Workshop on energy efficient museum buildings

4 - 8 October 2010, in Copenhagen.

Teachers: Poul Klenz Larsen (National Museum of Denmark) and Tim Padfield (Consultant in museum climate), with contribution from Morten Ryhl-Svendsen (National Museum of Denmark). The course is held in association with the School of Conservation of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and the National Gallery of Denmark.

Language: English

Participants: 30 maximum, of which 10 will be students of the School of Conservation.

Because there is practical group work, the number of participants is limited.

On line registration. Email for enquiries: poul.klenz.larsen@privat.dk

Price: 600 euro

The price includes lunch and excursion

Payment details will be sent when you register.

Aim

To inform conservators, curators and museum managers about the basic science of climate control and building construction, so that they become better equipped to discuss technical details of building projects with architects and engineers. The motivation to offer this course is the perceived education gap between conservators and curators on the one hand and building engineers and architects on the other. The aim is to bring these two groups into discussion range and thus enrich the present system of exchanging stiff specifications with a measure of creative dialog.

Qualifications needed by course participants

None in particular. The teaching starts from a fundamental level, because the essential knowledge is not covered in most countries' standard education: notably atmospheric physics and building physics.

Reading list for the course

The lectures and readings for the course, all available in full text, are on this website, see the menu on the left.

Subjects covered

- Fundamentals of deterioration processes: the effects of temperature, humidity, light and air pollutants on the durability of materials, alone, in composites and in the museum building itself.

- Building physics fundamentals which are relevant to museum building (thermal and moisture effects).

- Fundamentals of air conditioning technology, including energy saving and simple methods, all the way towards doing absolutely nothing.

- Discussion of the validity, influence and scope of the standards that specify the ideal, or the acceptable, museum environment.

The practical exercise

Participants are grouped into teams of four or five, each of which is charged with designing a museum with associated storage in a particular climatic region. The climate is provided in the form of tables and graphs.

This exercise is interspersed with the formal lectures so that design considerations mentioned in lectures merge naturally with the sequence of decisions made by the groups.