The rectangular, concrete building’s most prominent feature is a series of photovoltaic panels protruding from its steel roof. During the daytime, they will tilt to follow the sun’s course across the sky. “They’re not passive elements,” Calatrava says. “The building changes like a flower or a plant.”
Other pedagogic green features include pools to capture rainwater, for use in the plumbing system, as well as pools that naturally filter water from the bay. Pumps will harvest seawater, moreover, to cool interior rooms and galleries—all features that could earn LEED certification from the Green Building Council Brasil, an affiliate of the USGBC.Visitors will enter from a ground-level plaza then ascend to an upper level via two long ramps—one geared toward children, the other for adults—that terminate in windows overlooking the bay. From there, they will pass through a vestibule that rotates 180 degrees and deposits them into a high-ceilinged, nave-like gallery running the building’s length.
Not yet open to the public though, (expectations set for the grand opening to be mid-2014) the gardens and a plaza-level auditorium should open by 2012, in time to host Earth Summit events.
Source: Architectural Record
