The New California Academy of Sciences

[practicallyostensible]

This thing has been being rebuilt for years (it was my favorite place to visit when I was a kid). The new exhibits seem amazing, additionally it is being built as a sustainable, resource-efficient, completely "green" building.

Total project cost: $429 million
Key features:
-- 2.5-acre "living roof" with 1.7 million native plants, nine species
-- 38,000 live animals, including 600 free-flying birds and butterflies in rain forest exhibit
-- Morrison Planetarium with a 90-foot-diameter dome, matching the largest in North America at Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles
-- World's deepest living coral reef exhibit
-- African hall with dioramas and a live African penguin enclosure
-- Swamp exhibit housing live alligators and alligator snapping turtles
-- Collection of 20 million scientific specimens dating back to the Academy's founding in 1853

This week:
"Work crews are about to start planting the roof of the new California Academy of Sciences museum in Golden Gate Park -- an architectural capstone that also qualifies as one of the world's most ambitious biodiversity experiments..."
The rest of the article can be viewed here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/artic...PPKM01.DTL&hw=GARDEN+IN+THE+SKY&sn=002&sc=925

Timelapse video of the Academy being built:
http://www.calacademy.org/newacademy/new_academy_video.php

 

[Rick]

Sounds awsome.

 

[Hien]

This thing has been being rebuilt for years (it was my favorite place to visit when I was a kid). The new exhibits seem amazing, additionally it is being built as a sustainable, resource-efficient, completely "green" building.

Total project cost: $429 million
Key features:
-- 2.5-acre "living roof" with 1.7 million native plants, nine species
-- 38,000 live animals, including 600 free-flying birds and butterflies in rain forest exhibit
-- Morrison Planetarium with a 90-foot-diameter dome, matching the largest in North America at Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles
-- World's deepest living coral reef exhibit
-- African hall with dioramas and a live African penguin enclosure
-- Swamp exhibit housing live alligators and alligator snapping turtles
-- Collection of 20 million scientific specimens dating back to the Academy's founding in 1853

This week:
"Work crews are about to start planting the roof of the new California Academy of Sciences museum in Golden Gate Park -- an architectural capstone that also qualifies as one of the world's most ambitious biodiversity experiments..."
The rest of the article can be viewed here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/artic...PPKM01.DTL&hw=GARDEN+IN+THE+SKY&sn=002&sc=925

Timelapse video of the Academy being built:
http://www.calacademy.org/newacademy/new_academy_video.php

Awsome,
what happen, if there is an earquake, and all the animals, insect escape, will this breach the isolation & destroy the native species?

 

[Grandma M]

My Great-Grandchildren would love it. I took 3 of them to see a Butterfly exhibit a few weeks ago and they are still talking about it. Hopefully they will grow up loving nature and trying to preserve it. Right now the 4 year old is into lizards and snakes.