 Hi, everyone. Nice to have you here today. And so I'm just going to go through my slides, and I'm going to remind you that the webinar slides and the recording and the handout, the handout is just mostly related connecting to collections care webinars, past webinars. We'll be posted in the next day or so. When they're posted, the slide that advertises this on our home page will no longer be visible. And that's when you'll know to look in the archive for the recording and everything. OK, so if you have questions about caring for your collection, you can always post them in the Connecting to Collections Care Community. And the instructions on joining the community can be found on our website. And we have conservators and monitors who are always watching and they take care of answering the questions. So you can get reliable information there. And you can like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter. If you have the suggestions or problems, you can contact me. This is my email address. And coming up, we have a webinar next month on LED lighting for museums. And in December, we have one on insurance and risk management. And so look forward to those. And now I'm going to turn this over to Jeff Weatherston, who is our speaker for today. Thank you. Hello, folks. My name is Jeff Weatherston. I'm a principal in Weatherston Brewer Associates. We're an architectural practice that works predominantly with cultural institutions in North America doing exhibit design as well as museum planning. And that's what we're going to talk about today is a collection facility planning to be more specific, preparing for the next renovation. So I thought I would start, bear with me, I'm new to this. So I've got to make sure I do the steps right here. So I thought I would start with a fairly straightforward question or what we might think is a fairly straightforward question, what is a collection facility? So our definition of that or our office definition of that is a facility that houses objects, specimens, artifacts, materials that we consider have value for many purposes, educational purposes, research value, historic value, cultural advancement, and entertainment to the list of few. But a collection facility isn't just about storage and preservation of those materials. It could be argued, certainly it's arguable that the more important function of a collection facility is that it makes those materials accessible to the larger community. It's also important to keep in mind that collection facilities do not exist in isolation. They're usually part of a larger institution. And we have to be mindful in developing, in planning collection facilities, in planning the spaces for collection facilities, that all of these sort of interrelationships are part of that process of understanding and developing the facility. Clearly a huge top. And I am definitely not going to be able to cover all of that material in an hour. So I'm going to narrow it down to some very specific topics, basically the planning of collection space itself, as well as the facilities that are immediately associated with the collection spaces. So the spaces used for the care and access of collection materials. What I thought it would do is basically sort of at the start of the webinar talk about sort of some of the factors that we think about in terms of planning facilities and then move on to sort of conceptual and representative samples of actual planning exercises. So I'm going to move on to the next slide. So facility planning is it's not just about assessing space needs, volumetric needs, but it also has sort of a qualitative value in terms of the nature of the spaces themselves. And the list you're seeing on the screen are kind of those things that are sort of top of mind as we start this process. Existing conditions and what can they tell us about your future needs in terms of renovating or building new collection facilities. Factors that are important, not just in spatial requirements, but in sort of the qualitative requirements that collection spaces need. So I'm talking about environmental, the environment of these spaces, whether or not hazardous materials and the implications of hazardous materials have on these spaces, the frequency of use of the material within the collection spaces has a big impact on how those spaces are organized and where they are within the facility. Fire protection is always a big factor when looking at collection space. Collection furniture, clearly one of the main features in determining the efficiency or in making collection spaces efficient. And then finally, I would like to talk about how we calculate the spatial requirements for collection space. So existing conditions as a measure of future requirements, it's certainly a good starting point. And I think analysis of how your collection spaces are currently, your collection spaces currently being used is very important in understanding the future needs of the collection. Having said that, as a measure of actual space needs, it's not necessarily a good measure because there have been a lot of advancements in terms of collection equipment and things of that nature that, in fact, will more likely than not reduce the space requirement for your collection spaces. It's important to look at existing equipment and understand whether or not it's working well for you. Is it efficient? Can it be made more efficient? How does it fit in with other pieces of equipment? Overcrowding is also a big factor in thinking about your space needs. Variably, institutions that are looking at reorganizing collection space or renovating facilities, the prime motivator can be the fact that, basically, their collections are overcrowded. So invariably, when we reach out to these institutions, their collections are definitely overcrowded. And uncrowding those collections is a big factor in looking at space needs for a collection. Pest is also existing. Pest problems is also an indication of space needs. Normally, a lot of people think about this and think it's a bit... Well, there are a couple of things about pests. It's basically the policy around pests or lack of policy around food waste, food and waste. But it also can be about workflow and how collection materials flow through the facility, arrive at the facility, flow through the facility, and be insured that you have the kinds of spaces that you need in order to prevent pests from arriving in the collection spaces themselves. Environment, in terms of the quality of space, is actually very important. Also, obviously, the control of temperature and humidity is a key concern when talking about collections. And there's also what kinds of different environments does the collection actually need? Different materials can often require different environments. So facilities that have cold storage, drier environments, frozen materials, and perhaps in any case, it's more humid environments. In today's sort of energy reality, where we're very conscious of the impact of energy expenditure on the environment, we also need to talk about flexibility in terms of the collection environment. Can they be drier in the winter months and more humid in the summer months? Provided we maintain this day-to-day stability of the environment. That's certainly considerable fadings in terms of energy requirements, if that's a possibility. Hazardous materials, the presence of the hazardous materials in a collection can also have an impact on space requirements. Do they need to be isolated? Certainly, there are life-threatening concerns associated with these materials and how they impact