Feeling full of Joy

This is AMAZING. It has always been my dream to work at a science museum. If I ever get to work a one, I want it to be just like this!!! Green roof, open to the outdoors, full of human and animal life, inspiring in its design and as an educational tool . . . thank you architect Renzo Piano, this museum looks like a real gift! I can't WAIT until I get to see it myself!!! Want to know more? Visit the NPR link to hear more about it, see more photos, and take a virtual tour.



NPR, All Things Considered, September 25, 2008 · A building heralded as the greenest museum in the world opens Saturday in San Francisco. The California Academy of Sciences features a living green roof with native plants, insulation made from recycled blue jeans and a large canopy of solar energy panels.

Italian architect Renzo Piano tucked the building into the hills of Golden Gate Park — in both form and function, the museum fits into the natural world surrounding it.

Teeming With Life

The California Academy of Sciences is not your typical museum experience, says Chris Andrews, who runs the academy's public programs. There are no dark halls or long corridors here; its walls are made almost entirely of glass, and it's possible to see from one side of the building to the other from almost any point on the museum's first floor. Even the aquariums in the coral reef exhibition on the lower level are illuminated by sunlight.

"When natural sunlight hits an exhibit of living animals, it brings a tank alive in the way nothing else can," Andrews says.

The building is teeming with life, from the aquarium exhibits below to the green roof above. Standing on the only square of the living roof that isn't covered with plants, Andrews says the sloped design plays off the seven hills of San Francisco.

When Golden Gate Park was developed some 125 years ago, the city covered sand dunes with plants not native to San Francisco. Ironically, the academy's roof is the one spot in the park that has 100 percent native plants; it is already becoming a research center for local universities . . .

Standing before a re-created Pacific Ocean tide pool at the academy, Chris Andrews says this museum — with its environmentally green building and its living creatures — is meant to encourage people to take care of the Earth.

A visit to the museum is not a "strictly didactic learning experience," he says, it's "a more emotional experience."

Thanks NPR!