Study of the indoor microclimate for preventive conservation and sustainable management of historic buildings. The case of Villa Barbaro, Maser.

In recent years, there has been an increasing awareness of the need for a proper management of historic buildings, which must be sustainable; energy-efficient; make it possible to ensure the preservation of cultural heritage, whose availability also must be guaranteed. To find this kind of solutions we propose a new concept: Historic Indoor Microclimate (HIM), i.e. the study of any indoor microclimate’s change of an architecture, due to structural or management variation. Moreover, this study identifies a magnitude index to assess the microclimatic risk. The case study presented shows the results of a research carried out in 2016 and applied to Villa Barbaro, Maser, which concerns the evaluation of the indoor microclimate through monitoring and planning of the management of this building. It permits to guarantee a better energy efficiency; the preservation of the historic building and of the collections and artefacts inside it; and to increase the level of visitors’ comfort.