random ACTS
It's a GREEN Thing
Architect Renzo Piano, from Italy, is renowned throughout the world for his innovative and creative designs. And the building he designed for the California Academy of Sciences is a real winner.
The museum is three city blocks wide and it holds not only an aquarium, and a planetarium but also a natural history museum. Yowza...that is a lotta museum under one "green" roof!
It looks like a building from outer space as it bumps up out of the ground. We like how Architect Piano describes it as looking like it is growing up from the ground. He said "The roof design 'is like lifting up a piece of the park and putting a building under it.'”
The structure has many of the new elements of green architecture.
1. A "living roof" (which means that it is planted with live plants that offer heating and cooling options to save energy.)
2. Photovoltaic cells surrounding the roof (which take in sunlight or solar light and generate power for the building, also known as solar energy.)
3. Huge windows so that offices can use light from the sun (versus turning on lamps and save that energy.)
4. Unlike many other buildings, the windows open and close (which makes air conditioning unnecessary much of the time because natural breezes can keep you comfy.)
5. The insulation that is within the walls, used to keep noise out and heat in, is made out of denim that is recycled from old blue jeans (and not made of some other manufactured materials that would take energy to produce and is cleaner and more safe to install.)
California Academy of Sciences
The Green Roof of the California
Academy of Science
(Photos linked from
www.land8lounge.com
where
there is also some
more interesting info!)
Link here to
a
time-lapsed video of the building
of the Academy.