Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 39. (1986)
Archive Buildings and the Conservation of Archival Material. An Expert Meeting, held in Vienna, Austria October 30 - November 1, 1985 - THOMAS, David: Architectural Design and Technical Equipment for the Physical Protection and Conservation of Documents
Architectural Design and Technical Equipment 235 temperature rises, the rate of biological and chemical activity increases and consequently so does the rate at which records decay. The range of temperatures chosen must be related to ambient conditions because cooling and dehumidification consume a great deal of energy. A range of 15-22° C is thought suitable8). Stability of temperature and RH is important; wide changes in conditions can damage book covers and modem photographs. Good building design is vital in ensuring reasonable temperature and RH. Buildings should have a high degree of thermal inertia to ensure stable conditions and to minimize expenditure on heating, cooling or the control of humidity. The siting and exterior design of the structure can have a major impact; trees and earth banks can provide summer shading and act as windbreaks. In the northern hemisphere, orienting the building so that it has small wall areas on the south side can save cooling costs, while small walls on the north can reduce heating bills. Windows conduct more heat than walls and so their area should be kept low and in cold northern climates they should face south. High insulation building materials should be used, while the use of double roofs and mechanically operated thermal shutters to provide protection against the sun should be considered9). Many regions have local architectural traditions whose approaches are worthy of consideration by those planning modem archive buildings. In Britain, for example, the nineteenth century building of the Public Record Office (London) was built with thick stone and brick walls and small strongrooms. Because they were only visited by staff actually producing documents, the strongrooms were unheated and the building provides a cool, stable environment. Later British archival buildings such as the new Public Record Office (Kew) had large strongrooms in which staff worked permanently; heating had to be provided in the winter and, as this would cause dangerously low RH, there was no option but to install humidity controls. In tropical areas verandahs, balconies and shutters can help provide a cool interior for buildings10 *). Iranian architects understood the need to reduce solar gain; traditional buildings were clustered together to cut down the total surface area, windows and doors were few and trees were planted in courtyards to provide shade. The walls of their buildings were thick and in some cases wind towers were built to provide a simple, but effective form of air-conditioning"). There is evidence that books and old manuscripts have survived well in traditional buildings such as the cathedral library at Mdina in Malta and the libraries of S’ana in the Yemen Arab Republic12). 8) Duchein Les bátiments et équipements d’archives dans les pays tropicaux 129. s) C. G. Bullock and others Energy Conservation in Libraries in Library Technology Reports 14 (1978) 389-395. 10) Duchein Les bátiments et équipements d’archives dans les pays tropicaux 132-133. ") M. N. Bahadori Passive Cooling Systems in Iranian Architecture in Scientific American (February 1978) 144-154. 12) Helmut Bans a The Conservation of Library Collections in Tropical and Sub- Tropical Conditions in I FLA Journal 7 (1981) 266.
