41st IAHS WORLD CONGRESS

Sustainability and Innovation for the Future

13-16th September 2016
Albufeira, Algarve, Portugal

BIOCLIMATIC MUSEUM ARCHITECTURE IN HISTORIC

BUILDINGS: NEW CHALLENGES FOR SUSTAINABLE
ARCHITECTURE IN BRAZIL
Marina Byrro Ribeiro * and Louise Land Bittencourt Lomardo

School of Architecture and Urbanism

Fluminense Federal University/UFF, Niterói, Brazil
e-mail: marinabyrro@gmail.com, e-mail :louiselbl@gmail.com
web: http://www.labceca.uff.br

Keywords: Museum Architecture, Bioclimatic Architecture, Heritage, Museum Environment,

Preventive Conservation

Abstract In Brazil, the large number of museums installed in previously existing

buildings, produced by different proposals and architectural answers, have demanded
frequent studies and evaluations to better facilitate their operations. One of the most
important conflicts that need to be solved by architecture in a museum installed in historic
buildings is caused by the inner microclimate created by the construction and its
interference in the preventive conservation of collections. Additionally, we must respect
the historic building because it is part of the heritage. It’s needed to develop an
evaluation methodology that considers different interferences in the museum architecture
in historic buildings, in order to have a tool for decision-making involving utilization
requirements and the environmental performance of the buildings, aiming to use heritage
to leverage sustainable development.
To obtain the environmental indicators for museum in traditional buildings, it’s proposed
in our ongoing doctorate the use the Bioclimatic Diagram, including recommended
strategies to achieve conditions of environmental comfort. The environment control
parameters for objects are included inside the zone of comfort. This Bioclimatic Diagram
can also be used to assist corrections in buildings in order to achieve favorable
conditions for environmental control. Besides these parameters, safe values of lighting for
conservation of collections can also be plotted in a Tridimensional Diagram.
Measurements of climate parameters (temperature, relative humidity and lighting) in
three different locations, at the same area in the city of Rio de Janeiro, through
dataloggers placed in two museums and one outdoor area, have also been conducted in
our work.

The bioclimatic strategy has consolidated tools for environmental analysis that can be
used for the development of sustainable museum architecture in existing buildings in
Brazil.
 Marina Byrro Ribeiro and Louise Land B. Lomardo

1. INTRODUCTION
In Brazil the interest in museums is growing steadily, and in the beginning of the century
there was a significant importance that resulted in the creation of a specific body to take care
of the Brazilian museums, the Brazilian Institute of Museums / IBRAM, in the scope of the
Brazilian Ministry of Culture, that increased the visibility and importance of museum
architecture, not only as a result of the international influence of creation and renovation of
museums, but also due to the demand by Brazilian citizens for culture and entertainment.
The architecture that spatially enables the museum also presents various aspects of conflict
involving different fields of knowledge involved in museums. This article discusses one of
those areas that challenge the architects’ innovative solutions in the museums: the creation of
microclimate for architecture museums and its interference in preventive conservation of
collections stored there.
Questions concerning the architecture, the museum and heritage came into existence in Brazil
from the nineteenth century with the arrival of the Portuguese Court and the French Mission.
In 1818 it was created the Royal Museum, which was installed in existing buildings in the
Garden in the city of Rio de Janeiro. It consisted of part of the collection of the Royal
Museum of the Lisbon Ajuda, thereby configuring the first Brazilian museum, limitedly open
to the public in the field of Natural History [1] . Subsequently, to the present day as National
Museum, moved to the Palace of Saint Christopher, the former residence of the emperors, a
clear alignment with the French cultural policy of installation of museums in historic
buildings and strengthening of national identity.
To understand the architecture of museums that has been produced in Brazil since the early
nineteenth century, it is necessary to know the different levels of connection between
museums and existing buildings. In the early twentieth century, in 1937, it was created in
Brazil the Service of National Artistic Heritage / SPHAN [2] which consolidated the political
will aiming to preserve Brazil's historical heritage. In practice it was the institutional
framework of the exercise of heritage architect activity in Brazil, which had as one of its tasks
the creation of other national museums. So it was reaffirmed the partnership between
museums and preserved historic buildings, which led to various experiences of existing
spaces adaptations to the museum function, and the architecture developed to get this goal.
But not only historic buildings were used for the installation of museums. Ancient and
symbolic buildings in several cities, although not protected by conservation laws, were
selected to become museums, mainly at local and regional level.
We note the presence of large amount of existing buildings occupied by museums through the
information contained in the National Museums Register – CNM [3], conducted by the
Brazilian Institute of Museums IBRAM. By October 2013 this registration identified 3,462
museums [4] in Brazil.
From this set, 1,668 sent additional information to the database and, in the case of 1,607
institutions, this information included the characteristics of the buildings where they were
located, what permitted to know that 1,337, or 83.2% of registered Brazilian museums,
occupy buildings that had other previous uses to the current one, i.e., they are adapted
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 Marina Byrro Ribeiro and Louise Land B. Lomardo

