Christine Sculati's blog » green building

The reinvention of two Bay Area museums

christine — Sun, 02 May 2010 00:52:01 +0000

For me an ideal museum experience is one that gives me the feeling that I am walking through history and gaining a better sense for the natural environment, art and culture of a particular place over time. This past month I had that experience in two distinctly different venues. Both are museums with bold plans to engage the public like never before.

The Oakland Museum of California
Underneath the terraced bunker-like appearance of the Oakland Museum lies three floors of exhibit space representing California art, history and the natural sciences. After two years of remodels to its history and art exhibits, the museum re-opened today with celebrations all weekend free to the public.

I recommend starting your journey in the Gallery of California History on Level 2. The heart of the exhibits here begins with a tule reed canoe, something commonly built by California’s first human inhabitants “before the other people came.” In this section devoted to Native American history, multimedia exhibits, including oral histories told by native Californians, give you a strong sense for the early way of life in California. From here you then walk through time witnessing and interacting with the transformation of California to the present day. The new design intentionally includes features to engage visitors and collect their personal experiences, potentially contributing to the future development of the exhibits.

Once you have strolled through California history, the Gallery of California Art on Level 3 will make much more sense. Here an oil painting tells the story of a time when grizzly bears were once abundant in California, until they were hunted to death. The last Bay Area grizzly bear was shot in Berkeley’s Strawberry Canyon in the 1870s. By 1922, California’s official state mammal was extinct in the state.

The natural sciences gallery on Level 1 remains closed. A giant-sized post card hanging outside a window on Level 2 writes, “Is paradise in trouble? Is Yosemite being loved to death? Find out when the Gallery re-opens in 2012.” This summer the gallery team will be looking for the public’s feedback on new exhibit ideas.

The Old Mint

While I had heard vague stories about San Francisco’s Old Mint, it wasn’t until I heard a KQED Quest story that I realized that the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society has big plans to revitalize the historic structure into the Bay Area’s first museum dedicated to San Francisco and Bay Area history.

This fabled structure located at 5th and Mission streets in downtown San Francisco was one of the few buildings to survive the 1906 earthquake and fires. You can find out why on a member tour. After the earthquake, the “Granite Lady” was also a rare place where city dwellers could find clean water. Springs that fed Mission Creek filled a cistern in the bedrock below the hulking building. Until city water mains could be repaired, the water collecting underneath the Mint was a precious commodity.

The Old Mint closed its doors in 1937 when the new Mint on Duboce and Market opened up in today’s Castro district. Until then, the Old Mint produced and stored coins. Today the City of San Francisco owns the building, which was sold as surplus by the United States government in 2003 for one dollar. The San Francisco Museum and Historical Society organizes museum events and is leading the Mint Project capital campaign.

The Historical Society has raised one-third of their $95 million goal to finance the renovation of the Old Mint into the first LEED certified National Historic Landmark in the City of San Francisco and California.

Since seismic retrofits have already been completed, the project’s mission is to transform the 19th century landmark into a 21st century, energy-efficient, mixed-use cultural center complete with a living roof, much like the one above the California Academy of Sciences. Two floors of the three-story building will have both permanent and changing exhibits with opportunities for the visitor to engage and interact with the region’s history over time, possibly similar to the Oakland Museum’s new layout. Of course, given its historical landmark status on the city, state and federal levels, they have a few hurdles to clear once the funds are raised.

For three weekends this month the Old U.S. Mint will open to the public. According to the museum’s website, “within the historic vaults of the Old Mint, we will explore the past, present and future of food and drink in the San Francisco Bay Area” in a special exhibit on the Bay Area’s Innovations in Farming and Food.

Native plants for the new California Academy of Sciences living roof

christine — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 19:56:17 +0000

In my last post, “Green roofs on the rise,” I wrote about the new 2.5-acre undulating rooftop of the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. By the time the museum reopens, the roof will be covered with native California plants, including beach strawberry, sea pink, self heal, and stone crop.

Green roofs on the rise

christine — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 23:57:01 +0000

Last week, California Academy of Sciences contractors began planting native California plants and wildflowers on a 2.5-acre undulating rooftop in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. The living roof will adorn the newly renovated museum, which is also seeking LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum certification. Designed by Renzo Piano, construction of the new facility began in September of 2005, and the museum expects to move exhibits and animals back to Golden Gate Park from its temporary location to reopen in October of 2008. According to the Academy, the new living roof will reduce storm water runoff by up to 2 million gallons of water per year and produce over 5 percent of the museum’s annual energy needs using rooftop solar cells.

While garden-covered rooftops possibly date back to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, maximizing a rooftop’s potential for capturing solar energy and rainwater and cooling buildings is gaining popularity as a high-potential solution for addressing global warming and preventing runoff pollution. It has been widely demonstrated that green roofs, also called living roofs, improve air quality, conserve energy, reduce stormwater runoff, cool buildings, and lessen the urban heat island effect. For over a hundred years, sod and plant covered roofs have been popular in Europe, especially in Scandinavian countries. The city of Chicago is one of the country’s leaders in green roof projects.

For the San Francisco Bay Area, the Bay Localize web site is a good hub for information on green roof resources. The Oakland-based nonprofit is studying ways to create living roofs on a variety of building types by assessing the feasibility, including load-bearing capacity, and benefits of rooftops replete with food gardens, solar panels, and rainwater catchment systems.

And on Saturday, June 23 from 10:00am to 1:00pm, the San Francisco Botanical Garden Society is hosting a “Living Roof Demonstration and Workshop” taught by Brent Bucknam of Rana Creek, a living roof ecological design firm for the California Academy of Sciences.

Van Jones testifies in Congress for ‘green collar’ jobs

christine — Thu, 24 May 2007 18:45:25 +0000

On May 22, 2007 Van Jones, President and Founder of the Oakland-based Ella Baker Center, testified in Washington D.C. at a special hearing called, “Economic Impacts of Global Warming: Green Collar Jobs.” He was there to push Congress to make “clean energy jobs” and “green-collar job training” for urban youth and low income communities a top priority.

He reported back on his trip to Washington in the Ella Baker Center blog, Grist Magazine, and the Huffington Post.

Jones defines a “green collar” job as a “vocational job in an ecologically responsible trade.” With the increasing demand for alternative energy sources such as solar panels, waste reduction, materials re-use and recycling, and sustainable agriculture, skills in these trades will give unprecedented opportunities to low income communities – if training programs are designed and delivered effectively.

At the hearing, Congresswoman Hilda L. Solis (CA-32), a Member of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming and the House Energy and Commerce Committee, delivered a statement called, “Green Jobs Will Create Pathways Out of Poverty.” Congresswoman Solis is currently building support for federal funding of “green collar job training” programs, which would help give low income communities access to the skills they will need to compete in the new green economy.

According to Jones, The Ella Baker Center initially introduced the concept of green collar job training as a pathway out of poverty to Speaker Nancy Pelosi earlier this year, which led to the beginnings of legislative language by Congresswoman Solis. The Center is expecting the proposal to be a part of the historic U.S. energy package, to be introduced on July Fourth (“Energy Independence Day“).

Community-based green building in Heron’s Head Park

christine — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 02:55:15 +0000

After five years, Literacy for Environmental Justice is getting close to breaking ground on a one-of-a-kind community-based green building project in San Francisco’s Hunters Point neighborhood. The “Living Classroom,” will be built in Heron’s Head Park, a 24-acre restored wetland built on a former landfill and cared for by hundreds of community volunteers. Read more about this innovative project that combines environmental justice with the latest in sustainability principles here in an interview with LEJ’s architect Toby Long.