Living up to their name, which they share with Brazil’s Amazon Rainforest, retailer Amazon.com are preparing to build a rainforest-inspired office in Seattle.
As it stands, the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil is the largest of its kind on Earth. The most famous forest in existence spans 5.5 million square kilometres, contains well over 4 million types of animal, insect and plant life (with many more yet to be discovered), and is also responsible for around 40% of the world’s oxygen production. Needless to say, the location is very important to our ecosystem. As a result, retailer Amazon.com are keen to capture a little slice of that biome and so have announced plans to recreate a much smaller version of it in their offices in downtown Seattle.
Called ‘Rufus 2.0’, Amazon’s new building project is set to be a huge skyscraper, accompanied by a biosphere building that could rival the Eden Project. The plan is to fill the dome with multiple species of plant life, alongside some fully grown trees, meaning that this thing will be massive.
Amazon’s reasoning for this project is that they want their workers to work in an environment that allows their employees to “work and socialize in a more natural, park-like setting”. Yes, this biodome is going to be a place for their workers too.
In official documents, Amazon have also said that “while the form of the building will be visually reminiscent of a greenhouse or conservatory, plant material will be selected for its ability to co-exist in a microclimate that also suits people”, meaning that hopefully no single person across the biodome’s floors will be uncomfortable, an impressive task considering just how many leaves they’ll have to cope with.
As you can see in the images of Amazon’s mock-ups of the Rufus 2.0’s design that are darted about this post, this thing is going to need to be ginormous to accommodate everything and everyone, Amazon even continued to say that “to encourage growth and maintain the health of the plants, the building’s interior will include high bay spaces on five floors totaling [sic] approximately 65,000 SF and capable of accommodating mature trees.”
Not only does it bring health benefits to the residents of downtown Seattle, but it has several economic ones too as the location will reportedly be open to the public, with shops inside the biodome being planned too.
The Seattle Design Review Board are meeting tonight to discuss the plans, so hopefully Seattle’s very own rainforest will begin construction soon.
Source : Seattle (gov)
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