The World’s Greenest Museum?

Travel Blog  •  Joanna Kakissis  •  10.03.08 | 10:06 AM ET

imageRenzo Piano’s design for the $488 million, 410,000-square-foot California Academy of Sciences is reaping accolades for its architecture (“an unusually rich, thoughtful and evocative building”), content (exhibits include a planetarium, rain forest and aquarium) and opening-weekend popularity (the entrance line was a mile long).

But the museum’s star turn may be its eco-mindedness: It has a living roof made of native plants, old blue jeans as insulation and a canopy of solar energy panels.

Related on World Hum:
* Portland: America’s Greenest City?

Photo by Peter Kaminski via Flickr (Creative Commons).