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Seattle becomes home to the newest Amazon rainforest

By Julia Guerrein, Editor-in-Chief

02/06/2018

After several years of growth, Amazon has unveiled their new biodome at their Seattle office. The biodome consists of three glass spheres that hold real plants to make an indoor rainforest. The spheres are made from glass pentagons, steel and rebar, and are filled with tropical plants, such as epiphytes, rare begonias and rhododendron, orchids, and ferns.

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The large glass spheres can hold up to 800 Amazon employees and have more than 400 botanical species, tree-house meeting rooms, a river and waterfalls and a “bird’s nest” conference room, according to USA Today. The biodome was built in order to give Amazon employees a place to escape the emails, meetings, reports and deadlines, and allow them to escape into a South American inspired world. The company will monitor the time employees spend in the biodome to make sure the space is shared and that no one spends too much time away from their work.

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“The idea is that we connect them with nature,” Ron Gagliardo, leading horticulturist at Amazon, told USA Today. “We get them away from their normal desk environment so you don’t see any desks or cubicles around.”

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The spheres are also a sustainable marvel, which are made of glass that lets light in and keep excess heat out. Amazon’s campus is located across from a 34-story telecommunications data center that gives off a significant amount of heat. Amazon has partnered with the owners of that building to take waste energy and cycle it through heat-reclaiming chillers to help heat offices. Amazon’s 37-story headquarters has a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) gold certification, along with the rest of the block it is located on.

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After the CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, first saw a rendering of how the biodome would eventually look, he decided he didn’t want to wait for it to match the drawing. After three years, the plants within the biodome are now grown to where Bezos wanted.

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“The question I got back was, ‘Well, can we have Year Five on Day One?” said Gagliardo, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. “And that’s kind of  been our motto ever since.”

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Although the spheres are intended to help current employees, they are also going to be used as a recruiting tool. John Schoettler, who oversaw the project and is in charge of Amazon’s global real estate division, thinks the biodome will give candidates the impression that Amazon is a forward-thinking company, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

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“From the moment we started construction, people would stand on the streetcorners taking photographs,” said Schoettler, reported the Philadelphia Inquirer. “This structure is about thinking big and thinking long-term.”

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Other tech companies have created new and unique spaces, such as Apple’s circular spaceship campus, Facebook’s headquarters with a nine-acre rooftop park and Google’s glass tent-like buildings. These cutting-edge workspaces set these companies apart, particularly for attempting to give their employees more nature during the workday.

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“Because we are an urban campus, one thing that is missing is a link to nature,” said Schoettler, according to National Geographic. Experts have increasingly stressed the importance of access to nature, especially to brain function, creativity and the ability to problem-solve.

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“Nature is something we absolutely need to lead happy, healthy, meaningful lives,” said Timothy Beatley, a professor of sustainable communities at the University of Virginia’s School of Architecture and a specialist in biophilic urban planning, reported National Geographic. “We need to overcome this sense that you should just get out in nature once or twice a year on holiday.” Beatley explained that there is increasing evidence that time in nature has a positive effect on health. In turn, this lowers blood pressure and helps people do better mentally.

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The move to include more green space by tech companies shows the trend hitting cities  to include more natural spaces to help citizens physically and mentally. Now, after years of growth, Amazon’s employees will be able to enjoy their own Amazon rainforest.

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