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NBBJ is working with Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, to revitalize Seattle’s Denny Triangle neighborhood with the creation of new corporate office space, ground-level retail and public amenities.

The project encompasses approximately 3.3 million square feet on three city blocks, including three 38-story high-rise office towers, two mid-rise office buildings and a multi-purpose meeting center seating 1,800 people. To reflect Amazon’s community-focused culture, the design seeks to build a neighborhood rather than a campus. Therefore, urban design principles play a prominent role in the project, with emphasis given to ground-level activity and diversity in building character.

For example, the design includes a public dog park, two-way cycle track on 7th Avenue with separate entrances for bicycle commuters that are remote from the garage and loading dock, and tower curtain wall systems that extend upward to screen rooftop mechanical equipment. In addition, ground-level retail on each street front will create a vibrant mixed-use neighborhood in an urban area dominated by surface parking lots. As an added benefit for employees, the project also includes regularly spaced operable windows for the full height of the mid-rise and high-rise office buildings.

Street work at the project site is underway and the construction documentation process for the first block of the project is moving forward. NBBJ will continue to work closely with Amazon and the City of Seattle to create a community of buildings and public spaces that appropriately elevate the urban environment for Amazon employees, their neighbors and citizens of Seattle.

Publications

The New Yorker, “High-Tech Companies, Low-Tech Offices,” April 25, 2014
Wired, “Architects Invent the Future of Work,” January 17, 2014
NPR, “Check Out These Futuristic Tech Company Headquarters,” December 24, 2013
All Things D, “Amazon Builds the Spheres, While Google Opts for the Hulk,” October 26, 2013
The Los Angeles Times, “Amazon's Seattle biodome campus clears design board,” October 24, 2013
Australian Broadcasting Corporation, “Back to the city for healthy office spaces,” September 13, 2013
Fox Business Network, “Tech Giants Building New Corporate Campuses,” August 29, 2013
Fast Company, “Amazon Is Building A Biosphere For Its Employees,” May 23, 2013
Wired, “Amazon’s Urban Biospheres,” May 23, 2013
The Wall Street Journal, “Amazon Acquires Blocks in Seattle,” February 18, 2012
The Seattle Times, “Excavation for first Amazon tower to begin in June,” February 14, 2013