Earth Equity News

Architecture Makes Life and All Its Sciences Feel Grandly Transparent in a Green Museum.By Ann Parson, BGlobe, October 12, 2008. "Most museums, Italian architect Renzo Piano says, are 'kingdoms of darkness.' Sunlight fails to penetrate them, with exhibits protruding from windowless walls. The California Academy of Science [in San Francisco] belonged in this category, until a 1989 earthquake shook its foundation, literally and figuratively. Given the opportunity to rebuild, officials pondered how to reinvent the institution, the oldest science museum in the West, and transport its millions of specimens... into the future... Both the architecture and the exhibits embrace sustainability. The Academy's design goes so far in this direction that it has received an LEED Certification at the Platinum level, the top mark handed out by the U.S. Green Building Council. It is the largest museum in the world to have earned the distinction. (According to the council, there are currently 90 Platinum projects completed in the United States, with California's 950,000-square-foot Environmental Protection Agency building so far the largest.) The Academy building itself serves as an exhibit about sustainable practices. Ninety percent of the old Academy was recycled. Altogether, 11 million pounds of recycled steel went into the new building as well as 137 million pounds of locally-sourced concrete, which was mixed with fly ash and slag, two normally discarded materials left over from making steel, so that less new concrete was needed. Museums apparently consume twice the energy used by office buildings because of their extended hours and controlled climates, a trend this museum fights. Numerous features help with conservation. There are louvers that let in sea breezes on warm days, plentiful skylights but also sun shades, a canopy of 60,000 photovoltaic cells bordering the living roof, radiant floor heating, and insulation composed of shredded discarded blue jeans. Even the piazza's high glass ceiling cranks open to the sky to let in fresh air. Asked what pleases him most about the design, Gregory Farrington, executive director, responded, 'I love the fact that you can open the windows; what an extraordinary concept!'"