unpiano: photo

Ever since they announced that The California Academy of Sciences would be re-opening in Golden Gate Park, I have been excited to get a peak at what they have been working on in their newly remodeled space. Then after seeing the SF Chronicle’s piece which featured their incredible “living roof”, I knew I had to get in there and see it for myself. Luckily for all of us, our friend Lindsay Irving works as an Geographer in the new building and offered to take time out from her busy schedule (they open in 47 days!) and show us around for a minute.

Pretty good bike parking at the new building.

The big sphere to the left is going to be a planetarium featuring a 180 degree screen with real-time data from NASA. It was closed and under construction when we swung through, but something tells me that it won’t disappoint.

That’s the DeYoung museum you can see through the front glass.

This is the other dome structure in the main building. It’s a 90-foot diameter Rainforest that takes you through three different Rainforest “galleries”. I forgot to ask what all the office furniture was doing in there, but you can see more photos of the ‘foresty’ side of the dome down below.

We tried to time it so that we would be able to get to the roof before it closed for the day, but we misjudged a little and found ourselves locked out. Oh well, there’s always next time. You can read a little about their amazing “living roof” here.

They just finished putting that whale skeleton together piece by piece.

The other really cool thing is that they pump in tons of water from Ocean beach though a series of pipelines that feed the ocean beneath the floor. That’s right, the whole floor is ocean below the ground level. Some areas open up so that you can see it from the ground level and some sections are displayed so that you can see it from the basement level (which was under construction as well).

When we strolled up these guys were casually dumping bags of starfish into the water.

They let us toss in a couple of sea anemones for ourselves.. so rad.

I want to talk more about the roof and building but I don’t really know where to begin. Basically it operates on it’s own through a series of sensors placed all over the building. When it’s too hot it tells itself to open the roof panels in order to cool the building and all the machines start moving to make it happen. That’s why they call it a “living building”. Read more.

Rainforest. You can walk in that tunnel at the bottom of the dome and see it from underneath.

What’s in there?

Oh, just a couple of lions.. no big deal.

These penguins were freaking out and having a blast. Kids are going to love this section for sure since you can run back and forth in front and have the penguins follow you around.

Thanks Lindsay!

You can learn more about the California Academy of Sciences and the new building at their great interactive website: www.calacademy.org

This entry was posted on Monday, August 11th, 2008 at 9:33 pm by Jesse and is filed under Unpiano. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.