Tech

PICTURES: Amazon Is Building A Wild New 'Biosphere' In Downtown Seattle

By Julie Bort
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Amazon Sphere headquarters 6th from 14
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Amazon wants a "biodome." Once built, it will become one of a bunch of fantastical work environments at booming tech companies where well-paid employees are showered with perks.

Facebook's campus is a Disneyland-inspired recreation of downtown Palo Alto. Apple is working on a building that looks like a spaceship.

Amazon's new three interlocking dome buildings are part of a new 3.3 million square-foot new campus that will stretch across three city blocks in Seattle. The domes are in the center and look like something out the "Hunger Games."

Earlier this week, Seattle's design review board unanimously approved the unusual buildings. Next, the city's planning and development department must give the ok, reports the Seattle Times' Sanjay Bhatt.

Here's an aerial view of the domes sitting next to Amazon's new high rise building.

Amazon Sphere headquarters Aerial
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The domes are sure to become a tourist attraction, so Amazon agreed to allow the public to wander all around them. They may also host some retail shops so people can go inside them.

Amazon Sphere headquarters 6th from 14
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Here's a sketch that shows full-size trees, office space, retail space fitting inside the domes.

Amazon Sphere headquarters final sketch
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The spheres will be 80-95 feet tall.

Amazon Sphere headquarters Starfish Lenora 2
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Amazon is building a 5-foot-wide bicycle track on one side of the dome.

Amazon Sphere headquarters Lenora Sidewalk
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People will enter the dome through a giant arched doorway.

Amazon Sphere headquarters Entry Sketch
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Between the domes and other buildings, Amazon is building a public dog park

Amazon Sphere headquarters 7th from B20
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This is what Amazon's dome buildings will look like at night.

Amazon Sphere headquarters 1
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Here's a view of Amazon's entire, three-block campus, including domes.

Amazon Sphere headquarters 3 Block Aerial
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Now check out what Facebook did with its headquarters.

Facebook campus visit 09
Business Insider/Julie Bort

A Tour Of Facebook's Disneyland-Inspired Campus Where The Shops And Restaurants Are Free

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Julie Bort
Julie Bort
Julie Bort was Business Insider's Editor at Large for the Tech team. She loves investigating stories and shedding light on the tech industry's most amazing people.Here's a small sample of some of Julie's work.Former Pinterest employees describe a traumatic workplace where managers humiliate employees until they cry, Black people feel alienated, and the toxic culture 'eats away at your soul'Sex, tequila, and a tiger: Employees inside Adam Neumann's WeWork talk about the nonstop party to attain a $100 billion dream and the messy reality that tanked itInsiders say WeWork's IT is a patchwork of cheap devices and Band-Aid fixes that will take millions to fixWeWork's toxic phone booths were created in-house by its Powered by We business70-hour weeks and 'WTF' emails: 42 employees reveal the frenzy of working at Tesla under the 'cult' of Elon MuskElon Musk works so many hours at Tesla, employees are constantly finding him asleep under tables and desksHow this woman went from a Pizza Hut employee to a founder of a $4 billion startupAn Oracle insider explains how some salespeople gamed the system to sell more cloudTHE TAKEDOWN OF TRAVIS KALANICK: The untold story of Uber's infighting, backstabbing, and multimillion-dollar exit packagesMicrosoft is in talks to buy GitHub, a startup at the center of the software world last valued at $2 billionThe alarming inside story of a failed Google acquisition, and an employee who was hospitalizedInside Facebook's plan to eat another $350 billion IT marketHow a registered sex offender wound up living in an Airbnb hosting unsuspecting guestsA controversial ex-banker is the person who really runs Twitter — and he's gambling the company's future on one risky betSecret passages and skipped meals: Oracle's CEO gave us a rare peek at what it really takes to run a $37 billion companyHP told some employees to choose between becoming contractors with no benefits or being fired without severance'I felt like we were being extorted': Customer says Oracle tried to strong-arm him into a cloud saleHow the queen of Silicon Valley is helping Google go after Amazon's most profitable businessAirbnb host: A guest is squatting in my condo and I can't get him to leaveLIES, BOOZE, AND BILLIONS: How one of the fastest-growing startups in Silicon Valley history raised $580 million then spiraled out of controlGitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart — and we have the full inside storyWhen she's not writing for Business Insider, Julie can usually be found on the trails, on my mountain bike, or on my skis, if you know where to look.
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