USA Today has an article about Amazon.com's new Seattle headquarters, which consist of "three gigantic glass spheres," and about other unusual buildings in the city.
Americans tend to think of brown shipping boxes when it comes to Amazon. But in Seattle, the company is increasingly known as a real-estate owner. That's especially true downtown, where Amazon employs more than 24,000 — some of whom will soon hold meetings and take lunch breaks inside three gigantic glass spheres that add a geodesic flare to the urban grid.
The tallest of the glass and metal Spheres rises 90 feet and is more than 130 feet in diameter, with two smaller spheres to each side. In a city that gets 152 days of rain a year, they will provide a warm, dry, plant-filled space for meetings, meals and mingling for up to 800 Amazon employees at a time.
"It's kind of fantastic," said Thaisa Way, an urban landscape historian at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Related Stories
Cities Dream Of Landing Amazon's New HQ And They're Going To Great Lengths To Show It
Officials in Tucson, Ariz., uprooted a 21-foot-tall saguaro cactus and tried to have it delivered to Amazon's Seattle headquarters. Birmingham constructed giant Amazon boxes and placed them around the Alabama city. In Missouri, Kansas City's mayor bought a thousand items online from Amazon and posted reviews of each one.
All of these cities are clearly trying hard to get Amazon's attention. Why? Because they know that otherwise, they don't stand a chance against some big-name cities that are all trying to win the contest to land Amazon's second headquarters.
The retail giant announced a month ago that it has plans for a second home outside of Seattle, where it is currently headquartered. The project has been named HQ2, and the deadline for final bids is Thursday. Amazon has promised to invest $5 billion and said the facility will create as many as 50,000 jobs.
It has led to a mad scramble from cities across the nation and even in Canada. And various publications have analyzed cities' chances of landing this deal. Atlanta, Denver and Pittsburgh have made it to a few of those lists.
Many cities don't really figure as finalists on any of those lists. But that hasn't stopped them. In fact, just like Tucson or Birmingham, cities are pulling out all the stops to get noticed.
The Amazonk Prometheans may be coming to your city...
Previously: Amazon Spheres Add to Seattle's Quirky Architecture
Amazon Acquires Whole Foods for $13.7 Billion
Amazon to Invest $5 Billion in Second HQ Outside of Seattle
Amazon Looks to New Food Technology for Home Delivery
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Thursday May 11 2017, @11:40PM (7 children)
It helps that I don't live there, But it looks nice. I also like this:
Screw your UFO/campus! No more Elysium-like Silicon Valley wonderland! It's all about spheres of interaction now!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Uncle_Al on Friday May 12 2017, @01:37AM (6 children)
who hate working there.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday May 12 2017, @01:48AM (1 child)
Lol. Better to work at Amazon in Seattle than to be homeless with no Universal Basic Income, or turning tricks for heroin/fentanyl in a dilapidated building.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 12 2017, @03:44PM
I always thought it was an interesting question: are heroin addicts less, or more happy than non-heroin addicts?
Sure, they've got short life expectancy, minimal productivity, negative social integration value in the bigger picture, but if you're just measuring happiness....
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 12 2017, @01:55AM (3 children)
Speaking of "awash"...don't the three spheres remind you of anything?
How about chemistry models of H2O (Bohr atoms, represented by spheres). Polar molecule, symmetric about the larger Oxygen atom.
Tfa doesn't say anything about the joke or pun, but putting a giant water molecule in rainy Seattle must have a back story.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Friday May 12 2017, @03:22AM
I could certainly be wrong, but the plant those guys are planting in the first picture looks an awful lot like a Punga or New Zealand Tree fern.
If it rains a lot in Seattle they would probably quite like growing there, as New Zealand has some of the wettest places on the planet. [doc.govt.nz]
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday May 12 2017, @04:49AM (1 child)
Vaguely, in the sense that almost all three-atom molecules look vaguely the same. But it lacks the two most iconic features of a water molecule: the large size difference between oxygen to hydrogen, and the 105* angle they form.
Really, it looks a lot closer to carbon dioxide, with its two slightly smaller oxygen molecules in a straight line with the central carbon.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 12 2017, @03:47PM
And, there's a question: what produces more CO2, UPS trucks delivering cardboard boxes direct from warehouse to customer, or individuals in private cars driving to multiple brick and mortar retail locations browsing, purchasing, and driving home?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 12 2017, @12:05AM (14 children)
Must be fun to be homeless in Seattle where you can look at the gigantic glass spheres full of rich people who got rich by fucking over the poor. Almost makes you want to take a fucking sledgehammer to their gigantic glass spheres. In fact there's no "almost" about it. Justice will be done when Amazon is shattered and looted.
