California Academy of Sciences

Planetarium, aquarium, museum of natural history, world-class research center – all of this under one roof and under the experienced baton of Renzo Piano, this is the new Academy of Sciences. Its opening (September 27, 2008) was preceded by the largest fundraising campaign in the modern history of San Francisco and almost ten years of planning.

The building, designed by Pritzker Prize winner Renzo Piano, embodies the principles and goals of the academy: to explore, explain, and protect the natural world. The California Academy of Sciences was founded in 1853 as the first scientific institution on the West Coast of the United States, and today it is among the leading museums dedicated to natural history and a globally recognized scientific establishment in the field of natural sciences.

"Science is today much more important and influences our lives more than ever before. The natural history museum can, and must, face the questions of the 21st century at the forefront," said Dr. Gregory Farrington, the academy's executive director. "Our goal was not just to create a house with interesting exhibits, but a house itself as an exhibit demonstrating interest in nature, the natural sciences, and inspiring visitors to support environmental stewardship."

The Renzo Piano Building Workshop collaborated with local Stantec Architecture on the design of the house. They succeeded in uniting a set of twelve original buildings constructed over the past eighty years into one structure. They designed the house as a landscape that visually and intellectually emphasizes the natural world.
"With the new academy, we created a museum that would ideally blend visually and functionally with the surrounding environment, a metaphorical elevation of a piece of parkland hiding the bulk of the building underground," says R. Piano. "We are excited about collaborating with the Academy on such an exceptional project, in which the content of the building and its design were maximally integrated. Through ecological architecture and innovative design, we added a new living element to Golden Park, thereby expressing the mission and goal of the academy – responsibility and respect for the environment."

One of the goals of the design was to create the impression of transparency and optical connection between the building and the park. This was achieved primarily through a sensitive choice of materials. Glass panels made in Germany according to a special recipe were used, allowing visitors to enjoy interesting views through the museum to the rich greenery of the surrounding park thanks to their clarity. The impression of airiness and lightness is further supported by extremely slender columns secured against bending by a specially designed cable system. In contrast, the exposed concrete of the floors and some walls refers to the permanence and expression of natural materials.
"Museums are usually not transparent," says Piano. "They are mostly the opposite; they are closed. They are something like realms of darkness, and you are trapped inside and cannot see where you are. But here, in the middle of the park, we designed a natural history museum, which were two fundamental things for shaping the concept of the design. We emphasized their connection and interweaving as much as possible."

The building is topped by a "living" roof - 10,115 m² of green carpet made of local grasses and wildflowers. The undulating roof surface rolling over the vaulted spaces of the planetarium, rainforest, and aquarium mimics the spatial arrangement of the building beneath it in its typography. A viewing platform is designed for visitors, allowing them to admire the expressive roof landscape and thus experience one of the advantages of ecological thinking in architecture.
The roof extends further across the footprint of the building in the form of a glass canopy, which contains approximately 6,000 photovoltaic cells, covering more than 10% of the Academy's energy consumption. The photovoltaic cells are not hidden from visitors' view; they provide shade and visual attraction for visitors passing beneath them into the building.

The new Academy is situated directly opposite the de Young Memorial Museum, which opened in October 2005 and was designed by the Swiss duo Herzog & de Meuron. The dialogue between these two buildings and their differing concepts of a house in the park only confirms San Francisco's growing efforts to support modern architecture and design.

The new academy is one of ten pilot projects of "green buildings" from the San Francisco Department of the Environment aimed at seeking new forms of ecological architecture, integrating architecture into the landscape, and establishing new standards for designing environmentally friendly public buildings.

The Academy of Sciences building has already received numerous accolades and awards. The project was named the winner of the silver Holcim Award for North America in the category of Sustainable Construction in September 2005. Additionally, in 2006, the authors received recognition from the Environmental Award jury for the new ecological concept and innovative design.