External view of the Valle de Guerra storage facility in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain. The test storage space is located on the second floor. Photo: Shin Maekawa.

Component Two: Valle de Guerra
The collection storage facility for the Autonomous Entity of Museums and Centers of the Island Government of Tenerife (Valle de Guerra, Tenerife Island, Spain) occupies the second floor of a contemporary four-story concrete building located on the northeast hillside of the island. The space (437 square meters with 3 meter ceiling) is divided into five rooms with windows located only on the northwest and northeast walls. The northeast side of the room faces the Atlantic Ocean, while a narrow paved road brackets the northwest side of the structure. The stored collection consist of ceramic potteries, basketries, wooden and metal tools, textiles, and modern machineries and is managed by Maria Garcia Morales, the organizations conservator.

Prior to this project, the environment of the facility storage area was not controlled. The current climate control system installed at Valle de Guerra consists of three sets of supply and exhaust fans, five convective heaters, and three humidistats. A local HVAC company on the island carried out the detailed mechanical design and the selection of equipment. Since there was no possibility of installing windows on either the southwest or southeast wall to achieve cross ventilation, supply air was taken from the northwest wall and transferred via ventilation duct to the southeast end of the room where it was released into the space. The exhaust ventilators are mounted on the existing windows of the northeast wall.

	An exhaust ventilator is used to transfer air from inside the storage area to the building exterior when outside relative humidity is below 75%. Photo: Shin Maekawa.

The climate control system at Valle de Guerra has been in operation since August 2002. Although relative humidity has been maintained below 75% since installation, a large climatic variation exists among the rooms. Several minor modifications have been performed to date. Examining the period from January 2004 to September 2005, RH levels in the four rooms have been maintained at or below 70% roughly 80% of the study interval.

Project details were presented at the 25th International Conference of the Passive and Low Energy Architecture (PLEA 2006) in Geneva, Switzerland, September 2006.

Last updated: August 2008