When SWA Group was brought in as the landscape architect for the California Academy of Sciences, located in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, the challenge was to create one of the most efficient and sustainable buildings in the Bay Area. Renzo Piano’s design called for a green roof that would essentially lift a piece of the park and place it atop the building: seven earth mounds that would serve as a research facility.

Images courtesy SWA Group (top); BAR Architects (middle);  Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates (above).