buildings.
1607 MUSEUMS
REPORTED ABOUT 270 museum buildings
THEIR BUILDINGS -16,8%

1337 museums building - 83,2%

adapted for museum use

Fig. 1: Museums registered and their buildings

1337 MUSEMS REPORTED ABOUT THEIR

PREVIOUSLY EXISTING BUILDINGS

482 museums - 36,1%

protected by law

855 museums - 63,9%

old building

Fig. 2: Previously existing and historical buildings museums

From these 1,337 museums occupying adapted buildings, we know through the CNM that 482
informed that they have some kind of legal protection for its preservation.
The CNM also shows that from the 1,607 museums that informed about their buildings, 390
have air conditioning, and 1,217 lack this device.

REGISTEREDMUSEUM
1668 390 Museum with
Air Conditioning
instaled - 23,38%

1278 Museums without Air

Conditioning instaled -
76,62%

Fig. 3: Museums registered and air conditioning

Other piece of information relevant to understand the relationship between museum and
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historic or old building, and the microclimate created inside these museums, is the presence of
air conditioning equipment installed. As cited, we have found that only 23.38% of registered
museums have climatize their internal space by installing mechanical equipment of air
conditioning. Taking into account the cost of installation and maintenance of such equipment,
as well as the power consumption, the air conditioning system has relevant budget impact in
museums, mainly the ones of medium and small size in Brazil.
Some institutions manage to get resources for installation of air conditioning equipment, but
cannot keep them working well. Frequently individual domestic conditioners, more
affordable, are used, although they are not the best technical solution for the internal
environment. The better climatizing option of central air conditioning, generally adopted in
larger museums in historic buildings, also raises problems due to aggressive interventions that
can lead, as seeking to hide pipes and equipment in old building structures.
In Brazil the environmental adaptations of museums in old buildings begin to seek new
experiences, to examine sustainable practices and to use bioclimatic strategies for creating
human comfort conditions and environmental control for collections. But there has been
difficult to use directly preventive conservation data of collections as architectural design
parameters. The challenge is to create a methodology to facilitate the application of
conservation parameters in sintony with other demands and the creation in the museums of
adaptation projects to pre-existing buildings.

