A peak inside Amazon Spheres, their new collaborative workspace that features a 70,000 square foot living rain forest at their headquarters in Seattle.
Slack, Airbnb, and countless coworking spaces may be implementing the latest in modern office design. E-commerce giant Amazon was not to be outdone. On January 29, 2018, Amazon is officially opening an innovative new collaborative workspace at their Seattle headquarters. Amazon has replicated, well, the Amazon in downtown Seattle!
The traditional work environment is damned. Amazon says they built an on-campus tropical botanic garden to get employees away from their desks and into "nature". The ultimate goal is helping them "think differently".
"You can't be afraid to think big, " said John Schoettler, Amazon's VP of global real estate.
This fully digital workplace is equipped with various shared workspace environments - from collaboration nooks to park benches to more formal conference areas. The centerpiece is "The Bird's Nest" which sits atop of a 55 foot tree trucked in from California. Warning, you must cross a (purposefully) rickety suspension bridge.
Or employees can just take a walk to observe the sights, sounds, and smells of nature. There are 40,000 plants to observe and signage throughout making this a learning experience.
Of course, there is another reason Amazon built this 70,000 square foot rain forest - they don't want employees to leave. Amazon Spheres encourages work/life integration. Employees have yet another reason to enjoy their workspace, learn, refresh themselves, enjoy a snack, so off the space to friends - or just to get out of Seattle's dreary weather - so they stick around the campus longer.
A far cry from Amazon's more humble beginnings, Amazon is said to have spent $4 billion on its new urban campus, which houses 40,000 employees. The Spheres is a three-domed climate-controlled garden with around 400 species of plants from 30 countries. Plus streams, fish, and soon bugs to even better capture the rain forest environment the garden and workspace is meant to replicate.
Is Amazon Spheres the ultimate shared workspace that large enterprises, tech startups and coworking spaces should try to replicate? Or work/life integration taken too far? We want to hear from you.
There are still many advantages of working face-to-face, and modern office design is facilitating those benefits.
Almost by definition, tech companies are innovative. And their workplaces must follow suit to attract and inspire the best minds in the industry.
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