Sustainable Collections Preservation Planning

FAIN: PF-266657-19

Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians (Coos Bay, OR 97420-2895)
Jeff Stump (Project Director: January 2019 to present)

Planning for sustainable lighting, improvements in the storage environment, and architectural design for a new Tribal Museum and Cultural Center that would be developed on one of the oldest Native American settlements on the southern Oregon coast, known as “the Hollering Place.”  The tribe manages 100 distinct collections, including baskets, archival materials, manuscripts, and recordings of indigenous languages.

The Tribe will conduct an assessment and develop sustainable cultural preservation strategies to be integrated into the final architectural design of the new Tribal Museum and Cultural Center. The development of strategies enunciated in the resulting planning document will be integral for ensuring the Tribal Museum and Cultural Center is designed, constructed, and operated in a manner that supports sustainable preservation strategies. Specific areas to be addressed in the plan include: 1) evaluating the cos-teffectiveness of building-wide environmental control systems versus microclimate display cases and storage systems; 2) examining internal lighting options that balance preservation needs with energy stewardship (a cultural value of the Tribe); and 3) incorporating architectural and structural design elements that support collections handling processes to mitigate threats to theTribe’s cultural collections including fire, pest control, cross-contamination, and theft.