2. PREVENTIVE CONSERVATION OF MUSEUM COLLECTIONS

We can thus see the need for studies involving the museum architecture adapted to
existing buildings, historical or not, that reconcile preservation criteria for building and
collection, indicating areas of intervention.
To preserve the building, to cope with the new uses by public and with increasing
activities, to monitor the dynamic evolution of the city, to preserve the museum
collections housed in the building, all these activities have their own studies inside
specific fields and with their own difficulties, and are often treated in independent ways,
although all of them interfere in many aspects with the life of the cultural building.
A major challenge for the museum architecture developed in Brazil is to connect areas of
knowledge that have developed separately, such as preventive conservation and
bioclimatic architecture, in order to increase the range of architectural solutions adopted
in a particular museum. The interconnection of measured data and environmental analysis
provides information on the old building performance as a climate agent, and knowledge
of the microclimate created, and so makes tools that permit to create stable environmental
conditions in the museum space.
So our challenge is to conceive a methodology to assist decision making in architectural
design of pre-existing adapted museums. We have used the example of historic buildings,
since they are the most restrictive.
First we have tried to identify the parameters of preventive conservation of museum
collections. Preventive Conservation consists of a set of measures and actions that do not
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interfere with the structure and material goods, and that aim to prevent and minimize
future deterioration or loss [5]. The practical application of preventive conservation
involves indirect actions, acting on what surrounds the object that is inscribed in a cultural
environment.
But there is a great diversity of approaches regarding environmental limits to ensure
preconditions for conservation in museums. We have adopted as a guide the work of
Lukasz Bratasz, a researcher at the Polish Academy of Sciences, who took part of a
research group in cultural heritage, which work involved monitoring of microclimatic
parameters in historic buildings and sites, and the collection and organization of data on
temperature and relative humidity produced by major institutions dedicated to
conservation in museums. Bratasz identified the following parameters [6] :
• 1978 - Garry Thomson __ Class 1: temperature between 19ºC and 24ºC and relative
humidity of 50% to 55% (+/- 5 ° C) and class 2 fairly constant temperature and relative
humidity of 40% to 70%;
• 1979 - Canadian Conservation Institute __T = 20 ° C to 25 ° C and RH = 47% to 53%
(long-term average), 38% to 55% (seasonal cycle), +/- 2% (short-term fluctuations);
• 1994 - National Trust __ T = 5 ° C to 22 ° C and RH = 58% (long-term average), 50%
to 65% (alarm level 1), 40% to 75% (alarm level 2);
• 1999 - ASHRAE __ T = 15 ° C to 25 ° C and RH = 50% +/- 10% and below 75%;
• 2006 - National Trust __ T = 5 ° C to 22 ° C and RH = 50% to 65%;
• 2007 - Smithsonian Institution __ T = 21 ° C and RH = 45% +/- 8%
• 2009 - National Museum Directors Conference UK __ T = 16ºC to 25ºC and 40% RH
= 60%;
• 2010 - European Standard IN 15757 2010 __ T = not specified and UR = annual
historical averages and the seasons +/- 10%;
So they have grouped values of about 40 years of research on temperature and relative
humidity parameters that allow their use in locating the limits described below in a Givoni
Bioclimatic Diagram [7] , which now incorporate another area, which we call
Environmental Control Zone.
We have neglected the extreme values of 5 ° C, that would cause a major deviation from the
polygon formed by the set of values, that are very representative for the pattern of Brazilian
environmental conditions.
It was also necessary to include another variable in the Bioclimatic Diagram: lighting. Thus
we built a three-dimensional diagram, which shows three important elements with which the
museum architecture deals: temperature, relative humidity and light. We have used the range
between 50 lux and 300 lux as safe limits for preventive conservation in museums [8]. Some
authors suggest limits below 50 lux, but only as reference for visual identification of details.
In addition to the reference values, environmental stability is an important factor for the
preventive conservation of objects, mainly in large and rapidly growing cities, that have
altered the climate of urban areas where most museums are located [10]. In this scenario, the
architecture has the mission of controlling the microclimate surrounded by a climate with
various components of transformation.
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 Marina Byrro Ribeiro and Louise Land B. Lomardo

So we face the challenge of creating a microclimate without abrupt changes between day and
night and over the seasons, and the closest to the Environmental Control Zone.

Fig. 4: Environmental Control Zone on the Bioclimatic Diagram - Control Zone inside the Comfort Zone [9]

Fig. 5: Environmental Control Zone 3D – including lighting [9]

For the development of our study we have performed measurements in three places in the
neighborhood of Botafogo, in the city of Rio de Janeiro - Brazil. One in the showroom of the
Villa-Lobos Museum, another inside the Museum Casa de Rui Barbosa and a third outdoors,
in a point next to the two museums. We so aimed to know the environmental performance of
museum buildings on the local climate [11] .
Both museums are installed in historic buildings adapted for museum use. We have performed
temperature, relative humidity and lighting measurements in the three places, with an hour
interval and over the period of one year. The museums’ monitored exhibition rooms do not
have air-conditioning.

3. BIOCLIMATIC MUSEUM ARCHITECTURE IN HISTORIC BUILDINGS

From the growth of awareness of the degradation of the environment and the importance of
climate for the conservation of museum objects, new approaches have been suggested to think
the old buildings in this new context. The contribution of heritage to sustainable development

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 Marina Byrro Ribeiro and Louise Land B. Lomardo

was placed as a new challenge, and how museums can achieve a balance between the
preservation of collections, climate, microclimate, the use of historic buildings and the cost of
conservation.
Understanding the preservation of museum collections with reference to the performance of
protective layers [12], helps to understand the contribution that the museum architecture can
offer to this field, as well as the potential and limits that every old building has in creating a
microclimate adequate to preserve the collections at lower cost and power consumption.
The bioclimatic architecture of museums and historic buildings has been adapted as an
analytical tool to design preventive conservation through layer, and as a mean of action for
environmental control of the Building Envelope in every old building.
The conditions of outdoor and indoor climate and the characteristics of the existing building
are starting references. The conservation parameters of the collections and environmental
comfort are the goal

From the physical point of view, the Building Envelop performs the separation between the
internal and the external environments, offers resistance to air, water, heat transfer, light,
noise, and is also the most visible part of the building, showing its style of expression and
architectural form, with great symbolic weight and time identification in the cities, especially
in historical buildings.

