Historic Climate in Heritage Building and Standard 15757: Proposal for a Common Nomenclature

Research on the relationship between microclimate and heritage buildings or historic buildings has increased dramatically in the last few decades. Research has focused on indoor climate or indoor microclimate or the environment or micro-environment, and the field of these studies regards several variables, physical-air temperature, air speed, relative humidity-or chemical, dust, CO2, pollution, etc., all of which can have an effect or damage buildings or artifacts inside buildings. Moreover, all these variables should be monitored in a monitoring campaign following the standard EN 15757; in spite of this, scientific literature contains mistakes with regard to the words and objects of study. In this short contribution, the author proposes a common nomenclature in the research field of climate and microclimate in heritage buildings and heritage artifacts. A new nomenclature should be useful for the community of heritage scientists working on preventive measures to distinguish between climate and environment, or the object of study, e.g., the room (wall, wood structure, fresco, etc.) where the artifacts are or the air around them (painting, canvas, statue, piece of furniture, documents, books, etc.).