Archinect - News

McMansion Hell's Kate Wagner dissects issues with big tech and the 'blurred line' between private and public space

2021-03-11T19:35:00-05:00

In February, Amazon announced its latest design for a $2.5 billion headquarters in Arlington, "the Helix." Once visual renderings for the campus were released, the architecture community was quick to respond. Besides heavy criticism of its overall design, discussion regarding its surrounding public space was soon questioned. Architecture critic Kate Wagner addresses the long-rivaled issues between big tech corporate campuses and their intentionality behind fostering a so-called "engaged environment" with public space.

Her article in The New Republic, "How Big Tech Devours Public Space, " assesses large tech companies like Amazon and their double-sided plans to create spaces available for public use. She explains, "Amazon is presenting the Helix as a companion structure to 'the Spheres,' the indoor gardens at its Seattle headquarters. But as a space of consumption and leisure, the Helix actually resembles a lot of classic starchitecture. It is a towering, glass-clad, tree-dotted baub...

Amazon trades $20 million in affordable housing for more FAR in Virginia

2019-11-27T16:00:00-05:00

Amazon is offering $20 million to the Arlington County Affordable Housing Investment Fund in exchange for being allowed to build a bigger headquarters complex in the county than zoning allows. ...it would be the greatest single infusion of money ever into Arlington’s housing fund, which in recent years received between $14 million and $16 million annually from the county government and $5 million to $6 million in loan repayments from developers.

According to The Washington Post, the affordable housing proposal has been long awaited by Arlington residents who worry about the arrival of thousands of well-paid Amazon employees and the higher rents and housing costs that could result.

In exchange for the donation, Amazon hopes to increase the allowable size of its new ZGF Architects-designed HQ. Additionally, the company plans to create 25,000 new jobs and invest $2.5 billion in building its headquarters in the Pentagon City and Crystal City neighborhoods over the next decade, reports The Washington Post.

Amazon's new pop-up strategy draws attention to the changing retail environment

2019-03-08T15:28:00-05:00

Amazon, the giant online retailer, is closing all 87 of its U.S. pop-up kiosks, which let customers try and buy gadgets such as smart speakers and tablets in malls, Kohl's department stores, and Whole Foods groceries. It's the latest change in Amazon's bricks-and-mortar retail strategy, which includes bookstores, grocery stores, and cashier-less stores.

Amazon has been a frequent headliner in the news as they prepare for headquarter expansions and retail store changes. However, despite its popularity and rapid consumer fulfillment process, Amazon has decided to discontinue its pop-up kiosk program. A spokesperson from Amazon shared that the decision was based on "creating thoughtful decisions on how to better serve their customers." In place of the pop-up kiosks, the company has expressed its focus on expanding Amazon Books and Amazon 4-star stores. This transition in retail strategy will allow Amazon to focus on a broader selection of products while putting more attention towards customer experience.

Amazon 4-star in New York's SoHo; Image © AFP

Amazon opened its first bookstore in Seattle’s University Village in 2015; Photo courtesy of GeekWire - Image © Taylor Soper)

Amazon 4-star stores appeared on the scene in 2018 at its first retail location in New York. Promotions for the store highlighted curated products across various cate...

Amazon HQ2 — what else can it offer to NYC?

2018-12-28T16:23:00-05:00

For years, suburbia has offered these companies acres of disposable, cheap, anonymous office parks: mostly one- or two-story concrete structures surrounded by loads of surface parking. These sites minimized costs, maximized security and allowed companies to scale up, contract or split into different units quickly — at the same time they promoted sprawl and traffic jams and transformed once-quaint bedroom communities south of San Francisco into phenomenally expensive places to live.

Even though Amazon's search for its new headquarters' locations has ended all the talks and negotiations about the company's potential impact on the cities it will settle in — New York and Crystal City, Virginia—have only begun.

In ways, the choice comes as no surprise as tech platforms have been attracted to America's wealthy coastal cities, with their established cultures, universities and transit systems, for years. The intensifying expansion of the tech industry amidst urban landscape raises many questions about corporations' powers and rights in a city.

Michael Kimmelman of the NY Times notes that companies like Amazon, through their multi-billion biding process, should offer to satisfy more than just the city's growing need for new jobs. The author suggests options: "As for housing, the city’s regulatory and zoning policies are more responsible for driving up costs than tech companies. But, in an ideal world, Amazon would reverse what it did in Seattle and commit resources ...

Amazon's Spheres are now partially accessible to the public; here's how to get in

2018-01-29T17:05:00-05:00

Amazon’s Spheres, a botanical gardenlike workspace for the retail giant’s employees, are primarily a private space. But the company has set up a few ways for the public to access the geodesic domes — in downtown Seattle on Lenora Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues — starting Tuesday, when the Spheres officially open to visitors and employees.

