The Science of Designing a House for Art

In my last article about designing a house for a fine art collection, The Art of Designing a House for Art, I discussed the “softer” aspects of what makes a great home for art. In this article I will discuss the “harder” aspects of such a pursuit.

A fine art collection can be both a costly and delicate asset, one that you won’t want to see degrade over time just because you’ve chosen to display it in your home and enjoy it.

Designing a home that truly works for both the art collector and their collection, we must address some specific needs that have a direct impact on the art. Light, climate control, storage, and security are the four concerns that rise to the top of this list to protect the art and its value. Understanding the science and technology of these challenges and potential solutions is part of the expertise an architect an architect with the right kind of experience can bring to your home design.

Of these four, however, light is the one particular dilemma that arises when we consider both viewing and preserving art. Light is obviously necessary in order to see and appreciate your collection and yet the UV component of light is also responsible for a degree of degradation over time. So what’s one to do?

The ultraviolet wavelengths of light which come from the sun are the most damaging by far, especially the UV that comes from direct sunlight. However, artificial light emits UV as well, so just eliminating natural light alone won’t do the trick.

Time + Intensity

Direct Light

The first and easiest way of mitigating the damage caused by natural light on a piece of art is to design out the ability for direct sunlight to strike the piece in the first place. This can be done by creating special gallery-like spaces within the home, spaces which by design or location, receive no direct natural daylight. For instance, by locating more delicate pieces on the north side of the home, where direct sun never shines, you’ve already gone a long way to protecting that art.

Other, more sophisticated methods can be employed, some providing an added layer of architectural expression and intentionality. Baffled, screened, or diffused skylights come to mind. Famously, the Kimbell Art Museum in in Fort Worth, Texas by modern master, Louis Kahn, employs an extruded half-round diffuser under the long skylights that float over the gallery spaces. This element not only greatly reduces the amount of damaging light that can land on the art but also provides for a beautiful, sculptural architectural focus to the room.

Light Levels

Next comes lighting levels. Keeping light levels on the low side is simply better for your art. This can be achieved in a number of ways. Occupancy (motion) sensors can be used to keep light levels low until someone enters the room. This can be one of the most effective and inexpensive strategies for controlling light levels.

Duration

If we think of light damage as an equation of intensity over time, then one simple way to reduce the overall amount of light that strikes a piece of art is to only have light on that art when someone is there to enjoy it. Again, this gets back to the dedicated gallery idea. Like a home theater, which only gets used when there’s a film being watched, some collections can benefit from only being lit when someone is there to enjoy them. In these kinds of spaces, the light levels might be kept very low or entirely off, with motion sensors in place to bright the levels up when someone enters the space.

Is LED lighting safe for artwork?

Artificial lighting also brings with it damaging UV radiation. Incandescent, halogen, and fluorescent lights simply aren’t great for your art collection. LED, on the other hand, emits very low levels of damaging UV. One other advantage of LEDs is that they generate so little heat, otherwise knowns as infrared radiation. Heat can also be damaging to artwork and so LEDs help in this regard as well.

Protection

Directly protecting artwork can also be an effective means of preserving a piece of art. With UV resistant forms of both glass and acrylic (Plexiglass or Perspex) on the market, framing your art behind one or the other, or even a lamination of the two, can not only cut down on the UV reaching your artwork but also serve to keep dirt, dust, fingerprints, and other damaging foreign materials off your artwork. Acrylic can also be specified in an anti-glare form which allows one to see see the art from any angle with little to no distracting reflection.

Protection from lighting can also come in the form of what type of glass one chooses to use in the home’s windows. Consisting of at least two sheets of glass separated by an air space, insulated glass units (IGUs) used in modern windows can be specified with a whole host of different glass, coating, and film combinations. This combination of elements are typically arranged so as to limit solar heat gain from the sun, heat which is generated from you guess it, UV radiation. And so at the point where you’re specifying windows to help the home perform well, you might as well filter for what glass will best suit your art collection.

Finally, operable shades can be used to drastically cut down the amount of natural light entering room. These too can be set on a timer, photosensitive, or occupancy sensors so as to allow appropriate light levels when someone’s there, but limit damaging UV when nobody is in the room.

Color Rendition

When it comes to selecting glass, coatings, and films, you not only want to sort for how they perform with regard to UV protection but also how they impact the color rendition of a room and the art within it. Some glass uses a subtle color tint in order to manage UV but that tint can also change the color of the light in your home, and thus the color of light reaching your artwork. This can throw everything off. You wouldn’t want your wonderfully warm Rothko taking on a sickly green tint because your architect didn’t consider how the cast from the window glass would impact how color is perceived inside the space.

Incidentally, this consideration applies in the opposite direction, too. Your home’s glass specification can greatly impact how water, trees, grass, and sky are “rendered” to your eyes as you look out the window to take in your views. Many of the newest “triple silver” coatings provide both terrific UV protection and a wonderfully neutral color rendition.

Temperature + Humidity

Climate control can have a huge impact on maintaining the health of your art collection too, especially for works on paper, canvas, and multimedia pieces. Maintaining a stable indoor environment of between 40-60% relative humidity is best for your artwork, with temperatures between 65-70° F during the winter and between 70-75° F in the summer. Lower temperature air holds less moisture and so your HVAC system will need to compensate to maintain the proper humidity from summer to winter. Thankfully, modern HVAC systems are well capable of handling this level of precision all year round.

Storage

Depending on the size of your collection, you may want to consider storage. Some collectors utilize off-site art storage where light, temperature, and humidity are all controlled by the facility. However, if you like to keep your art close at hand, enjoy perusing your collection, and rotate pieces often, you may want to consider climate controlled on-site storage. Think of these spaces as somewhere between a library and a wine cellar for your art.

Security

Finally, you’ll want to consider security. Sensor and alarm systems have come a long way in the past couple of decades so the sky’s the limit here. Monitored and managed from your smart phone or monitored by a third-party service, keeping your art safe and sound is now easier than ever.

There Is No Silver Bullet

No one or two of these strategies is necessarily a panacea. The exact constellation of solutions required to properly preserve your particular art collection, in your particular home can only be determined on a case by case basis. Solutions will vary depending on the nature of your collection, the location and orientation of your home, among a number of other factors.

Design Your Artful Home

I’ve designed a number of public spaces with significant art collections. These include the public open space at the base of LinkedIn’s San Francisco headquarters building, which holds three enormous works by Frank Stella and San Francisco International Airport’s Terminal 3, which houses a Wayne Thiebaud, a Robert Bechtle, and a Jay DeFeo, among others.

As an architect in California, especially working with clients in the San Francisco and Los Angeles areas, it’s not uncommon to design a home that has a dynamic relationship with the owner’s carefully collected and curated artworks.

If you are ready to explore the possibilities for designing a home that works for you and your art collection, let’s talk!