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First look: Revised plan for Amazon's Seattle HQ and 'biodome'

First look: Revised plan for Amazon's Seattle HQ and 'biodome'

Spheres will offer climate-controlled environment featuring "montane ecologies" of plants, plus space for work, shopping, and amenities.


By BD+C Staff | May 24, 2013

NBBJ has released renderings of a revised plan for Amazon's new three-block headquarters in Seattle. The proposal would replace a previously approved six-story office building with a three-unit "biodome": spheres that will hold large, mature trees and other plants in open, high-bay space. Retail stores are programmed for the ground floor of the spheres, which will comprise about 65,000 sf of space for work, dining, meetings, and recreation. Varied botanical zones will be created, based on diverse climate patterns.

The five-acre complex will also contain three 38-story office towers, providing some 3.3 million sf of space. Smaller, mixed-use buildings are also planned for the development, with facilities linked by pathways and green space.

The proposal is just the latest in a series of large-scale headquarters developments in the works or recently completed for the world's high-tech firms, including Apple, Google, Samsung, and Facebook. The renderings below, provided by NBBJ, give a feel for the proposal: a plum project for a city that already has what's touted as the world's greenest office building.

(http://www.fastcoexist.com/1682132/amazon-is-building-a-biosphere-for-its-employees#1)

 

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