the quality of the space is important. Obviously, fluid collections, where a lot of ethanol is used in order to preserve the material, these types of facilities are highly regulated because ethanol is considered to be fairly flammable material. So facilities for spills of the material are important. Specialized fire protection systems and, in some cases, explosion-proof rooms are considerations that we have to keep in mind. Night traits are obviously another important consideration because they can, over time, become self-combustible. So obviously, create a very significant risk to collections if they are present in collections. And it's surprising how often we go to institutions that they have not recognized that night traits are a big problem and still have them in the general collection. So very important to get that material out of collection space. Frequency of use is also a very important factor in thinking about collection space because it can speak to where the collection facility is within the larger building that also speaks about the organization of the collection within the collection spaces themselves. For urban museums that are located in more urban areas where space needs, where space availability is quite restricted, you're often thinking about collection facilities that are off-site. So understanding the frequency of use of a collection will help in making judgments about the space need both on-site and off-site. And then fire protection. Now this is a topic that I'm sure our webinars have already been made about. So I just want to touch on it briefly. Certainly our perspective on this is that you should keep it as simple as possible. Clearly, there are collections that require more sophisticated fire prevention systems, but you should always keep in mind that the maintenance level for a lot of these systems is quite extensive and extensive and expensive. So collecting facilities often have, are usually have very tight budgets. And so it's an important consideration when thinking about fire protection. Now, furniture is clearly an important factor in identifying collection space needs. The first thing that we always think about is can we reuse our existing furniture? And the question that we have to come back with is does it make sense? Is it the right, even though you have it, is it the right equipment to house your collection materials in? Is it efficient? Can it be combined with other pieces of equipment to make an efficient storage system? The answer to some of these questions, or all of these questions, is no. Then perhaps we shouldn't be thinking about reusing the existing equipment. I think it brings us to the next point, which is very important when you're thinking about the new storage systems is, and being able to reuse equipment is modularity. Can larger pieces of equipment be modules, or smaller pieces of equipment be modules of larger pieces of equipment that you need? And it's important to start thinking about this today because with your next purchase, you want to start making sure that your equipment is modular and allows you to reuse the equipment today in a new facility that you're developing for the future. Compact storage is simply a reality for collection storage today. 30% to 40% savings in floor area is hard to ignore. The cost of that compact storage equipment is very affordable when you compare it to the cost of a square foot of building construction or building renovated building space. So very important consideration. Height is also important. Certainly, collection storage spaces are a volumetric exercise. So obviously, the higher we go with the equipment, the more efficient the storage is. Having said that, there are considerable risks associated with going high for both the life safety of staff and for the safety of the collections as well. It's important that when developing a new facility where you are thinking about going higher that there is a substantial budget available for purchasing equipment associated with accessing the material out of the space. And it becomes a balance between storage efficiency and access of the material. And then finally, on the equipment side, open versus closed storage equipment. Certainly closed storage equipment, cabinetry, in particular, is more expensive and probably a little bit less efficient in terms of storing materials. Having said that, open equipment exposes collections to greater risk in terms of environmental fluctuations, pests, and potential water damage when a facility, when you have those kinds of events in the collection spaces. So it also speaks to the nature of the space and the requirements of the space itself. If we are intending to go to more open style equipment, then we probably need more sophisticated mechanical systems and greater protection from water penetration into the spaces. Now I want to talk about calculating the spatial requirements for a collection space. From our perspective, there are three aspects to this. There's understanding the existing collection equipment. Then what is it going to take to basically uncrowed the collection? And then finally, how do we project the growth of the collection going forward and project the space needs for generally 25 years down the road? Certainly there is no magic in translating from existing. You basically have to measure the volumetric size of all the existing equipment. And that becomes the baseline for calculating space needs. Uncrowding the collections is a relatively complex exercise or a challenging exercise in understanding what the implications of that are on your space needs. One method that we often use with clients is to ask them to take a series of trays and shelves that are representative samples of the crowded condition of the collections and then spread that material out in one of the standard trays so that it is in reasonable conditions. And then the amount of material that is sitting outside of the tray becomes the guide for the measure of uncrowding that needs to occur within the collection as a whole. Growth is probably one of the most challenging aspects of predicting space need going forward. You're probably all familiar with the need for a collection plan, which is really the best way of predicting growth because it basically talks about the goals, the collecting goals for an institution, talks about the or should talk about the research activities that you're anticipating, sort of the curatorial goals for the institution. And it makes it much easier to project growth needs for the collection. Having said that, we don't see collection plans very often when we go to museums or collecting facilities. So we asked institutions to start thinking about growth by assessing the history of growth of their collection. How much has it grown over the last five to 10 years? That's a quantifiable criteria, which can become a baseline for projecting into the future. Now, clearly past growth does not necessarily reflect future growth. So you also need to think about what are those collecting goals? What are your research activities? What are your curators currently doing? Which curators are retiring? What are the new curators? What's the focus of new curators? What's the goal of the institution? So always all very important aspects of understanding what the growth need is. And then there's the question of orphan collection. And whether or not your institution has a policy around orphan collections, whether you're prepared to accept orphan collections or not. And this is probably the most challenging growth requirement. How do you actually project that need? So you