The world museum greenest in San Francisco

The world museum greenest in San Francisco

In the middle of one of the largest urban parks in the United States, Golden Gate Park in San Francisco in September 2008 opened a new building of the Academy of Sciences – California Academy of Sciences, the work of renowned Italian architect Renzo Piano. Proposal for New California Academy of Sciences presented the Renzo Piano in 2002, the overall preparation and construction work resulted in 10 years and cost nearly half a billion dollars. Despite the structural performance of the entire complex but has easily and transparently.

Well bearable lightness perception
Wavy shape of the roof has a few steep hills, or more gradual and is 11 m above the ground on a series of slender steel columns. They give the building an antique appearance. Underscores the impression of lightness and fragile glass canopy, which is hilly roof garden framed. The roof looks like as if it were only a few millimeters thick. It almost looks as though someone had lifted a piece of the park nearby, covered with local wild flowers, strawberry and stonecrop, and hung it in the area.

Transparency and lightness of the building were essential for the architect. “Museums are not usually transparent,” Piano says, “are often a dark and closed places. Such a kingdom of darkness in which they remain trapped. We do not know where you are. Here is but natural science museum in the middle of the park, these two things belong together. Should be interconnected so as much as possible. “

Transparency and connectivity of the museum with the park reaches Piano as careful selection of materials and thoughtful arrangement of individual building. Even the outer walls are mostly glass, so visitors offers glimpses into the surrounding nature park, and when viewed from all parts of a large building. Was used as a special glass, manufactured in Germany, which is characterized by its extreme purity. Slender columns supporting the roof are secured by an ingenious system of ropes, in order to prevent their bending. Concrete used in walls and floors, it worked, so the emphasis is on the nature of materials.

A jewel of a sustainable architecture
In addition to the fantastic roof garden as a living piece of nature, with butterflies and birds, as well as lizards and frogs, the building offers a number of environmental elements. Roof hills dotted with round windows are fitted with temperature sensors, when a certain temperature, the windows automatically open and ensure the cooling of buildings. Decorative glass “canopy” stretching around the roof garden of about 60,000 solar cells covering up to 10 percent energy consumption of the Academy.

The roof is a total of seven hills. Roof so it copies the surrounding rolling countryside, two of the hills are prone to 60 degrees. Basic stand roof was created by nine plant species typical for severokalifornské coast generally is about 1.7 million plants. Studio Rana Creek Living Architecture, which stands for design and final implementation of rooftop vegetation Academy, conducted over three years of testing on a number of test stands roof. In this way, chose the best plants, during the trial period also exploring the possibility of load carrying capacity and various parts of the structure and methods of removal of water.

Roof wildlife refuge
The roof is lined with 15 cm layer of soil, which constitutes an optimal thermal and sound insulation. Temperatures inside the building are due to the use of green roofs significantly lower than when using a conventional roof, the value of low-frequency noise is due p?dnímu cushion cut even by 40 decibels. Roof soil cushion is able to absorb up to 98% of all rainwater that is filtered, thus limiting the influx of pollutants contained within the ecosystem up to 135,000 hectoliters annually.

Vegetation, which covered the roof, also attracted large numbers of insects and birds, including endangered species, which are created ideal conditions for life. Chilean strawberry fruits are attractive for a variety of local birds, large tubular flowers ?ernohlávku general have become an attraction for hummingbirds and bumble bees, the flowers bambulovité coastal statice are meeting with the moths and butterflies. Roof gardens require additional maintenance or watering. Visitors are not entirely accessible: one can just walk along the narrow walkway on the roof bit and post on the observation deck.

What you’ll find inside
In one house become acquainted with the exhibits, which were previously found in 12 buildings prestigious academic institution, founded in 1853. The basic offer of a new building is a planetarium, science museum and aquarium. There is also to eight research departments of the academy, an indoor rainforest occupies four floors and coral reef fish, comprising approximately 4000. This reef visitors can see the giant water tank (capacity 8000 hl), the largest of its kind in the world. When the California Academy of Sciences will visit for a long time, will definitely not be bored: you can watch movies in 3D movies, listen to a lecture in the auditorium, eating in one of two restaurants or go to the adjacent garden with a bird aviary. The building of the Academy, there are also offices and laboratories, extensive library and archive science with approximately 20 million samples.

The glazed hall offers a vista of the park on the other side of the building, while in various exhibition spaces with a different microclimate. The roof of the hall is secured by a web of cables. From the hall you can go into the exhibition space and further delve into the mysteries of the universe. Two giant, about 27 meter high dome (corresponding to the outer roof top hills) is a planetarium and rainforest.