Parks Stewardship Forum

There is too often a tendency to presume that particular environments can be created within historic house museums simply by “tightening up” the envelope and installing sophisticated mechanical equipment. This approach is unsustainable from many standpoints. Extensive mechanical systems can be intrusive or damaging to historic fabric, expensive to operate and maintain (to the point of overwhelming the financial capacity of institutions), and inadvertently hasten climate change. Careful consideration should be given to the basis for expected environments to be maintained with respect to both the actual needs of the collections and the capacity of the envelope to contain them. Only with a thorough understanding of both, gained through survey, testing, and monitoring, can mechanical systems be appropriately designed. In so doing, one must be willing to use to fullest advantage the structure’s inherent historical methods of environmental modulation, and to creatively think “outside the box” when applying modern mechanical systems to fulfill the need.