge for a modern society; therefore, energy-efficient solutions for these buildings are necessary to maintain valued collections over generations. The results of the study demonstrate that zero-energy storage systems are possible and that technical solutions are partially ready for the market.