need to think that through and sort of be clear about what kinds of orphan collections you'd be willing to accept and what kind of quantity of collections you expect. Now we're going to start talking a little bit about sort of the organizing principles about collection space itself. Obviously, you know, aisles and row widths we're going to provide some sort of basic guidelines of what we use in terms of thinking about collection space. We think it's important that there is also, in terms of a collection room, that there's space for laying out materials. So that's not necessarily space where you actually work on the collection, but space to sort of lay out and pick material that may be taken out into the collection management space. It's outside of the collection room where materials are worked on and researched. The configuration of space is an important consideration. Obviously, large rectangular rooms can house collection equipment much more efficiently than sort of irregular types of spaces. So when planning those kinds of collection spaces, it's important to keep that in mind going forward. And if you end up with irregular spaces, you have to discount the value of those spaces in terms of how much passage they can hold. Is ADA a barrier-free accessibility part of the exercise? Is it a policy of the institution or is it a requirement by the building authorities in terms of the collection spaces themselves? This can have significant implications for collection space needs. So here is a conceptual plan of a sort of an idealized conceptual plan of a collection space. You can see that the configuration is a nice big rectangular room. The collections are housed very efficiently in this space. And you can see some of the things that I've been talking about. You can see in certain areas now, let me get the arrow here, certain areas. The modularity of the equipment allows for more efficient combining of equipment. Part of the importance of modularity and thinking about collection space. We've established basic minimum aisle width in terms of collection space. So 72 inches for the main aisle is a pretty reasonable aisle width. And then for the access aisles, we've established 48-inch minimum for access aisles. Now, that can all vary. And that's got to be weighed against the nature of the material that you're bringing into the space and how it comes into the space. So for larger material, you have to think about how that's going to flow into the space. You can also see in a compact storage system that we can combine aisles. And so we're seeing three 48-inch or four-foot aisles here possible to combine that into a 12-foot aisle, which provides a lot of space for bringing the larger artifacts into the space and can help address those ABA concerns if they are a factor in thinking about your collection space. Another important consideration is the length of the carriages. And again, as a guideline, we generally think that three-foot-long carriages is a pretty reusable length in terms of a balance between access and storage efficiency. And that's sort of the baseline that we use in terms of developing collection space needs. We also, you'll see that we basically think about the number of carriages between aisles should be limited to five or six carriages. Now, all of these are baseline rules from our perspective. Obviously, if a collection requires greater level of accessibility, depending on how much it's used, we would definitely be adding more aisles into a space like this. Or the other side of that is if this is a collection that's not used that often, we would make it less accessible. Now, you'll also see that we've identified sort of that layout space that I was speaking about earlier as well in terms of conceptually thinking about these spaces. This diagram is basically to talk about, well, remind us that collection storage space is a three-dimensional exercise. We have to be conscious of what is overhead in these spaces when thinking about collection storage. Certainly, there are mechanical and plumbing systems. There are sprinkler systems. There are structural things that we need to be thinking about in terms of the collection storage. Ideally, mechanical and plumbing systems should be as much as possible pushed outside of collection spaces. Certainly not all these possible. We had a lot of trouble isolating those kinds of things out of collection spaces. But if they have to be in collection spaces, can we organize the space around where that equipment is? Can we make the main aisles run them below where mechanical and plumbing systems are located? Is that a possibility, as opposed to having those facilities run over top of the collection equipment itself? In terms of sprinklers, there's kind of a minimum 18 inches between the top of the collection equipment and sprinkler heads in order to get the necessary coverage. So that's an important requirement in thinking about the height of the collection equipment, as well as the height of the space itself. And now we're going to look at a few examples of collection space planning that we've done in the recent past. This is an anthropology collection. And you'll see that there are a whole range of different materials housed in this collection space. There's the theological material. There's archeological material. There is a historic scientific instrument collection. And there is a library collection, all housed in the same space. You'll see, again, this idea of modularity in terms of collection equipment. Obviously, with these types of collections, there's all kinds of different collection equipment needs in order to house the material. So that modularity issue is important. One of the things about this particular institution is they thought a lot about modularity before they started renovating their collection spaces. So new equipment that they purchased, they thought carefully about how it could be combined with other pieces of equipment and then standardized that in terms of their purchasing policies around collection equipment. And it made this exercise much easier in terms of planning the space. You'll see, again, identified in this space that sort of the center aisle is layout space for collection materials, gives that opportunity to pick and choose materials. Another important thing in terms of this facility, this is the collection management work areas here. They have a large, as an anthropology collection, and they have a number of very large artifacts that needed to be housed. And how to get them into the space is an important consideration. So you'll see in this plan, oops, sorry, not using the pointer as I was hoping, see in this plan, this corridor that arrives at the space separately from the collection management areas, this was how they were able to bring in a lot of their larger artifacts and load onto their cantilevered rack system here. So the material comes in and is easily loaded onto these cantilevered racks at this location. So the point being that it's important to be mindful of the specific nature of some of the material that you're housing and making sure that there is a way of getting that material into the space and housing it in the space appropriate. This plan is of a collection facility for an art museum that is part of the university. What was important to this institution is that the collections were made much more accessible to students. And so we were specifically asked to create seminar spaces within the collection space. And you'll see these four seminar spaces. You'll see that there is layout spaces to each side of these seminar spaces. And all