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)
Related Stories
| Apr 5, 2011
Are architects falling behind on BIM?
A study by the National Building Specification arm of RIBA Enterprises showed that 43% of architects and others in the industry had still not heard of BIM, let alone started using it. It also found that of the 13% of respondents who were using BIM only a third thought they would be using it for most of their projects in a year’s time.
| Apr 5, 2011
Top 10 Buildings: Women in Architecture
Making selections of top buildings this week led to a surprising discovery about the representation of women in architecture, writes Tom Mallory, COO and co-founder, OpenBuildings.com. He discovered that finding female-created architecture, when excluding husband/wife teams, is extremely difficult and often the only work he came across was akin to interior design.
| Apr 5, 2011
What do Chengdu, Lagos, and Chicago have in common?
They’re all “world middleweight cities” that are likely to become regional megacities (10 million people) by 2025—along with Dongguan, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Shenzhen, Tianjin, and Wuhan (China); Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo); Jakarta (Indonesia); Lahore (Pakistan); and Chennai (India), according to a new report from McKinsey Global Institute: “Urban World: Mapping the economic power of cities”.
| Mar 30, 2011
China's low-carbon future city
In 2005, the Chinese government announced its target to reduce energy consumption per GDP unit by 20% by the year 2010. After a multi-billion investment, that target has been reached. The Chinese Climate Protection Program’s goal to increase energy efficiency, develop renewable energies, and promote energy savings while reducing pollutant emissions and strengthening environmental protection is reflected in the “Future City” by SBA Design.
