The Greenest Museum

A look at the one of the greenest museums in the world.

At the new California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, you can see all the colorful creatures you expect to find inside its top-notch aquarium or museum. But it’s the outside of the building that truly makes it unique.

This is if we lifted up the park, built the museum underneath and then we dropped the park back in with this one we'll turn an acre in roof.

The roof collects rain runoff and filters it to the massive rainforest below. Indoor plants also receive sunlight from dozens of skylight.

All of the 1.7 million of native plants on the roof are planted in these bio-trays. These are made of coconut plus fiber that’s biodegradable, and within three to five years, this would become part of the soil.

The roof’s solar panels will provide about 10% of the Academy’s energy needs, while the heavy layers of soil and vegetation help keep the building cool.

Recycled ground up blue jeans are used inside the museum walls. Turns out denim makes for great insulation. The Academy also features an extensive exhibit on global warming. Museum officials are calling it the greenest museum of its size in the world, but they hope that title doesn’t last long.

Others are gonna come here, look at what we have done and then take it to the next level, and so if we can be, if we can provide that, and encourage others to do more than us, we will be very happy.

Inspiring other museum to think outside the box or in this case, outside the building.

Haven Daley, the Associated Press, San Francisco.