The latest addition to Amazon’s $4 billion Seattle headquarters opened to employees this week. The Spheres, three conjoined glass bubbles that seem to have alighted among the downtown office towers, provide the company’s employees with their very own cloud forest. Five levels of unorthodox workspaces—from a tree house meeting room, complete with bouncy bridge, to deck chair recliners that imply their own pool—climb through a lush green habitat of more than 40,000 plants, including two densely verdant living walls, a forty-foot-high Australian tree fern, and an 18-ton ficus named Rubi.
Driving the design was the desire to create an entirely unique work space, said Seattle-based NBBJ principal Dale Alberda in an interview with RECORD at the building’s opening, “one that combines a rich natural environment with comfortable human-centric functionality.” Drawing on recent studies suggesting brains light up in nature, the design team sought “to create a hybrid environment that inspires productivity and collaboration,” said Alberda.
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