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Living Roof Takes the California Academy of Sciences Green
By Cynthia Kirkeby
Dec 17, 2007, 14:31 PST
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| © Alexander Harte 2007 |
The new California Academy of Sciences is slated to open in October 2008 with an advanced green architecture design featuring an amazing living roof. The entire complex was designed by Renzo Piano with ecology in mind, but the living roof is one of its most intriguing features.
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| © Alexander Harte 2007 |
A recent tour of the Academy, which is still under construction, brought us to the roof observation deck where we learned the undulating hills covered approximately 2.5 square acres, and are part of an extremely sophisticated green roof…literally. There will eventually be a total of nine different species planted on the manufactured hills that comprise the roof, and a total of 1.7 million plants! The first four species have been planted and are establishing themselves, and the remaining five species will be added by the time the Academy of Sciences opens next year. All of the plants are native to California and include:
- beach strawberries (Fragaria chiloensis)
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| © Alexander Harte 2007 |
- self heal (Prunella vulgaris)
- sea pink (Armeria maritime)
- stonecrop (Sedum spathulitholium)
- tidy tips (Layia platyglossa)
- miniature lupine (Lupinus bicolor)
- California poppies (Eschscholzia californica)
- California plantain (Plantago erecta)
- and Goldfield plants (Lasthenia californica).
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| © Alexander Harte 2007 |
Planting this steeply wavy roof was the source of another puzzle, how do you plant these manufactured hills and make sure the plants don’t slip off during the first good downpour? Looking out across the roof you can see that the plants are in biodegradable planting trays. The trays are made of coconut husks that allow the roots of each of the plants to grow through their trays into the surrounding ones, thereby creating a tight interlocking natural grid of green. There are over 50,000 trays on the Academy’s roof turning this once cement and concrete roof into a lush native California wildlife habitat that will attract hummingbirds, native birds, butterflies, and other beneficial native insects.
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| © Alexander Harte 2007 |
All of these plants add an enormous strain to the ceiling… 2.6 million pounds worth to be exact! To handle all this extra weight special cables have been used as tension supports, because as amazing as it sounds, there are no columns below supporting the weight overhead.
The living roof and entire Academy complex was designed by Renzo Piano, and his green design will allow the Academy of Sciences to operate without air conditioning in the public areas. The center piazza allows natural ventilation to cool the complex by drawing air down to the open center area between the green hills on the roof.
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| © Alexander Harte 2007 |
The cool air is then distributed throughout the building with the help of a sophisticated computer system powered in part by more than 60,000 solar panels discreetly integrated into the surrounding canopy of the building’s architecture.
The Academy of Sciences is a wonderful example of the use of green architecture in public spaces. The living roof in particular affords an insight into the ability of design to reduce the impact of a major public installation on the local ecology, and it’s ability to instead become an unexpected habitat that enhances the local environment.
© Copyright 2007 by Classbrain.com
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