"La Specola" Museum in Florence: Environmental Monitoring and Building Energy Simulation

Among the existing heritage, a specific case is represented by the museums, buildings which need to maintain specific internal environmental conditions for the purpose of preserving the artefacts. In Italy many important museums are in historical buildings that are characterized by inadequate thermal envelope and HVAC system. This paper regards "La Specola" Museum in Florence and analyzes the results obtained from one-year environmental monitoring, undertaken to evaluate the microclimatic conditions of the exposition rooms and showcases considering assessment criteria derived from technical standards and scientific literature. Aim of the research was to create a three-dimensional energy model of the building, calibrated according to commonly used error indexes, and to run a dynamic simulation of their energy behaviour validated by the measured values in the field. The creation of a calibrated energy model of the museum will be useful to evaluate in the future the effectiveness of different strategies (active or passive) for the museum refurbishment.