(Score: 3, Funny) by bob_super on Friday May 12 2017, @12:16AM (1 child)
Well, it's three spheres right in front of a rectangular building, not two beneath a cylindrical one, so it's pretty clear that you're being fucked by automation.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday May 12 2017, @04:45AM
A virtual "insightfunny" mod for you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 12 2017, @12:19AM
Yeah let's train the homeless to code! Train the homeless to train the H1Bs who will do their jobs! We can have a revolving door from homeless to training and back to homeless again! It's just brilliant enough to work! Quick somebody twit a tweet to Bozos about the brilliant plan!
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday May 12 2017, @12:22AM (1 child)
You're not gonna smash shit, limpdick. Glass technology has advanced in the past 40 years.
Of course, the only glass you care about is that glass dick you're smoking for your Pozz party.
Also, Seattle sucks ass and is boring. Fuck off Hipster Nancies, go to Austin instead.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 12 2017, @12:36AM
Be very afraid for all that terrorist shit you have stashed in the GovCloud, bitch.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday May 12 2017, @12:42AM (5 children)
This is stupid. How on earth did a bunch of software developers "fuck over" the poor? By building up a website that out-competes Walmart, and offers lower prices? (Or, by building up a website that lets Chinese counterfeiters sell more easily here?) You might be able to claim that Amazon has fucked over Walmart, various other brick-and-mortar retailers (like Borders, Circuit City, etc.), or other online retailers, by out-competing them, or even customers and various sellers with their counterfeiting problem, but none of those parties qualify as "poor".
There's some real economic problems in this country, and a big problem with poverty and homelessness, but Amazon isn't to blame for that one. The blame lies with the American voting public for choosing shitty politicians who do nothing to address the problems, and usually make them worse with the terrible economic policies they pursue.
(Score: 4, Informative) by bob_super on Friday May 12 2017, @12:53AM (2 children)
One could point out that retail does employ millions of people with little education, and that killing retail (not just Amazon's feat, but the Web in general) is putting them out of a job.
Being too efficient at retail, and concentrating the jobs in a few warehouses and distribution companies, is pretty bad for the poor, who also got squeezed out of manufacturing by automation and outsourcing...
Stuff's cheaper, if you can still afford it.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday May 12 2017, @03:21AM
One could point out that retail does employ millions of people with little education, and that killing retail (not just Amazon's feat, but the Web in general) is putting them out of a job.
Maybe, but Amazon itself also employs a LOT of people with little education, to pack boxes in those warehouses. By the same logic, the OP should be bitching about Walmart, because they did the same thing, but again they employ a lot of poor people.
It's not like all these big online retailers are operating without any employees....
Being too efficient at retail, and concentrating the jobs in a few warehouses and distribution companies, is pretty bad for the poor, who also got squeezed out of manufacturing by automation and outsourcing..
Wrong, it's bad for the middle class. Poor people haven't worked in manufacturing jobs in many decades; those were solidly middle-class jobs. Poor people are those below the poverty line, which I think is currently $12k/year. Even minimum wage pays more than that for full-time work. Poor people are generally people who have no job, or some really lousy part-time work, and are on government assistance. Having stuff be cheaper (esp. in Walmart, not as much on Amazon since poor people don't do that much online shopping since you can't pay with cash) helps poor people with lower prices for stuff they need to survive, at the cost of putting more lower middle class people out of work, plus a lot of mom-and-pop shop owners (who themselves were not generally great employers, contrary to popular romantic notions).
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 12 2017, @03:41PM
Retail doesn't require traditional education (college degrees, etc.) for front-line employment, but they are educated in other ways: fashion, style, social grace, etc. WalMart lowered the bar below ground in those areas, but upscale retail (which Amazon is hitting pretty hard) is actually pretty selective about who they hire and keep.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 12 2017, @01:03AM
The blame lies with the American voting public for choosing shitty politicians who do nothing to address the problems, and usually make them worse with the terrible economic policies they pursue.
Tell us more about how you were With Her right up until the moment Hillary lost. It's clear that political tribalism is of supreme importance to you as an entitled moneyed elitist who can't even conceive of the little people who aren't corporations.
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Friday May 12 2017, @08:12PM
If you work for Amazon and live near Seattle then you probably have a good job. If you work for Amazon and don't live near Seattle [stallman.org] then you probably have a really terrible job [bbc.com] to the extent that it would probably be preferable to work for WalMart [bbc.co.uk]. That's bad.
