Amazon Sphere - Seattle, USA
A Green Workspace for Innovative Thinking
Space Archive Project no.8 June 18. 2023
About Amazon Sphere
On 6th Ave in Seattle, Amazon Headquarters is settled down with an iconic spherical building called ‘the spheres’. This new headquarters area was built in 2018, designed by NBBJ, and ‘the spheres’ is purposely created for their employees’ working space. But, the exterior is open to the public and also allows visitors on specific days, therefore it offers a great relaxing spot for both employees and the public.
The inside of the building is filled with lots of greeneries from all over the world. They want their employees to have innovative thinking by staying close to the nature that usually missing in the typical urban offices. They believe different workplace environments can be a great method to bring extraordinary ideas. Due to that philosophy, the sphere has been established successfully on the ground and creates an urban oasis in the center of Seattle.
We all love Nature
When I first visited the spheres, I was impressed by their overall concept throughout the building. The one key theme that overarching the space is Nature. And, that nature concept is not only executed by planting greens but is also dissolved in various components in the space. Therefore, overall they are harmonized very well with each other under the nature concept. I organized some examples below.
1. Exterior Structure
First, I paid attention to their exterior. The Shape of the dome reminds me of bubbles or clouds. Compare to other existing dome shape architecture, ‘the spheres’ has a more organic shape by using their own custom frame called ‘Pentagonal Hexecontahedron’. Based on the steel structure, several different types of triangular windows are attached and created a dome shape.
2. Exterior Landscape
Also, The landscaping around the building is designed with diverse plants and well organized with different types of space contents, therefore people who just pass by naturally get an opportunity to interact with plants. In addition to plants, the tree-inspired shade structures caught my eye. It has a similar visual language to the main architecture and acts as a great resting spot when there is sunshine or rain. It visually looks awesome, but also functions of it perform even greater in this rainy city.
3. Interior Wall
Nature themes are well performed inside the building as well. Especially the huge plant wall that starts from the ground level to the top, overwhelms the entire atmosphere with liveliness. Along the pathway toward the top floor, the perspective constantly changes therefore it is interesting to feel some transition depending on the level where I stood.
4. Water
In addition to real plants, the existence of water was a key point to bring liveness into the space. Beyond the vision, the sounds coming from the waterfalls and the sprinklers brought a peaceful mood and elevate the space’s vitality.
Overall, it was a great experience to see how predominantly we can use natural resources as a design component for the urban office. From my perspective, everyone who visits this building looks happy and enjoys the freshness of the space.
Big Picture Behind the Spheres
After enjoying the overall space, I started to think about their brand strategies that applied to this building. First of all, I was questioning why did they create the shape of a building as a sphere form, and named it ‘the spheres’. For me, the word ‘sphere’ reminds me of two images instantly. One is the Earth, and the other is the Focal Point.
Amazon is well known to the public as an online retail shopping company but they also run a cloud system business all over the world which is called AWS(Amazon Web Services). And their market ranking is the number one in the cloud service industry. For me, the visual shape of the sphere and its structural detail resembles the figuration of their wide networking service throughout the world. Even though, they named it as ‘the spheres’ instead of ‘the earth’, I still can associate the image of the earth from their naming.
And when I step back a little bit and observe this architecture with the surrounding environment. the shape of the sphere stands out from other rectangular buildings. Some people say it is not harmonized well and has too strong characteristics. But for me, it seems like a remarkable building to add diversity in shape and acts as a great focal point to gather people around it. By creating the sphere form architecture, I would say the brand new sphere(area) has been established around the building.
In a word, the sphere theme is a very clever strategy to indirectly convey their brand value to the public. Visitors will remember Amazon as a sustainable and community-friendly company.
What makes inclusive design?
I think creating inclusive design is one of the key methods to upgrading good design into great design. In the Amazon sphere, there were several parts that I saw their considerable thoughts to offer their space for diverse people.
1. Furniture Diversity
They intentionally brought various types of trees and flowers which are not typically seen in the Seattle area for provoking their employee’s innovative thinking.
The same thoughts are also applied considerably to space design and furniture selections. Different kinds of table and seating furniture, including regular chairs, lounge chairs, sofas, and sun beds are well organized for providing different user experiences. Depending on a specific purpose and each person’s desire, they can freely choose seating types depending on what they want.
2. Space Openness
Overall, the building of the Amazon Spheres has a strong visual power to catch people’s eyes because of its unique shape. In addition to that power, it also has a welcoming vibe to everyone, therefore the vitality of the surrounding community was elevated. Their outside landscape design has been designed well with many greeneries and a sufficient amount of outside seating keeps people to stay for a long time. In my opinion, it is one of the great examples that upgrades the surrounding atmosphere by building one specific architecture. And it is all because they intentionally created the building for everyone who visited, not only for their employees