ShareThisArchitect Renzo Piano supplied the vision. It was botanist Frank Almeda's job to find a way for nature to cooperate.
"The idea behind this building's design was as if the hillside was lifted up and we slid a museum underneath it," said Almeda while standing on the "living roof" of the newly reopened California Academy of Sciences at Golden Gate Park. "We're part of the landscape."
Except this environment is out of this world. Exotic species -- both flora and fauna -- make their home under a canopy of California natives. In this unique setting, they teach and stimulate viewers of all ages to think about Earth at large.
"People are really interested," said Almeda, who has worked at the academy for 30 years. "It's very uplifting to us. We worked on this project so long, but we are opening eyes." The museum reopened Sept. 27.
As the academy's senior curator and botanist, Almeda masters the art of growing plants in unlikely places. That includes a lush tropical rain forest inside a 90-foot dome in the midst of wintery Golden Gate Park and a thriving wildflower meadow on the museum's roof.
These experiments offer everyday lessons on sustainability for people everywhere.
"The academy is much more than a building," Almeda noted. "It's a vessel for teaching people about biodiversity and how to protect it."
Culminating a decade of planning and four years of construction, the academy's new home cost about $500 million. Containing an impressive planetarium, aquarium and natural-history museum as well as a rain forest, the building is a tabernacle of "green" at work.
Supported by recycled steel and insulated with used denim jeans, the 410,000-square-foot structure is powered in part with solar energy from 60,000 photo-cells along the edges of the roof.
"We're still in the process of moving in," Almeda noted during a recent tour. "We have about 20 million items in our collections."
The move, expected to be completed next month, has been far from easy. A cold snap during initial delivery of the future rain forest grove from Florida gave Almeda a major scare.
"We almost lost our palms," Almeda said. "But now look at them. They're really thriving. They're sending up suckers."
The fast-growing peach palms aren't the only species adapting well to their faux forest. Kept in this oversized walk-in terrarium, about 200 different plants are part of this exotic grove.
"I have colleagues all over the world," Almeda said. "They've been sending me seeds -- from the Czech Republic, from Brazil. We keep experimenting."
Museum visitors travel through different layers of rain forest, spiraling up through the trees along a curved four-story walkway. Each layer represents a different endangered rain-forest region: Amazon, Borneo, Madagascar and Costa Rica.
"We want to inspire people to learn more," Almeda explained. "These are all interesting places that deserve to be saved."
Almeda and the academy staff re-created an equatorial environment, complete with constant humidity and oppressive heat. Such warmth is a stark contrast to the dreary winter chill outside. (Visitors should be prepared; dress appropriately for this jungle oasis.)
"I'm a native of Florida," said Almeda, who grew up in Tampa. "I'm used to it."
Supplanting the natural sun let in by bubble skylights, filtered electrical lighting makes every day 12 hours long -- just like an equatorial island.
Dozens of tropical birds in rainbow hues and scores of gigantic blue butterflies flutter through the trees and bushes. Flashes of brilliant yellow and red, the birds -- mostly tattingers -- ignore the people gawking at their antics while zipping in and out of the branches.
For the birds, the academy staff embedded the trees with bits of polyester fluff, netting and other potential material for the winged homebuilders.
(Debbie Arrington can be reached at darrington(at)sacbee.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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