of the equipment, oh dear. All of the, struggling with the pointer folks, all of the equipment in this part of the space are glazed exhibit cabinets that actually provides a much greater access material for students. The more standard collection storage system is in this area of the space. You'll see, again, layout space along these sort of main aisles is made available so that materials can be laid out. Again, not for actually working on the material, but actually assessing and accessing the material. So also interesting about this collection space is they have a collection that needed a fairly dry environment. And instead of identifying a separate space for that collection, they, in fact, wanted us to create cabinet trees that could be maintained at a dryer environment than the remainder of the collection space. And then, this is the last example I was going to show you of collection spaces. This is a community city museum, community city museum. All of these types of institutions, the dollars are a bit tighter. So reusing equipment, a lot of the equipment in this space is reused equipment, which is very important. But also being very efficient in terms of the aisles and the compact storage system that was used. And you'll see that this particular space arrangement is based on discipline. So there's an ethnology vault. There's a history vault. Sorry, there's an ethnology vault. There's a history vault. And there's a zoology vault as part of the collection. Part of the collection storage systems. You'll also see that a part of the history vault is a space for larger specimens and artifacts as part of that exercise. We were, despite the budget numbers on this, we were able to get some amount of layout space in this collection space as well. So now I want to move on to sort of those spaces that are directly associated with the collection storage spaces, most of the collection care and access spaces associated with those spaces. Again, I wanted to start by talking about a little bit about existing facilities and what that tells us about collection spaces. I've already talked about this a bit, so I'm not trying to spend a lot of time on it. But basically, it's important to look at your existing facilities and think about how they are working for you. And think about the activities that you're engaged in in working in those spaces. And whether the spaces serve those well or whether you need additional space or different types of space to engage in the type of workflow activities that you're involved in. I want to talk a little bit about sort of reorganizing elements in planning a collection facility. I'm going to look a little bit at the facility requirements sort of those major program groupings, as well as some specific activities. And then look at sample program and then finally an organizational diagram of a space planning exercise. So some of the key organizing elements that we've identified in our work relate to basically the major program groupings. We've identified basically five sort of major program groupings within a collection facility, collection receiving spaces, collection preparation spaces, collection management and care spaces, research and access spaces. And then finally the collection spaces for the cells. We've also identified sort of conservation zone that are important in organizing a collection facility. So these zones are identified, excuse me, these zones are identified based on levels of cleanliness but also relate to levels of environmental control, levels of pest management, levels of security, are all aspects of this conservation zoning requirement. Environmental zoning is an important factor in organizing a collection facility as well as the important adjacencies between space within facilities. So the major programming groups, as I mentioned earlier, collection receiving. So those spaces that are needed or to safely bring collection material into the institution. So basically isolating collection receiving from general receiving to start with. Then having space to hold collection materials while, hold and quarantine collection materials while decisions are made about where the material should go first. Having facilities for breeding the collection material for pest management reasons. And then there are the collection preparation spaces. And these tend to be, you know, they tend to vary dramatically from collection type to collection type. Obviously natural history museums, there is a large component of their work is actually in collection preparation whereas perhaps less so in art museums and in libraries. Certainly history museums probably have a certain amount of collection prep that needs to be undertaken as well. Collection management and clear space, collection management and care spaces, that's relatively self-explanatory. Those spaces that we feel are probably central to a collection facility. Those spaces where collections are organized and managed, cared for, and then decisions are made about whether the collection should go into the collection spaces themselves or whether they need further treatment one way or another. And then collection access and research facilities. So those include spaces like certainly the research labs that a collection facility would need but also things around sort of exhibit preparation activities, digitization activities, public programs and education activities and conservation activities. And then finally the collection spaces themselves. Those are the five sort of major program grouping. Again, this is the conservation zoning. So you'll see sort of the four categories that we've identified, sort of the dirty zone. So those spaces are effectively the outside world and the spaces immediately where collection materials immediately arrive and sort of those dirty or preparation activities. And there's the semi-clean zone, which are kind of the transitional spaces from the dirty zone to the collection clean spaces. So maybe cleaner prep activities, sort of exhibit spaces within a museum would probably fall under the semi-clean spaces as well in this approach. Then there are the collection spaces associated with all the spaces where collections are either housed or worked on by collection staff. And then finally, those sort of spaces that need to have a higher level of clean, sort of conservation type spaces that are for conservation work, microscopy work or sort of DNA work. So that level of clean kind of space. So I'm going to move into this sample program. And I've got a number of slides with the sample program on it. I chose basically a natural history museum for this exercise. And this is a generic sort of program that we've laid out here, but I've chosen natural history museum because they're pretty comprehensive in terms of the types of collections they have. They have a whole range of different types of collections. So sort of biological science collections, earth science and geological science collections, cultural collections, cultural anthropology collections. They have fine art collections. And they have library and archive type collections. So pretty representative of a fairly wide range of collection activities. So you can see that this particular page is that first grouping that we talked about, collection receiving. And I want to just simply go across the top of the document here to sort of explain the various categories that we think about in terms of thinking about organizing collection space. So first of all, the sort of major programming areas and the more specific collection activities where these facilities are located in the existing