Amazon Spheres

Amazon, the multinational e-commerce company, was founded in Seattle in 1994 and has just moved its headquarters from Beacon Hill to South Lake Union. The company’s high-tech urban campus has taken shape over the last few years. But beneath these is the most intriguing of Amazon’s new constructions. The Spheres, nicknamed “Bezos’ Balls”, are glass biomes, where employees work and relax among 40000 plants from cloud forest regions in 30 different countries. There are three interconnected domes, clad with pentagonal hexecontahedron panels and standing up to four storeys tall. The largest of the 50 or so trees in the Spheres is a 17-metre rusty fig, native to eastern Australia. You can stop by in downtown Seattle to check out these remarkable buildings from the outside, but you can also go in if you book in advance. There are 90-minute tours of the Amazon HQ most Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10:00 and 14:00.