1702845791×2
(Score: 4, Informative) by butthurt on Friday May 12 2017, @03:10AM (2 children)
> Must be fun to be homeless in Seattle where you can look at the gigantic glass spheres full of rich people who got rich by fucking over the poor.
Amazon.com have a conventionally shaped building under construction too:
In 2016, Amazon bought an old motel in downtown Seattle, Washington, and turned it into a temporary shelter for the homeless.
The lease only extends through October 2017, when the building will be demolished to make way for two new Amazon office towers. But now, Amazon will give the shelter a permanent home.
-- http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-homeless-shelter-office-seattle-2017-5 [businessinsider.com]
Amazon will give roughly half of the six-story building to the shelter, providing it with 47,000 square feet of space with private rooms that can hold 65 families, or about 220 people and their pets. The facility, expected to open in early 2020, will have its own entrance and elevators.
-- https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/technology/amazon-homeless-shelter-seattle.html [nytimes.com]
press release:
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170510005592/en/Amazon-Build-Permanent-Marys-Place-Family-Shelter [businesswire.com]
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Friday May 12 2017, @05:01AM
I quoted out of context: the shelter will take up roughly half of the smaller of two buildings. The Seattle Times has drawings that show it clearly.
http://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazon-creating-a-place-for-hundreds-of-homeless-on-its-shiny-new-seattle-campus/ [seattletimes.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 12 2017, @03:39PM
200 square feet per person, plus pets, in family units. Seems pretty luxurious for a homeless shelter.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday May 12 2017, @12:25AM (2 children)
I like Washington state but I hate Seattle and everybody from there. How can I allow the good ones while rejecting hipster fuckers?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 12 2017, @12:28AM (1 child)
Build a Wall around Seattle.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday May 12 2017, @04:48AM
Cascades to the east, Puget Sound to the west and bottlneck on I5 if you try getting into or out of it. Almost walled in already -- I hate when I have to go to Seattle for anything.
As for the buildings, it gets pretty hot here in the summer -- the energy that will be required for AC is going to be massive.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by idiot_king on Friday May 12 2017, @05:20AM (3 children)
Bear with me please for just a moment. I know what I'm about to say may seem like pushing a point.
Most "skyscrapers" start with a large base and extend to a smaller tip at their zenith. They are, to put it bluntly, phallic.
Note that this is very, very masculine in nature. We think of it as normal. It's easy to do so. After all, the Washington Monument, Sears (now Willis) Tower, hell, even the World Trade Centers were shaped this way.
But if you look at the old ziggurats, pyramids (both Egyptian and Aztec), even the Circus Maximus or the Coliseum, they were not even close to phallic in nature-- they were much shallower in their steepness, and not just for the sake of engineering. They were much more, as it were, round.
This idea of stretching out is of a much more dominant nature, over both the natural world and to show stature. The Burj Dubai is a clear symbol of dominance. It's not a coincidence, either, that it is not shaped like a pyramid-- it is a symbol of engineering dominance.
But these spheres are a clear symbol of alternative thinking. A type of design that is much, much more thoughtful to humanity. One modeled after Mother Earth, as it were both physically and metaphorically. Before you downvote, just think for a minute. Surely you see this dichotomy too?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 12 2017, @12:40PM
What did you smoke this morning?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 12 2017, @03:36PM
Funny, first thing I thought on reading the summary was: Bezos' big glass balls
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Friday May 12 2017, @08:20PM
The brief for the Burj Dubai was for it to be the tallest building in the world. If this could be achieved most easily with a sphere or pyramid then that would be the shape of the building. Instead, it consists of a spiral of structural posts. Each post has a different length. This ensures no common resonant frequency.
1702845791×2
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday May 12 2017, @12:56PM
How will they make sure this glass sphere won't cook people at a temperature of at least 80 ⁰C ? (176 F)
Sun light in, downconverted by the glass into infrared which the glass then reflects back = oven.
And of course it will enable Amazon corporation to leave others to breathe all those wonderful exhaust gases ;-)
(Score: 2) by Snospar on Friday May 12 2017, @05:55PM
What is up with websites these days, no sooner had I loaded the main article and a vague click on the browser window made it disappear like lightning. Then as I try and find it amidst the animated boxen of news something like a kitten video drifts down one side of the screen to alert me about something I'm not interested in. uBlock Origin is doing its job, as far as I can tell all this crap is intentional.
Why do we have websites designed like this? Is it really for the tablet/phone users? Because my experience with tablet or phone is that you end up with an even shittier cut down version of the same crap. Oh wait, I've got it! It's designed for all those billions of people with a touch screen laptop/desktop who are happy to smear their fingers over their main display.
I give up.
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