facility and then how much space they currently occupy. So this is important in sort of projecting future need because part of the analysis of existing space is how well is it working for you right now and what kind of space needs are you going to need to do your jobs properly. You'll see in this particular example that in fact a lot of space was in fact there was no existing space for a lot of these activities that we're identifying here. You can see in, sorry, and I am again not using the pointer. So you can see here is the conservation zoning activities with collection receiving. The one, the red zone, is the dirty zone that we talked about. Then there are the environmental requirements for the particular spaces. The specific activities, the description of the specific activities of these spaces. And then what are the adjacencies? Where should these spaces be located relative to other spaces within the facility? So I don't want to get too far into the weeds here in terms of talking about this, other than to talk briefly about sort of each of the program areas. You'll see, this is the larger, as I said, this is the larger collection receiving document. So the spaces included here are sort of a separate collection receiving space. The next space, this is a pretty important space, this quarantine holding space. So space for quarantining collections and for holding collections while decisions are made about what should be done with those collections. Should they go to a treatment facility? Should they move on to other parts of the institution? And then clearly an important item is having the appropriate collection treatment facilities so that for pest management purposes, and in most cases, as most of you know, freezers are key to that, but there's certainly different opportunities. I think here we've identified environmental chamber and sort of anoxic treatments. And it will depend on the specific natures of your collections as to what type of treatment you should actually use for pest management. And then finally sort of bulk dirty storage space in the case of a natural history museum that would be field equipment storage, which really is a dirty storage exercise and should be kept away from sort of the cleaner parts of the museum. And presumably there are several, what other institutions that need will be present. This is the collection preparation facility. On this slide, you'll see certainly quite extensive in terms of a natural history museum. There is the need for sort of biological prep spaces, which are in fact, quite dirty spaces. There is the need for, and you can see the zoned red. You can see the earth science spaces. There is actually some very dirty activities that occur in earth science geological preparation. And some cleaner preparation activities. So sort of that semi-clean zone that we talked about. And then there's, in this case, there's a fluid preparation facility as well. Again, highly regulated in terms of the specific requirements. Okay, there with me here. Moving on, these are the collection management and care facility. And as I said earlier, I think these are really the core of a collection facility. These are the spaces where a lot of the work on collections takes place. And I think the key word for these spaces is flexibility. Conceptually, we understand these spaces as sort of large open rooms that allow a lot of space for laying out of materials, allows for flexibility in terms of bringing volunteers into the space to work on materials, but also has sort of work stations for full-time staff, for sort of data entry activities or microscopy activities, or digital digitization activities, those kinds of activities. It also needs to have space for reference materials and for sort of day-to-day supply collection management supplies. And there may be offices associated with the collection manager's role for more private activities, like meetings and talking to staff and so on, can be undertaken as well. And typically, this is the kind of space, I think this is typically needed for all types of collections, no matter the specific nature of the collections, although you'll see in this example, earth sciences, sorry, biological sciences, earth sciences. And if we move on to the next stage, sort of cultural collections, the fine art or the library collections as well, brings us sort of to shared spaces, well, between the different collections. The need for a conservation lab in some institutions, certainly can be quite important. It tends to be something you see in larger natural history museums, but often it's very important in art museums, is an important role and sometimes takes on that role of preparation as well as sort of conservation. And then space for bulk material storage, this is an important thing to keep in mind or remember that there is a lot of storage space needed for bulk collection management materials. Then there are the spaces associated with access and research. In this particular example, there's obviously administrative spaces that are associated with the curatorial activities. But there are sort of research labs, the spaces associated with research activity. So research labs are included in this program. You can see what varying degrees of cleanliness and in terms of zoning cleanliness as part of that. Now, and then carrying on, research and access, sort of digitization, imaging and digitization. Exhibit, you can see some exhibit prep spaces associated in this particular example. And then finally a reading room for the library collection. And that brings us finally to the collection spaces themselves. And you'll see in terms of this particular example, there's a wide variety of different kinds of spaces associated with the collections. The sort of standardized spaces for the biological science and the earth science collections. But you'll see that there is a fluid collection space. There is space for cold storage, frozen collections, certainly space for dry collections. And then if we move on to the next page, collections that have a high security requirement. So in this case, it's a gem collection. And then there are cultural, obviously cultural collections and the library archive type collection. So that's a sample program of the collection, collection facilities. So finally, I don't know if this is showing up properly. Oh dear. Okay, this slide is actually missing a lot of information, unfortunately, or at least what I see in terms of the slide. It is basically it's a diagram, an organizational diagram of a collection facility. And there is a whole range of different colors that are supposed to be part of this diagram. Unfortunately, they're not showing up. So maybe I can talk about this a little bit, although I'm seeing a lot of unfortunately, the slide is not working well at all. Well, let me go through it and try to explain what it is trying to show you. Basically, there's a legend that identifies and perhaps we can send this diagram out later, but there's a legend that basically identifies what all of the different colors mean in terms of the activities associated with the zoning of the spaces themselves. You'll see I'm gonna start in the sort of bottom right-hand corner and even some of these words are in the wrong place. I'm not sure how this diagram gets so badly distorted, but there is a collection receiving facility would be sort of that first touch point. Now collections don't always arrive at a loading dock, but there is the need for a space that is strictly about collection receiving that is isolated from general receiving. And then this space would be that quarantine