Willmott’s Ghost, the recently opened restaurant occupying the ground floor of The Spheres on Amazon’s campus in Seattle, evokes different images simultaneously.
The 1,900-sf, 50-seat restaurant was named after a thistle-like flower christened in honor of the Victorian horticulturalist Ellen Ann Willmott. The restaurant’s cuisine leans Italian, and its color scheme has been said to resemble a Margherita pizza. One review described its modernist design, enclosed as it is inside a spherical envelope, as being like an aquarium. Heliotrope Architects, the restaurant’s architect, has called the project “a ship in a bottle.”
The restaurant, which opened last October, is one of only three spaces in The Spheres open to the public. Its chef, Renee Erickson, is a regional star whose rapidly expanding food and beverage portfolio includes Deep Dive, a bar in The Sphere’s basement. (Her Sea Creatures restaurant group is the exclusive food operator of both venues.)
Willmott’s Ghost is in line with Erickson’s typically upscale, light-filled style, “with white marble accents yet filtered through a futuristic lens,” according to The Seattle Times’ review of the restaurant last month.
The 1,900-sf restaurant seats around 50 people, and its interior design was dictated by the curved space of the building. Image: Heliotrope Architects
Amazon Spheres, which opened 14 months ago, consists of three intersecting glass domes that serve as lounges and workplaces for Amazon’s employees. The domes also house more than 40,000 plants from 50 countries.
The restaurant’s design team—which included the interior design firm Price Erickson and the general contractor Dovetail—drew its inspiration from the NBBJ-designed Spheres’ geometry, as well as the airy environments of art museums and galleries.
Enclosed within the domes’ envelope, much of the architecture for the restaurant was dictated by curves: Curved leather banquettes and booths hug the glass perimeter. Curved walls clad in painted wood pickets, inspired by the knurling on the sides of coins, define the dining room. Curved bars with Italian marble countertops fill the space.
The restaurant's pastel palette and modernist design are in stark contrast to the forest of trees and plants above it. Image: Kevin Scott
“We made craft the main ingredient of the restaurant buildout,” explains Jeremy Price, a Principal with Price Erickson. That buildout was complicated by the curved nature of the building and a sophisticated mechanical system that runs The Spheres’ complex and keeps alive the plants and trees that form a three-story botanical garden above the restaurant.
The restaurant’s pastel-colored interior palette favors whites, pinks, mints, and forest greens. For example, pink Moroccan tiles are a custom color from Ann Sacks, a specialty supplier. Brass light fixtures illuminate original artwork by Ellen Lesperance. Above the tables hang crescent pendant lights by Lee Broom.
Related Stories
| Aug 16, 2022
Cedars-Sinai Urgent Care Clinic’s high design for urgent care
The new Cedars-Sinai Los Feliz Urgent Care Clinic in Los Angeles plays against type, offering a stylized design to what are typically mundane, utilitarian buildings.
| Aug 15, 2022
IF you build it, will they come? The problem of staff respite in healthcare facilities
Architects and designers have long argued for the value of respite spaces in healthcare facilities.
| Aug 15, 2022
Boston high-rise will be largest Passive House office building in the world
Winthrop Center, a new 691-foot tall, mixed-use tower in Boston was recently honored with the Passive House Trailblazer award.
Architects | Aug 12, 2022
Goettsch Partners names James Zheng, CEO, and Paul de Santis, Co-design Director
Global architecture firm Goettsch Partners (GP) announces that James Zheng, AIA, LEED AP, has been named CEO, and Paul De Santis, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP, joins James Goettsch, FAIA, as co-design directors for the practice. As the primary partners in the firm, the three have worked closely together for more than 17 years. Goettsch will also continue to serve as chairman while Zheng now assumes the full CEO title as well as president.
| Aug 12, 2022
Monthly Construction Input Prices Decreased 2% in July, Up 17% From a Year Ago, Says ABC
Construction input prices decreased 1.8% in July compared to the previous month, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Producer Price Index data released today.
Hotel Facilities | Aug 12, 2022
Denver builds the nation’s first carbon-positive hotel
Touted as the nation’s first carbon-positive hotel, Populus recently broke ground in downtown Denver.
| Aug 11, 2022
Report examines supposed conflict between good design and effective cost management
A report by the American Institute of Architects and the Associated General Contractors of America takes a look at the supposed conflict between good design and effective cost management, and why it causes friction between architects and contractors.
Architects | Aug 11, 2022
Mancini Duffy Bill Mandara on expanding through diversification
In this segment for HorizonTV, BD+C's John Caulfield interviews Mancini Duffy's CEO and Co-owner William Mandara about his firm's recent growth, which includes an acquisition and new HQs office.
Energy Efficiency | Aug 11, 2022
Commercial Energy Efficiency: Finally “In-the-Money!”
By now, many business leaders are out in front of policymakers on prioritizing the energy transition.
High-rise Construction | Aug 11, 2022
Saudi Arabia unveils plans for a one-building city stretching over 100 miles long
Saudi Arabia recently announced plans for an ambitious urban project called The Line—a one-building city in the desert that will stretch 170 kilometers (106 miles) long and only 200 meters (656 feet) wide.