The Amazon Spheres, designed by NBBJ, will now be open to the public; however, getting in may be tricky. There is the option of entering from the ground floor to see an exhibition about the Spheres, and the much more difficult option to join a guided tour of the entire headquarters.

Inside the Spheres at Amazon headquarters in Seattle. Image: Seattle City Council/Flickr.

Amazon has created an exhibit space called Spheres Discovery at Understory, located on the ground floor of the spheres. The space will showcase all the details about the design and plants housed within Amazon's newest addition to their Seattle headquarters. Admission is free, but you will need to make a reservation for your visit.

Amazon Spheres in the company's Seattle headquarters location. Image: iTecnologia/Twitter.

Getting in on the guided headquarters tour will give you access to the employee-only areas. These tours are offered on Wednesdays and include a stop at the Spheres, while they are free they are als...

What are the odds: Who will host Amazon's second North American Headquarters

2018-01-23T15:32:00-05:00

Amazon recently released their "shortlist" of 20 cities, whose proposals to host the company's second North American Headquarters have successfully moved forward in the bidding war. Amazon will now spend the next few months diving deeper into each individual offer, no doubt utilizing the spirit of the competition in order to maximize the incentives, subsidies, and other giveaways thrown their way by luring municipalities.

Moving into round two, many are starting to wage bets based off of clues within the shortlist. Richard Florida, an influential urban studies theorist at the University of Toronto, has already put his money on New York, where the company tapped two potential locations (New York City and Newark), and D.C, where they have picked three (D.C, Northern Virginia, and Montgomery County). That said, the popular Irish bookmaker Paddy Power places Atlanta, Georgia at the top of the list, with 2-to-1 odds of winning the bid.

The retail giant has publicly stated that it is l...

Amazon has reportedly 238 HQ2 proposals to pick from

2017-10-25T13:52:00-04:00

Amazon.com Inc has received 238 proposals from cities and regions across North America vying to host the company’s second headquarters, it said on Monday. The number of applicants underscores the interest in the contest, which Seattle-based Amazon announced last month. The world’s largest online retailer said it would invest more than $5 billion and create up to 50,000 jobs for “Amazon HQ2”. The deadline for submitting proposals was Thursday.

While most cities, counties, and states eager to host Amazon's new 'HQ2' rolled out the expected tax-incentive red carpet, Reuters reports that the Atlanta suburb of Stonecrest pulled out a trick from the ol' autocracy box and offered land to create a new city called, you guessed it, Amazon, while granting CEO Jeff Bezos mayorship for life.

For more about Amazon's HQ2 courtship on Archinect click here.

Christopher Hawthorne: Apple and Amazon's architectural visions "owe nothing to the American city"

2017-09-14T17:58:00-04:00

It has also been remarkable to watch Amazon pursue a dramatically different strategy. Its plans for a second headquarters suggest that in terms of architecture and campus planning it wants to be everything Apple is not. It wants to lean into the city — and thorny questions about gentrification and housing prices, to the extent that they will be a natural byproduct of this process — rather than away from it.

"Though he took a very different path to get there," Hawthorne writes in his LAT opinion piece analyzing Apple & Amazon's lofty headquarters ambitions with a focus on urban integration (or the complete lack thereof), "Bezos ultimately reached the same conclusion Jobs did: that the wealthiest and most powerful tech companies owe nothing to the American city."

The New York Times picks Denver for Amazon's new headquarters

2017-09-11T15:26:00-04:00

Amazon has set off a scrum among cities that are hoping to land the company’s second headquarters — with the winner getting the prize of a $5 billion investment and 50,000 new jobs over the next two decades. (Denver's) lifestyle and affordability, coupled with the supply of tech talent from nearby universities, has already helped build a thriving start-up scene in Denver and Boulder, 40 minutes away.

The New York Times suggests Denver for Amazon new headquarters as it offers a large and growing labour pool, access to universities, high quality of life and enough space to build eight million square feet of office space. If Amazon was to follow the New York Times advice it could drastically change the face of Denver in the next years.

Forget ball pits – Amazon is growing over 3,000 plant species to fill its new downtown Seattle HQ

2016-07-19T17:33:00-04:00

the spheres will be packed with a plant collection worthy of top-notch conservatories, allowing Amazon employees to amble through tree canopies three stories off the ground, meet with colleagues in rooms with walls made from vines and eat kale Caesar salads next to an indoor creek. [...] “The whole idea was to get people to think more creatively, maybe come up with a new idea they wouldn’t have if they were just in their office,” said Dale Alberda, the lead architect on the project at NBBJ

While the benefits of greenery for employee productivity is well established, and any good tech company needs to play up the "serendipity machine" game, Amazon is taking this to an architectural level:

The spheres will have meeting areas called treehouses, and suspension bridges high off the ground that will be just wobbly enough to quicken the pulses of employees who walk over them. “Amazon said, ‘Make this fun,’” said Mr. Alberda, the architect.