holding space that we talked about where this is a control point, at least that is showing up here, the control point within the collection facility as collections arrive. And this is sort of holding quarantine facilities where decisions are made about whether collections move on into preparation facilities or whether they move into the treatment, whether they need pest management treatment or whether they can move into the cleaner collection management and collection spaces themselves. You can see the collection preparation facilities that have been identified here and sort of the flow, the workflow through these spaces and then on the collection management spaces these are intended to be basically dirty and clean prep facilities and the workflow into the collection management space and then there's that sort of central collection management and care space that I talked about in its sort of strategic location between the sort of receding activities and the preparation activities and the collection themselves providing some level of protection for collections and that process of arriving of collections arriving in space. And then finally sort of the research and access facilities that are located in the bottom right-hand corner of the document here. There are semi-clean activities, certainly exhibit preparation and public programs and education, sort of the cleaner research and access activities which includes sort of research labs, digitization and cleaning to the preparation. And then finally, this is the sort of conservation clean type facilities, including conservation labs, sort of microscopy work and DNA work. So I will end at that point. Thank you very much for spending time with me today. Okay, so we have a few questions here and I will add to the handout. The handout mostly is webinars that we've done before that are related to this and there is an on-demand course that we just did on RE-ORG which is talking about collection facility planning basically in smaller institutions that was fabulous. And I will, and that's connected, that is a small fee that you can take it. And then I'll also add the RE-ORG notebook, I'll have the links to those. So Christopher Warner says, HVAC considerations of adjacent zones are they, are there things that shouldn't never be next to each other or result in a higher cost? Not exactly sure what you mean, Chris. So, Candice. Basically, I think what's more important in terms of HVAC systems is that you identify sort of the key zone. It's not necessarily, I don't think it's necessarily important that sort of different environmental zones cannot be next to each other because there's certainly ways to sort of address the different environments or the separation of the different environments between spaces, but you've got to be very conscious of that when you're designing sort of the wall assemblies between these spaces. It's kind of nice if you can accomplish this to provide sort of buffer zone between spaces that have tightly controlled environments and the exterior world if that's possible. It just mitigates sort of the energy costs associated with the different environments that you're creating. Okay, so Christopher sort of clarified this. He says, in relation to ventilation toxic fumes used in collection conservation or cleanup. So he's asking, Kent, but I guess you have to have different ventilating for those things, yeah? For different types of conservation activities. Yeah, yes. It can depend specifically, if I'm understanding him correctly, you do need different types of ventilation depending on the specific nature of the activity. So if you're working with sort of chemicals that are flammable, it will have a different sort of ventilation requirement than other types of chemicals you might be using in conservation activities. So I think that's true. We are starting to get down into the weeds a little beyond my expertise. I would typically want to talk to one of our consultant teams in terms of the specifics of those kinds of requirements. Yeah, there are people that are telling Christopher that he needs a hood. And he says, thanks. Okay, Bacchia Bell, I hope I massacred your name, says, please address how these principles of zoning space by function would work in small facilities such as historical societies, house and former residential buildings. I frequently see storage scrunched into office spaces, attics, basements, objects are processed in areas that are used as staff lounges, et cetera. It's hard to get administrators on board with the idea of actually dedicating primary spaces. Yeah. Do you have any suggestions? That is a problem, not just of small institutions. We often go into a lot of larger institutions that have exactly the same problem. I don't know, I think you have to, I mean, you clearly have to make the argument that housing collections in that way is basically reducing their value, is destroying the material. And you have to argue, you have to have a way to argue strongly that that is not the best way of storing that material. I think you can also argue quite strongly that when you store a material that way, it's not efficient. That if you were to designate specific space for collection storage, you probably find that there would be a savings in terms of space need. So those, I think, are the key criteria. And you're basically destroying the collection material. They're certainly losing their value in terms of their historic value, qualities, and you can, by rehousing them in appropriate facilities, you can be more efficient about how the materials are stored. Yeah, she also says, also is there any compact storage design specifically for smaller, fragile buildings that doesn't require heavy ceiling framing and floor track? Well, if you're building on grade, if you're not sort of building above space below, then that's fairly straightforward. Any storage system will work. Certainly, if you're talking about existing space or an existing floor structure that is suspended over other space, that can be quite challenging. Having said that, there are things, certainly we've looked at a number of projects where we basically have to house collections in space above other spaces and these historic buildings are not structurally sound enough to support it. So one of the strategies is to basically reinforce the floors in some way. Having said that, is there a collection storage, compact storage system that is, can be used on sort of lighter framing? It's, it's hard to, it's, no, the answer's generally no. I have not been aware of sort of lighter, compact storage systems. Having said that, compact storage systems are not necessarily heavy. It also speaks to the nature of the collection that you're housing there. So lighter collections can often be stored in compact storage. And again, it depends on the nature of the structure itself. So sorry, I don't have a strong recommendation on that front. Yeah, and check out Stash, which is all addling to that, which is an AIC Wiki about storage solutions and also, Reorg has a Wiki about storage solutions. So, and those are like for things that people build. So check those out too. On Ricardo Rodriguez says, my museum is building a new building for community development and outreach programs, and I am begging them to give me a small chunk of it with no windows, climate control and some security. It's like pulling teeth. Do you have any farm-twisting signals? Yeah, that's tough. I can certainly understand why it's like pulling teeth. I think that the arguments are the ones I've already stated. This is critical in terms of preserving