Earthly and Water Paradise
Alexia Rossetti Thursday, February 24, 2011 at 5:24PM For a glimpse of an earthly and watery paradise, take a stroll through the California Academy of Sciences and capture, in a few hours, a multitude of flora and fauna in their spectacular habitats. Amazonian rainforests, butterfly parks, swamplands, coral reefs, and starry space are just some of the vistas you will encounter in your stroll. The Academy is located in the heart of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park and was recently renovated by Italian architect, Renzo Piano.
The California Academy of Sciences was founded in 1853 to benefit students, teachers, and fans of science. It housed many fantastical specimens including grizzly bears, a wooly mammoth, the blue whale and rare plants. The Academy was housed on several sites, suffering through the great earthquake of 1906, before settling down in 1916 in its present location, Golden Gate Park. The 1916 structure was designed along Greek classical ideals and included the Steinhart Aquarium and the Simson African Hall. Unfortunately, the Academy endured structural damage from another disaster, the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
The Academy decided to turn the disaster to an opportunity and transform its institution to reflect the changing dynamics and concerns of the 21st century. After all, it’s almost been a century since the Academy was built in its current space, and scientific issues have indeed changed. Efforts for conservation and preservation have become more urgent and necessary now. The Academy’s strategy included remaking the building into a completely green institute. Construction began in 2005 and finished in 2008. The new structure would house a living green roof and a solar canopy to capture the energy of the sun. Its design included recycled materials such as blue jeans for its insulation and recycled steel in its walls. For their efforts, the Academy was granted the highest award, the platinum-level LEED certification. (LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, a rating system for buildings that is built or renovated using environmentally-friendly practices).
The new building includes a four story rainforest, an underwater tunnel, an aquarium, a planetarium, a plaza, and a living garden on its roof. Since the Academy is a teaching facility, there is also new space for a lecture hall, a 3D theater, science labs, and an extensive library.
When viewed from afar, one of the striking features that you will see first is the protruding bumps on its roof – they are soil-covered domes pierced with skylights. Architect Renzo Piano deliberately covered the Academy’s roof with a plant-filled substrate of soil – keeping the building insulated naturally and keeping electricity costs down. The layer of soil actually consists of hundreds of trays made from tree sap and coconut-husk, filled with all kinds of plant life from the California poppy to strawberries and plantains. As the roots form, they interconnect and lock the trays together, preventing it from sliding off the roof.
A glass-enclosed plaza welcomes the guests into the Academy. Its floor-to-ceiling glass walls enable everyone to see the surrounding park from anywhere inside the ground and upper floors. Surrounding the plaza are the two domes which house the four storey rainforest and the Morrison planetarium. The planetarium houses a 75-foot diameter screen upon which real-time NASA feeds of outer space are projected – immersing the viewer with the vastness of the galaxy. The rainforest dome contains bats, tropical birds, butterflies, frogs, and reptiles. Surrounding plants include orchids, mahogany trees, and cacao.
Within the rainforest, visitors can descend downwards to see the flooded Amazon basin where anaconda snakes and eels live. Deep in the rainforest, you can walk under a glass tunnel that recreates the atmosphere of the wet season in the Amazon jungle. Overhead, through the glass, you can see giant catfish and piranhas swimming around. Besides the Amazon, the Borneo rainforest is also represented. Here, one can encounter tarantulas, bats, and flying lizards as well as orchids and pitcher-shaped plants.
One of the fastest disappearing habitats is the coral reef, and at the Academy, they have reproduced the Philippine and Caribbean coral reefs. The marine habitat contains eels, jellyfish, flashlight fish, and many other brightly-colored tropical fish. Catch a diver while he feeds the fish and listen to him describe the reef. The aquarium area also houses swamplands containing alligators and turtles.
The final stop is the living roof on top of the Academy. This green habitat is home to birds, butterflies, insects and some of California’s native plants. A terrace is built around its perimeter, allowing visitors to walk around the green domes.
Over five levels of bio-diverse habitats contained in one building – a too-brief glimpse of what the earth has to offer. The Academy offers various programs from lectures and daily tours to sleepovers for children and cocktail parties for adults – many ways to immerse visitors in the wonders of the California Academy of Sciences.
Reader Comments (5)
Study of biological science is always interesting. thanks for the nice pictures