The Aquarium of the Pacific Offers Exquisite Architecture and Aquatic Life in Long Beach

 The 2024 International Code Council Annual Conference, Expo and Committee Action Hearings (October 20-31) is fast approaching. This significant event is the highlight of the year in building safety, and there’s still plenty of time to make plans to attend and participate in this momentous occasion.

Scheduled to take place at the Long Beach Convention Center, this year’s Conference and Expo gives attendees the opportunity to explore a city with beautiful beaches, incredible architecture and unique amenities. Featured at this year’s conference will also be a 30th-anniversary exhibit where visitors can explore artifacts from the Code Council’s history and participate in the creation of a time capsule to commemorate this milestone.

Long Beach is also home to the Aquarium of the Pacific, the largest aquarium in Southern California with approximately 12,000 animals and more than 100 exhibits. Mere footsteps from the convention center, the Aquarium of the Pacific was founded to help foster respect and stewardship for the Pacific Ocean, including its inhabitants and ecosystems.

Established in June 1998, the aquarium welcomed its first major expansion in May 2019 with the debut of Pacific Visions. Built with sustainability in mind, Pacific Visions features two stories and 29,000 square feet of interactive and live animal exhibits, game tables and art galleries. Pacific Visions also introduced a theater that houses a curved 130′ by 32′ screen and a 36′ floor projection disc to engage and educate audiences.

An Up Close and Personal Experience

The Aquarium of the Pacific is always evolving. Current exhibits include the Tropical Pacific Gallery, a collection of 16 exhibits containing over 1,000 fish. Visitors can also peruse FROGS: Facing a Changing World (which features several species, including the Pacific Tree Frog and Blue Poison Dart Frog), the June Keyes Penguin Habitat with 20 Magellanic Penguins and the sea otter habitat.

One of the aquarium’s standout exhibits is Shark Lagoon, a 10,000-square-foot outdoor display with several species of sharks, including zebra, grey reef, bamboo and epaulet sharks. The latter two can be found in any of the shallow touch pools, allowing visitors to get up close and personal with these impressive creatures. Visitors can even help feed bamboo sharks in the morning and step into one of the touch pools to feed the rays.

In addition to sharks, guests can also pour cups of food into the moon jellyfish pool to watch them feast with their stinging tentacles. For an above-water feeding experience, there’s Lorikeet Forest, a 5,400-square-foot outdoor aviary. These birds eat quite quickly (they can feed on 30 to 40 eucalyptus flowers per minute) and will happily land on a visitor’s head or shoulder to eat nectar from a cup.

For more close encounters with wildlife, the Aquarium of the Pacific also offers behind-the-scenes experiences with penguins, seals and sea lions.

Exquisite Beauty Inside and Out

The beauty of the Aquarium of the Pacific extends well beyond the aquatic life living within its walls. Visitors will immediately notice the exquisite architecture of Pacific Visions, which features over 800 glass panels designed to mirror how the ocean reflects light throughout the day. Each glass panel contains three layers: one that’s tinted blue, one that eliminates direct reflection of the environment (making it safer/less distracting for birds), and one that incorporates a subtle reflective finish.

Pacific Visions isn’t just an attractive building – it was designed to conserve water and energy, minimize greenhouse gases and was built with environmentally friendly materials. These efforts paved the way for two certifications from Green Globes, which evaluates buildings for environmental sustainability, resilience, and health and wellness.

An Experience for Everyone to Learn from and Enjoy

Aquarium visitors will be able to immerse themselves in Designing Our Future, an eight-minute multisensory experience highlighting what a sustainable and futuristic city might look like. Designed for all ages, this experience brings people closer to the action through fog, wind, scent, strobe lights and seat vibration. People with hearing and vision disabilities can also participate through virtual touch technology.

Using ultrasound waves to produce tactile sensations mid-air, the technology creates sensations of ocean waves and popping bubbles, among other relevant experiences. The Aquarium of the Pacific was the first in its category (aquariums, zoos and museums) to deploy this technology to enhance film.

The aquarium also features a Science on a Sphere theater, which allows visuals to be projected on a six-foot diameter sphere. This offers unique learning opportunities, including a look at how aquaculture can help meet the demand for food as the planet’s population increases. 

The 2024 International Code Council Annual Conference, Expo and Committee Action Hearings run from October 20 through October 31 at the Long Beach Convention Center. Learn more, here.