your material. And if the material is important to the institution, then they need to designate space specifically for collection. And as we've said, we can do that very efficiently, certainly with new systems. And you need to think about height. How much height can we get in the space? Because that makes it more efficient as well and sort of minimizes that per square foot cost for sure. James Miloistown says, since some are located in basements, can you make any suggestions, if any, about water pipes, et cetera, above other than having specific suggestions about what to tell planners in new expansions? Well, if we're talking about new space, it's certainly easier than renovated space. Having said that, if you're in a larger building, you're going to have possible equipment further above you that will allow water to come into the space. But certainly there are strategies that help mitigate the need. I think one thing, and Susan and I talked about this earlier today, one thing that you can expect in any collection space and any building space anywhere is that there will be a water event. There's no question there will need to be a water event. In the life of the facility. And there's really no way to avoid that. A roof leak, a drain leak, a sprinkler release, all of these things just happen in the life of the building. So what you need to do is to think about how to mitigate that issue. And some of the things you can do, certainly when we are designing, obviously closed equipment is ideal in terms of protecting collections, but it's very expensive. But in terms of sort of open equipment, it's how you design the equipment to help mitigate those concerns. Certainly putting rain canopies or water canopies on open storage equipment. You can also look at putting drainage trays, specifically under mechanical systems that are going above collection. And these are trays that basically you drain water away from the collection space itself, but also have sort of water alarms in them that can alert staff to the fact that there is a water issue above the collection. So those are sort of two things to think about in terms of mitigating that event. Keeping collection equipment off the floor, making sure you've got a sort of substantial base on collection equipment. So water does not get to it from that level. So I hope that helps. Yeah, Megan Reed says, do you have any suggestions on open access collections versus having storage that isn't available to the public? We are a local historical society. And on principle, we want our collections to be accessible for the communities we serve, but we understand the difficulties with security there. Any thoughts? Well, I think there are a couple of things. I know that there are institutions that have really made an effort in terms of making their collections more accessible. Certainly the idea, one of the ideas that you hear a lot about is visible storage. Certainly that can be challenging because all your collection equipment, your collections are housed and haven't a tree, but certainly open storage systems can actually look through a glass wall that allows you to see the collection material. There's the Anthropology Museum in Vancouver. Vancouver, yeah. It has got a pretty good job of visible, making their collections visibly available in terms of, so it's worth taking a look at that example if you get a chance. Basically, they've designed a collection equipment to make it more visible. So you can't actually touch the material but you can pull trays and see what's inside the collection collection storage equipment and so on. So that's another method. Another institution that we've worked with, particularly what they did, well, it's very similar to that Art Museum example that I showed you. In fact, now it's not necessarily an affordable approach but making the collection equipment glazed and maybe that's as simple as providing a glass panel in the door of the collection equipment and providing sort of public access to those spaces. So we have seen that. There's certainly risks associated with that but if you're careful about making sure cabinetry is locked and so on and so forth, that is a possible approach. A little reluctant to recommend it when we're here together. Yeah. Yeah, there've been a couple of comments about platter trays and people say, well, sometimes they splash but other people have suggested ways to prevent that. And yes, I can. Or are we talking about water leakage at that point? Yeah, uh-huh. Okay. Okay, Elise Ducart says, what program do you use or what options are there for making 3D models of your storage? That was pretty biffy. Yeah, yeah. Well, we, as an architectural practice, we use a program called Archicad. There's certainly AutoCAD as a product but these are pretty expensive programs. There are other programs out there. Unfortunately, I'm not aware of the specific programs. I can certainly find something out. I think I know of a few that the REARG people recommended so I'll add those too. Good. And, okay. So Rachel Smith said to Meagan, does your institution have a reference and or educational collection? You may want to put your reference collection, duplicates, photocopies in spaces adjacent to the public ones through research and the more valuable collections in storage or on a, yeah. That sounds like a very good idea. Yeah. In terms of making that, making collection material more available. Certainly many institutions have education collections that is material that, you know, basically there doesn't necessarily have research value to the institution but can be available for patrons to basically touch the objects and work with the objects as well which is kind of an interesting program. Yeah. And let's see. Lisa Buchanan said that SketchUp is one of the free programs you can use for direction layout and planning and it's pretty easy to use. I've tried it. Let's see. Emily Rogers said you mentioned that if your facility plans go with higher shelves to make sure to allocate a substantial budget for tools to access these objects. And she says, can you speak to some of the tools that you might need and the safety? I'll add here that I worked with a museum that had a storage thing and they had all of their bronze statues on the very top shelf of this very large facility. And it took me a long time to persuade them that that was a genuinely bad idea. Because this is big, heavy bronzes. Yeah. Certainly there is equipment out there. There are sort of, I mean, the biggest concern, there are a couple of things I think you need to think about. Number one, I know this doesn't, this goes against the grain a bit in terms of collection organization but maybe you think about sort of more active material on the lower level of collection equipment and less accessible material that needs less access above. Certainly that's a challenge in terms of the collection organization. But there's certainly different types of equipment that different types of lift equipment that are out there that allow for taking those heavier collections, bringing those heavier collections down. You might consider basically saying, heavy collections just don't go high up in a facility and you design the system so that it limits the height of the equipment. It comes down to a policy decision. Obviously there are dollars associated with that if that's the strategy you go forward with. As I said, there are different types of lifts. They're kind of amazing kinds of lifts or forklifts that sort of pivot in their own spot in order to make access to the material more available in terms of being able to reach up