Acting in Building Envelop requires the integration of methodologies such as the preservation
of the building with bioclimatic. It requires the use of tools such as indicators able to assist in
decision making for the development of bioclimatic architecture museum project.
We use as a reference, in our study, historic buildings by these present more restrictive
conditions for changes between the existing buildings. We believe that the method developed
for the analysis of historic buildings can be used in other existing buildings with more
flexibility.

So the steps architecture of knowledge of historic buildings, such as physical survey of the
building chronology of interventions, diagnostic elements that make up the building,
iconographic references, mapping damage, tools that generate the projects to be developed in
the historic built heritage should include lifting climate data and microclimate measurements.
They should also identify sectors of construction modifiable for future bioclimatic
interventions.

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 Marina Byrro Ribeiro and Louise Land B. Lomardo

Fig. 6: Sustainable Preservation Practices for managing storage environments – IPI / Humanities [12]

For the development of our study we conducted measurements on HOBO DataLogger Onset
U12-012 and use the month of March 2015 as an example in this paper.

We must also add the specific temperature and humidity recommendations for the collection
that is exposed or stored in museums. The Italian standard UNI10829 May 2001 [14] suggests
values for conservation of works of art indoors, which will be used for the collections found
in the study sites.

In the Villa-Lobos Museum was installed datalogger in showroom with the main collection
Piano maestro Heitor Villa-Lobos. In UNI10829 standard values for wooden musical
instrument has as preventive conservation parameter variation in temperature between 19ºC
and 24ºC and relative humidity between 45% and 65%. In the performed measurements found
for the month of March 2015 the maximum temperature and minimum temperature 29,50ºC
24,40ºC. The maximum relative humidity recorded in March 2015 was 87.10% and a
minimum of 48.50%. The standard also suggests the maximum daily temperature range of 1.5
° C and maximum humidity range of 2%.

In the case of the House of Rui Barbosa Museum the exhibition hall to monitor the one-year
period has as its main assets, Rui Barbosa library books stored on shelves and wooden table.
The reference of the Italian standard for conservation of valuable books have a suggestion the
temperature between 19ºC and 24ºC and relative humidity between 45% and 55%. The
suggested daily maximum amplitude has to be 1.5 ° C at temperature and 6% at relative
humidity.

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16/03/2015
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MARCH 2015

18/03/2015 18/03/2015
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MARCH 2015
21/03/2015 21/03/2015 21/03/2015
22/03/2015 22/03/2015 22/03/2015
23/03/2015 23/03/2015 23/03/2015
Temperatures Chart Comparison - ° C
Marina Byrro Ribeiro and Louise Land B. Lomardo

24/03/2015 MARCH 2015

Lighting Chart Comparison -lux

24/03/2015 24/03/2015
25/03/2015 25/03/2015 25/03/2015
26/03/2015 26/03/2015 26/03/2015
MUSEU VILLA-LOBOS

Fig. 9: Lighting charts made with hourly measurements in March 2015

Fig. 7: Temperature charts made with hourly measurements in March 2015

Fig. 8: Humidity charts made with hourly measurements in March 2015

27/03/2015 27/03/2015 27/03/2015
Humidity Chart Comparison - %

28/03/2015 28/03/2015 28/03/2015

29/03/2015 29/03/2015 29/03/2015
MUSEU CASA DE RUI BARBOSA

30/03/2015 30/03/2015 30/03/2015

31/03/2015 31/03/2015 31/03/2015
 Marina Byrro Ribeiro and Louise Land B. Lomardo

Fig. 10: Bioclimatic Charter including the area of environmental control and the measurements of temperature,
humidity and lighting made at the Villa-Lobos Museum in March 2015 [13]

Fig. 11: Bioclimatic Charter including the area of environmental control and the measurements of temperature,
humidity and lighting made at the Casa de Rui Barbosa Museum in March 2015 [13]

