Transporting a 55ft tree from a farm in southern California to the centre of Seattle, hoisting it by crane and dropping it through a hole in the roof was one of Amazon’s more challenging deliveries, as well as one of the most eagerly anticipated.
Today, the online retailer will unveil a miniature rainforest made up of 40,000 plants from 400 rare or endangered species, which forms the centrepiece of its $4 billion office expansion at its headquarters in the city.
Communal benches and private study spaces lace the man-made jungle, which is complete with a river and waterfall, allowing a portion of Amazon’s 40,000 Seattle employees to “feel differently, to think differently” while they compile reports and hold strategy meetings, according to Ron Gagliardo, the lead horticulturist.
While the company has kept a low profile for many of its 24 years in Seattle, often posting no signage, John Schoettler, who runs Amazon’s global property division, said the development would make a strong statement about its ambitions. “From the moment we started construction, people would stand on street corners taking photographs. This structure is about thinking big and thinking long term,” he told Bloomberg.
Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos as an online bookstore in 1995 and went on to revolutionise online shopping. The group is now the largest internet retailer in the world by value; it employs more than 540,000 people and in 2016, its most recent financial year, it made net profits of $2.4 billion on sales of $136 billion.
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A team of 600 plant specialists, architects and construction workers spent five years planning and developing the office expansion, which involved the transfer of a 55ft Ficus rubiginosa tree, nicknamed Rubi.
Inside the three 100ft-tall biosphere domes, which were designed by the architecture firm NBBJ, temperatures reach 22C and the space has twice the humidity levels of a typical office. The climate varies so employees can find a microclimate to their liking and ventilation systems are installed in fake logs and tree stumps to simulate an outdoor breeze. Dozens of stadium lights will supplement natural light to simulate 12 hours of daylight and shroud the rainforest from Seattle’s dark winters. The campus already has 24 restaurants and cafés but will add another run by Renee Erickson, an award-winning chef.
Since moving into its campus in 2010, it is estimated that Amazon’s $3.7 billion of investments in Seattle have pumped an additional $38 billion into the city’s economy. The site has 33 buildings housing 40,000-plus employees who are paid salaries totalling $25.7 billion.
This year it will name a destination for its second headquarters from a shortlist of 20. The $5 billion facility, known as HQ2, will be as significant as its headquarters in Seattle, the company said.