The Amazon Spheres are three spherical conservatories comprising part of the

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...

headquarters campus in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region o ...

, Washington, United States. Designed by

NBBJ NBBJ is an American global architecture, planning and design firm with offices in Boston, Columbus, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, New York, Portland, Pune, San Francisco, Seattle, Shanghai, and Washington, D.C.. NBBJ provides services in arch ...

and landscape firm Site Workshop, its three glass domes are covered in pentagonal hexecontahedron panels and serve as an employee lounge and workspace. The spheres, which range from three to four stories tall, house 40,000 plants, as well as meeting space and retail stores. They are located adjoining the Day 1 building on Lenora Street. The complex opened to Amazon employees and limited public access on January 30, 2018. The spheres are reserved mainly for Amazon employees, but are open to the public through weekly headquarters tours and an exhibit on the ground floor.

Design

The spheres are located along Lenora Street between 6th and 7th Avenues, under Day 1 in Amazon's Seattle headquarters campus. The three intersecting spherical domes range from in height and take up half of a city block. They use over 2,600 panes of glass and of steel, arranged with five-sided panels of a pentagonal hexecontahedron. The largest sphere, in the center, is four stories tall and has of space; it houses the cafeteria, stairway, elevators, and bathrooms. The stairwell shaft is covered by a four-story " living wall" with 25,000 plants, including carnivorous species from Asia. The spheres have meeting spaces, tables, and benches that can seat a total of 800 people. The complex, nicknamed "Bezos' balls" by the media, has become a recognizable landmark and tourist attraction for the Denny Triangle area since the beginning of its construction. The structure has been compared to the city's iconic

Space Needle The Space Needle is an observation tower in Seattle, Washington, United States. Considered to be an icon of the city, it has been designated a Seattle landmark. Located in the Lower Queen Anne neighborhood, it was built in the Seattle Cente ...

, built as a futuristic landmark for the

Century 21 Exposition The Century 21 Exposition (also known as the Seattle World's Fair) was a world's fair held April 21, 1962, to October 21, 1962, in Seattle, Washington, United States. It was designed with influences from biophilic design, incorporating nature into the built environment.

Flora

The spheres have 40,000 plants from 50 countries and are divided into three areas, with the western and eastern domes segregated into the

Old World The "Old World" is a term for Afro-Eurasia that originated in Europe , after Europeans became aware of the existence of the Americas. It is used to contrast the continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia, which were previously thought of by thei ...

and

New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. ...

. The domes are kept at a temperature of and 60 percent humidity during the daytime. Amazon employed a full-time horticulturalist to grow the building's 40,000 plants over a three-year period at a greenhouse in Redmond. Amazon donated space in the greenhouse to the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seatt ...

's botany program during renovation of their Life Sciences Building in 2016. Among the 40 to 50 trees in the spheres, the largest is a '' Ficus rubiginosa'' tree, nicknamed "Rubi", which was lifted into the spheres by a crane in June 2017. An ''

Amorphophallus titanum ''Amorphophallus'' (from Ancient Greek , "without form, misshapen" + ''phallos'', " penis", referring to the shape of the prominent spadix) is a large genus of some 200 tropical and subtropical tuberous herbaceous plants from the ''Arum'' famil ...

'' corpse flower named "Morticia" bloomed for 48 hours in October 2018, attracting 5,000 visitors to the Spheres as Amazon opened the facility to public viewing for a limited time. A taller corpse flower, named Bellatrix, bloomed in June 2019 and prompted another public viewing that attracted large crowds.

History

Amazon Spheres from 7th Avenue, August 2016

Amazon began planning a large Seattle headquarters campus in the early 2010s, acquiring three blocks in the Denny Triangle area in 2012. The original design for the second tower included a six-story building with flexible workspaces and a meeting center, but was later changed to a spherical conservatory. The revised design by

, which had been in development since 2012, was unveiled in May 2013 to a mixed reaction from the city's project design review board. While hailed as a bold design, it was criticized for the lack of rain protection, public access, and the amount of energy needed to climatize the facility. In August, NBBJ released an updated design that replaced the supporting steel structures under the glass with organic forms called "Catalan spheres". The city's design review board approved the design in October 2013, after slight changes to the understructure were made. Construction on the spheres began in 2015, and the first pieces of the steel structure were erected in February 2016. The steel was painted white and covered with glass panels that were installed beginning in April. The first plant, an

Australian tree fern Australian tree fern may refer to any species of tree fern native to Australia, most commonly referring to: *''Cyathea australis'' *'' Cyathea cooperi'', native to New South Wales and Queensland *''Dicksonia antarctica ''Dicksonia antarctica ...

, was moved from the Redmond greenhouse and planted in May 2017. The spheres were dedicated on January 29, 2018, by

Jeff Bezos Jeffrey Preston Bezos ( ;; and Robinson (2010), p. 7. ''né'' Jorgensen; born January 12, 1964) is an American entrepreneur, media proprietor, investor, and commercial astronaut. He is the founder, executive chairman, and former presi ...

, Mayor Jenny Durkan, County Executive Dow Constantine, and Governor

Jay Inslee Jay Robert Inslee (; born February 9, 1951) is an American politician, lawyer, and economist who has served as the 23rd governor of Washington since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a member of the U.S. House of Represen ...

. Bezos ceremonially opened the complex using an Alexa voice command. It opened to Amazon employees the following day, along with a public exhibit named the "Understory" below the spheres. Public access is provided as part of weekly guided tours of the Amazon headquarters campus and a twice-monthly weekend reservation program. They were temporarily closed to the public during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

References

External links

* {{Amazon 2018 establishments in Washington (state) Amazon (company) facilities Buildings and structures in Seattle Denny Triangle, Seattle Event venues established in 2018 Geodesic domes Greenhouses in Washington (state) NBBJ buildings Tourist attractions in Seattle