Work

Ideas

Work and Ideas

Market Sectors

Services

Expertise

NBBJ designs better buildings through applied reasearch where we harvest insights from social science, neuroscience and materials science. Learn about our research initiatives.

Applied Research

Discover NBBJ, an architecture and design firm with more than 80 years of experience where we are constantly reinventing ourselves to better serve our clients and community.

Our Story

Overview

NBBJ cultivates a practice of leaders: a collaboration among optimistic, empowered experts. Meet our staff and executives.

People

Locations

NBBJ invests in opportunities that lead to diversity and inclusion within the design profession. Doing so is key to an equitable, just world. See how we do it.

Diversity and Inclusion

News

Careers at NBBJ change lives transform communities, and create a healthier planet for future generations. Learn more about working at NBBJ.

Careers

Life at NBBJ

Available Positions

With an NBBJ internship you'll work on real architecture and design projects with world-changing clients. Kickstart your career today!

Internships

Have a challenge? Contact us to explore how design can help.

Contact

1 Center Plaza
Suite 800
Boston, MA, USA 02108

Featured Work

Related News

Our Other Locations

Boston Architecture Firm

Boston

Video Medium

Large

Video Small

Screenview

Video Web View

Original

Small

Square

Thumbnail

Web View

1018 Jay St.
Suite 470
Charlotte, NC, USA 28208

Featured Work + Ideas

Charlotte

250 South High Street  
Suite 300  
Columbus, OH, USA 43215

Columbus Architecture Firm

Columbus

London Architecture Firm

London

523 W. 6th Street
Suite 300  
Los Angeles, CA, USA 90014

Los Angeles Architecture Firm

Los Angeles

111 5th Avenue
Floors 10 and 11
New York, NY, USA 10003 

+1 (212) 989-3993

New York Architecture Firm

New York

555 SE Martin Luther King Jr Blvd
Suite 601
Portland, OR, USA 97214

Portland Architecture Firm

Portland

Pride Parmar Galaxy 8th Floor  
10/10 + A Sadhu Vaswani chowk Pune, MH 411001 India

Pune Architecture Firm

Pune

8910 University Center Lane, 
Suite 9-125
San Diego, CA 92122

Featured Work and Ideas

San Diego Architecture Firm

San Diego

215 Leidesdorff Street 
4th Floor
San Francisco, CA, USA 94111

San Francisco Architecture Firm

San Francisco

223 Yale Avenue 
North Seattle, WA, USA 98109

Seattle Architecture Firm

Seattle

1717 Nanjing West Road 
Suite 2201 
Shanghai, China 200040

Shanghai Architecture Firm

Shanghai

Medium

Photograph by Stuart Isett. ©2018 Stuart Isett. All rights reserved.

March 10th, 2018 — Seattle, WA, USA


The Amazon Spheres are three spherical conservatories on the headquarters campus of Amazon in Seattle, Washington, US. Designed by NBBJ, the three glass domes are covered in pentagonal hexecontahedron panels and serve as an employee lounge and workspace. The domes, which range from three to four stories tall, house 40,000 plants as well as meeting space and retail stores. They are located under the Day 1 building on Lenora Street. The complex opened to Amazon employees and limited public access on January 30, 2018. The spheres are reserved mainly for Amazon employees, but are open to the public through weekly headquarters tours and an exhibit on the ground floor.

The plants inside were laid out and designed by Seattle landscape architects, Site Workshop. The spheres have 40,000 plants from 50 countries and are divided into three areas, with the western and eastern domes segregated into the Old World and New World.The domes are kept at a temperature of 72 °F (22 °C) and 60 percent humidity during the daytime. Amazon employed a full-time horticulturalist to grow the building's 40,000 plants over a three-year period at a greenhouse in Redmond. Amazon donated space in the greenhouse to the University of Washington's botany program during renovation of their Life Sciences Building in 2016. Among the 40 to 50 trees in the spheres, the largest is a 55-foot (17 m) Ficus rubiginosa tree, nicknamed "Rubi", which was lifted into the spheres by a crane in June 2017.

Photograph by Stuart Isett. ©2018 Stuart Isett. All rights reserved.

NBBJ, Site Workshop, amazon, biopsheres, interior, spheres

A+U

Contract’s 40th annual Interior Awards committee selects the Amazon Spheres as the winner of its “large office” category for creating a unique plant-filled workplace.

Amazon Spheres Wins Contract Interiors Award

Related