A while back, I believe SuperForest posted about San Francisco’s amazing new architectural wonder, the California Academy of Sciences (though I can’t find the post to link to it).
Aside from being a pretty cool museum, what makes the Academy of Sciences so amazing is it’s new building. As their website states: “The Academy is now the largest public Platinum-rated building in the world, and also the world’s greenest museum.”
What does this mean, and how green is green?
- 90% of all demolition materials were recycled
- 32,000 tons of sand from foundation excavation applied to dune restoration projects in San Francisco
- 95% of all steel from recycled sources
- 15% fly ash (a recycled coal by-product), 35% slag in concrete
- 50% of lumber harvested from sustainable-yield forests
- 68% of insulation comes from recycled blue jeans
- 90% of office space will have natural light and ventilation
- 60,000 photovoltaic cells; 213,000 kilowatt-hours; 5% to 10% savings of electricity
- 30% less energy consumption than federal code requirement
And of course, the crowning achievement (pun intended) — the living roof. Which this weekend I had the pleasure of visiting in person.
At 200,000 sq ft and 1.7 million native plants, it is a beautiful sight to behold.
To learn more about the Academy’s living roof (it’s design, construction, 1.7 million native plants), click here. For more info on green roofs around the world and how to build your own: www.greenroofs.com. Curious about LEED, the green building certification organization? SuperForester Julius shows the way in this post here.
May we continue turning the concrete jungle into a real one!
-SuperForester Jordan
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