Efficient storage, minimal costs

The joint collections of five museums in Denmark have been brought together under one roof in a new facility known as the Kolleksjesintrum Fryslan. Rob Dakin from Associate Supplier Bruynzeel Storage Systems, shares how space was maximised and costs minimised.

The design team had to find suitable options that would match the brief of creating a stable climate while avoiding the high costs of maintaining its consistency.

The building design

The collections are kept in a ‘black box’ inside walls of powder-coated aluminium. Slender ribs along the sides create niches which plants will fill up, blurring the boundary between building and landscape. In a departure from conventional practices, the various collections are merged and organised along respective climatic requirements. A central walkway connects the depot to a second volume with workspaces. By standing atop a large mound, the Kolleksjesintrum keeps its collections well above street- and water-levels.

Basic to the climatic concept is an airtight shell with an exceptionally high R-value of 10 m²K/W and a purposefully uninsulated concrete floor. This floor facilitates thermal accumulation in, and exchange with, the earth keeping inside-temperatures and humidity remarkably stable all year round. Combine this with a minimum of technical installations, and the fact that the sum 26 KW of power required for the entire depot competes with that of a single-family home!

An air-cooled heat-pump warms and cools the insulated strip that connects various facility rooms. Energy consumption is further minimised using motion-detection sensors and LED lighting. Indeed, the 400 solar cells on the roof produce more electricity than the building requires.

The storage design

The first estimate indicated they would need a 10,000m2, 45,000m3, 4-Storey building. The five museums had stored their collections at 30 different locations. Many of the locations had low visitation numbers with high running costs, so the team evaluated decreasing the space required to reduce costs accordingly.

It is well known that effective storage solutions play a significant role in the reduction of space and in this instance a double-decker system offered a potential 65% reduction in the space needed. The project team was excited by the ability of a two-storey system to reach a height of 6m. Other advantages they appreciated were low energy usage motors, and the controlled movement of each individual rack when opening an aisle.

The combination of space-efficient storage systems, solar energy and low energy requirements brings costs down to only 50% of those of more traditional storage facilities and the result is a safe, energy-generating home for Frysian heritage for many years to come.

Rob Dakin, Bruynzeel Storage Systems

Contact Rob on [email protected] or click here to visit the Bruynzeel website>>