higher. There's certainly ladders, ladder platforms that would need to be purchased in order to be able to access a lot of this material. So it's a tough one. There's sister lifts that have fairly large platforms so you can take it down and put it on the platform. Yeah. I think you have to be, when you're thinking about it as well, you have to think, you've got to get a couple of people up there as well. This is not just about one person up there pulling out a tray. This is two people, minimum two people getting up to these high locations. So the equipment has to accommodate. Those two people are actually being there and pulling the material down. Yeah. So Jenny Beard in Brooklyn says, are there issues that can arise with building a climate controlled storage extension which shares a wall with an existing building that does not have HVAC? Absolutely. When you create a specialized environment in any sort of building space, the envelope around that space needs to be thought through very carefully in terms of what the impact of that sort of controlled environment is. So, and that is a design, that's a technical design thing that you've got to go through in order to make sure that it gets done properly. And certainly there are membranes that would necessarily be included within that assembly but where they occur within the assembly can be critical as well. So they're actually modeling techniques that we can use to determine where those membranes are located within a facility. But certainly, yeah, if you're building a sort of a controlled HVAC space that has a very controlled environment of a certain type, you've got to be conscious that that environment can move through walls unless they are specifically designed to contain the environment. Okay, and there's been quite a discussion about SketchUp and Liz, the claimer, given us some information. I will add that to the revised handout. Kylie Maher says, is there a general calculation for a collection space and workspace for staff, for example, total space should be 80% collection, 20% workspace? Oh, I know. No, I don't think there's any formula like that. It depends, it can depend on the specific nature of the collection that you have. And I'm certainly not aware of any formula that could be applied. It just, it can vary so dramatically. It can vary from the nature of the work that you are doing with the collection. It can vary with the specific nature of the collection itself. Certainly, if you're talking about a collection of smaller objects, the collection space might in fact be quite a bit smaller, but if you're talking about a collection with a lot of larger piece objects and so on, I don't think there, I'm not aware of a formula that sort of gives that kind of breakdown. You really need to think it through in terms of your space needs. And Mark Nyquist says, what would be a ballpark cost per square foot for adequate proper collection storage, understanding that the cost is variable on many measures. Do you have a ballpark figure to go on? Yikes. Uh, $150 per square foot to $100 per square foot. That's kind of, it varies so dramatically from location to location. If you're located in an urban area, that cost is considerably higher than more rural location. You know, you might get away with something as inexpensive as $150 to $200 per square foot and sort of more rural locations, whereas the cost can be astronomical in an urban location. So it's very, that's a very challenging thing. And basically you need to talk to a consultant who is aware of sort of your local requirements, you know, the specific area where you're working. And it also, it does come back to sort of very specific nature of what you're trying to do as well in terms of collections. You know, what are the sort of environmental requirements for your collection? You know, what kind of environment are we trying to maintain? Certainly that hasn't been your past on cost as well. So, sorry, you have better answers than that. Yeah, Leena, at least Sabakman says, or Bookman, I'll do Ken, and says, can you speak to the use of cantilever, shelving, versus pallet racking? Absolutely, pallet racking, basically pallet racking is a, you know, a four-post kind of solution. The thing about pallet racking is that it can carry very heavy objects. It is really designed for those really heavy materials that you might have in a collection. It tends to be more expensive than things like wide-span shelving, which can carry sort of lighter loads and is more affordable. But then you would use cantilevered shelving and cantilevered racking for those artifacts that are very long, where post, you know, shelving posts get in the way. So, the example I used in the webinar was sort of canoes and dugouts and things of that nature that are very long, where it'd be very difficult to get a pallet rack long enough to support that or carry that. You use sort of the cantilevered rack and shelving for those kinds of materials. That said, it's a real challenge. Well, no cantilevered rack can carry some very heavy materials, but it's, certainly when you think about it, you know, a storage system that has cantilevered arms is gonna be very challenging to carry the same weight as a system that has four legs that go down to the floor. So, they certainly have cantilevered shelving and rack has its place, but basically, I would designate it primarily for those collection objects that tend to be very long in nature. Yeah, they're also in the links that I'm gonna give you to stash and to the Reorg Storage Solutions site. They have a lot of suggestions about storing large things and something, different kinds of racks and stuff. It's really very useful. And in fact, if you're interested in solutions for smaller institutions, I really highly recommend the Reorg course that we did. It was very good. And they've devised this program all over the world for people in any kind of situation to reorganize their storage on a budget and with solutions, it's quite amazing. Yeah, so. Wow, it sounds like a really, really good resource. Yeah, they are, they are. And I recommend that if you can, you should get an architect to help you plan. Oh, being an architect, I would agree, fatically. Yeah, I mean, a lot of times it can save you a lot of headache and time, even to just have them do a brief consultation. Yeah, it's true. It can save you a lot of time and probably a lot of money as well, just to engage them to help you think through those initial planning exercises that you're working on. Yeah, I think so. So Suzanne Hale was typing. We'll see what she has to say. But I will post the slides, a revised handout, and the recording in the next few days. And I'll add the Reorg stuff to the handout. Actually, the link to the Reorg, we did a Reorg webinar several years ago, but the Reorg course, both of those are linked and they are in the handout now. And, but I'll also add them to the revised handout. One concern that I had with the webinar itself at the very end, the last slide, which I thought was an important slide, just did not allow... I'm gonna get that slide from you and I'll post it as a handout. Great, okay. Yeah. So I think that is it if we have no more questions. Join us next month for the webinar on LED lighting. That should be really fun. And in December, there will be the webinar on insurance and risk management, which is a kind of a boring subject that really important. And I think that the people that are doing it, you'll find really very helpful. It's better than getting insurance from the local guy down the street who recommends that you get content, sir.