San Francisco Museum’s Green Redo Keeps Team on Slippery Slopes
“We had to tie people off with mountain-climbing gear because the roof was so steep,” says Daniel Payne, construction manager for subcontractor Webcor Concrete, Hayward, Calif.
With the move-in now in high gear for the Sept. 27 opening of the reincarnated natural history museum, which also contains a planetarium, an aquarium, a rain forest and research facilities, the building team is finally catching its collective breath. Many have toiled since 1999, often on slippery slopes, to build the 410,000-sq-ft symbol of sustainability and survival not only of the 155-year-old academy but of the rooftop inhabitants. The builders also managed to bring the job in on time while meeting the revised $256-million budget.