Photography © Peter Vanderwarker

Following a 2006 collections storage assessment, the firm designed an interim home for the Harvard Art Museums during renovations at the Fogg Museum by the Renzo Piano Building Workshop. The interim facility occupies 75,000 SF of leased space, divided into thirds –collections storage, office space, and laboratories/ collections processing space. The project includes enhancement of HVAC systems to provide a collection preservation environment, stiffening of portions of the floor structure to meet the restrictive deflection criteria for compact mobile storage, and construction of rooms within rooms to provide spaces maintaining a humidity-rich collections preservation environment. Additional features include a dual fire protection system featuring both Inergen and wet-pipe sprinklers at collections storage areas, a VESDA smoke detection system, and 2,500 SF of cold and cool storage. The firm continues to work with the Harvard Art Museums as the member of the RPBW design team responsible for collections storage portions of the Museum renovation and addition project.