3,00
Villa-Lobos Museum -
daily temperature
2,00
range ºC
1,00
Casa de Rui Barbosa
Museum - daily
0,00
temperature range ºC
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31
30,00 Villa-Lobos Museum -
20,00 daily humidity range
%
10,00
Casa de Rui Barbosa
0,00 Museum - daily
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 humidity range %

Fig. 12: Comparison charts of the daily thermal amplitude and daily range of moisture during March 2015
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 Marina Byrro Ribeiro and Louise Land B. Lomardo

4. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
This work is in development and it is part of doctoral research in progress at the School of
Architecture and Urbanism at the Universidade Federal Fluminense under orientation of
DrSc Louise Land Bittencourt Lomardo without final conclusions.
But some considerations can be made:
- Exist a significant amount of old buildings adapted for museum in Brazil and they
need tools that help architects to develop projects and work in these buildings,
integrating fields of activity in museums and dealing with the growing complexity
of the architecture of museums.
- The moisture at the Villa-Lobos Museum accompanies the floating weather in
March 2015.
- The Rui Barbosa House Museum building offers resistance to moisture.
- The control of natural and artificial light keeps the spaces lower than the
minimum references.
- The generated charts show that the temperature measurements, humidity and
lighting held during the month of March 2015 are off the Environmental Control
Zone defined by experts in preventive conservation, but part of the data are within
the Environmental Comfort Zone.
- The values suggested by standard UNI10829 for the collection exposed to each
area, only daily temperature range is near these parameters, up to 1.5°C.
- The daily variation of moisture is above the limit for exposed objects.
- We believe that the museum collections conservation needs become, along with
other architectural demands of museums, to be considered and answered during
the development of museum architecture design in old buildings adapted,
historical or not.
- To put together preventive conservation parameters collections, intervention
criteria for adapt historic buildings and using bioclimatic strategies, can we
reconcile conservation and creation in museum architecture in existing buildings.

REFERENCES
[1] C. Guimarães “Arquitectura e museus em Portugal: Entre Reinterpretações e
Obra Nova, Porto, Portugal, pp 175, 2004.
[2] Currently IPHAN – Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional, the
Institute of National Artistic Heritage in Brazil.
[3] CNM Cadastro Nacional de Museus - National Register of Museums
[4] CNM / IBRAM, October 2013.
[5] COLIN Armand _ “Conceitos-chave de museologia”, ICOM, São Paulo,
Brazil, 2013
[6] L. Bratasz “Allowable microclimatic variations in museums and historic
buildings: reviewing the guidelines” in Climate for Collections - standards and
Uncertainties, 2013 in
http://www.doernerinstitut.de/downloads/Climate_for_Collections.pdf at 6th
June 2014;
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[7] B. Givoni “L´Homme, L´Architecture et Le Climat” Editions du Moniteur,

Paris, 1978.
[8] S. Michalski “Agent of deterioration: La lumière, et l'ultraviolet l'infrarouge”,
ICC-Institut Canadien of Conservation, in
http://canada.pch.gc.ca/fra/1444925073140, 2013.
[9] M. Byrro Ribeiro, and L. L. B. LOMARDO, “Parâmetros ambientais de
conservação dos acervos museológicos aplicados na arquitetura de museus”, in Processos
de Musealização, 2015 in http://ler.letras.up.pt/uploads/ficheiros/13495.pdf,
Porto, Portugal.
[10] L. E. E. Casanovas “Conservação Preventiva e Preservação das Obras de Arte”
Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal, 2008.
[11] M. Byrro Ribeiro “Inside story: Invisible museum architecture in Brazil”, The
International Council of Museums Magazine, vol 68, September 2015 in http:
//icom.museums/media/icom-news-magazine/icom-news-2015 -NO 2 / at
September 2015.
[12] Sustainable Preservation Practices for managing storage environments – IPI
Image Permanence Institute / Humanities in
https://www.imagepermanenceinstitute.org/resources/newsletter-
archive/v26/sustainability, 2015.
[13] M. Byrro Ribeiro and D. Caetano, transformation of the measured data in the
HOBO DataLogger Onset U12-012 to CSV data to apply at Analysis Bio
LabEEE/UFCS, 2016.
[14] M. Gennusa, M. Lascari, G. Rizzo and G. Scaccianoce “Conflicting needs of
the indoor thermal environment of museums: In search of a practical
compromise”, Science Direct, Palermo, Italy, 2007.

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