4 ms·

Amazon’s colorful new towers will put a bold stamp on Seattle’s skyline

37 points by eccobay 14y ago

rayiner 14y ago
This is so much better than the suburban office park crap that plagues the tech industry. Beautiful.
sukuriant 14y ago
I was about to come on here and call those colors absolutely awful, especially since the monitor I was looking at them on was the most color-accurate monitor I have; but ... then I remembered I have Flux turned on on my screens. I turned it off; and ... ... it's not so bad, I'll admit.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
ineedtosleep 14y ago
For an article that's just repeating words from the official document[1], very little is said. tl;dr: Amazon's planning on building a new building and it will be green and orange. Those that are interested should look at the official document linked below. Note that the PDF is around 28MB. The interesting bits that the article briefly mentions are on page 8 and on. [1] http://www.seattle.gov/dpd/AppDocs/GroupMeetings/DRProposal3013154AgendaID3744.pdf http://www.seattle.gov/dpd/AppDocs/GroupMeetings/DRProposal3...
davidw 14y ago
I wonder how they'll look ten years out, when they're dirty and faded.
- moondowner 14y ago
  Depends from their maintenance.
  - officemonkey 14y ago
    Maybe not. I lived in Brussels for two years (which has a very similar climate to Seattle) and my wife and I both remarked that "Brussels needs a good scrubbing" compared to Paris. All the buildings looked just a tad dingy, even the glass boxes over at the European Commission.
kjjw 14y ago
Reminiscent of Central St. Giles in London: http://www.centralsaintgiles.com/building-gallery http://www.centralsaintgiles.com/building-gallery And in fact, roughly the same three colours: red, green and yellow.
thesagan 14y ago
Nice building. However -- I've watched renderings like these come out for years, as well as the final results (in person). Thing is, glass, and especially tinted or "specially treated" glass meant for display purposes, are very very hard to render beforehand. Actually, it's very difficult to tell how the glass actually looks until it starts coming out of the factory to be hung up. My fear with tinted glass is that it often appears darker than intended. A lot of the tinted glass in NYC, although colorful enough up-close, becomes dulled a mile or more away. But we'll have to see how this one turns out. Each glass curtain wall is different. Unique, like a snowflakes (if that's even true).
- brudgers 14y ago
  In 1991, the first time something I drew was fabricated (20 kips of prestressed double tee for a parking structure), I thought, "So that's what it really looks like." I still have the same sensation today, when exposed to built work. The only difference is that I am aware of the gap between representation on paper and presence while I am designing. The image is not the building. The rendering, like any drawing, is just a communication tool.
  - thesagan 14y ago
    Agreed. Just like renderings I do for website projects, they're communication/brainstorming tools and only that. On a somewhat funnier note, every time a new massing model or rough sketch of a new building is released in NYC (for example the early World Trade Center massing models created back in '02 or '03) there's always a small, but hysteric faction of architecture enthusiasts crying out about the bad design, not realizing what they're even looking at.
yottabyte47 14y ago
Interesting contrast to what Apple is doing to expand their campus. Colorful towers v. a giant doughnut. I can't imagine Apple's campus ever being a skyscraper. Allegedly Apple's new campus is only 4 stories high to give it a "human" scale. Now I understand what that means.
- wisty 14y ago
  Spacious buildings can be a problem. You decrease the density of engineers / square foot, which reduces collaboration. Of course, skyscrapers can also be bad, as it limits mixing. People only tend to interact with people on the same floor.
  - yottabyte47 14y ago
    I'm not sure if that's the case. Pixar's campus is another example of a large, low building and it's central atrium is specifically designed to encourage random encounters among employees.
  - thornofmight 14y ago
    Apple's new campus is designed specifically to increase collaboration and random encounters.
- brudgers 14y ago
  Presumably, the trolly line - public transit itself being an icon of human scale development - will connect Amazon's campus to human scale staples such as shops and restaurants elsewhere in Seattle's urban fabric. The problem with Apple's site is that they have to create human scale because of the inward focus of the campus and it's isolation from dense urban fabric. The designers took the Pentagon as precedent, but missed the fundamental role that being connected to an urban center provides in mitigating the negative effects of a form designed to contain secrets. One can see Amazon flexibly leasing space on their campus to other companies, it is hard to see that with Apple's design. Apple's building is a duck. Amazon's a decorated shed. Ducks and sheds: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Duck#Legacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Duck#Legacy http://www.amst.umd.edu/Research/cultland/annotations/Venturi1.html http://www.amst.umd.edu/Research/cultland/annotations/Ventur...
bcks 14y ago
Do you really need a Grand Staircase in 2012? Why make special accommodations and a separate ADA entrance for the special wheelchair people? If you're building from scratch, why not a unified, inclusive design that's accessible to all?
- Evbn 14y ago
  Because ramps are uncomfortable and accident prone for most people to walk on?
bproctor 14y ago
Other than the fact that they are going to block my view of the space needle, it's really going to be an improvement for the area. The area right now is a bunch of parking lots, old junky buildings, and a car dealership that seems out of place.

37 points by eccobay 14y ago

This is so much better than the suburban office park crap that plagues the tech industry. Beautiful.

I was about to come on here and call those colors absolutely awful, especially since the monitor I was looking at them on was the most color-accurate monitor I have; but ... then I remembered I have Flux turned on on my screens. I turned it off; and ... ... it's not so bad, I'll admit.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

ineedtosleep 14y ago

For an article that's just repeating words from the official document[1], very little is said. tl;dr: Amazon's planning on building a new building and it will be green and orange. Those that are interested should look at the official document linked below. Note that the PDF is around 28MB. The interesting bits that the article briefly mentions are on page 8 and on. [1] http://www.seattle.gov/dpd/AppDocs/GroupMeetings/DRProposal3013154AgendaID3744.pdf http://www.seattle.gov/dpd/AppDocs/GroupMeetings/DRProposal3...

davidw 14y ago

I wonder how they'll look ten years out, when they're dirty and faded.

moondowner 14y ago
Depends from their maintenance.
- officemonkey 14y ago
  Maybe not. I lived in Brussels for two years (which has a very similar climate to Seattle) and my wife and I both remarked that "Brussels needs a good scrubbing" compared to Paris. All the buildings looked just a tad dingy, even the glass boxes over at the European Commission.

kjjw 14y ago

Reminiscent of Central St. Giles in London: http://www.centralsaintgiles.com/building-gallery http://www.centralsaintgiles.com/building-gallery And in fact, roughly the same three colours: red, green and yellow.

thesagan 14y ago

Nice building. However -- I've watched renderings like these come out for years, as well as the final results (in person). Thing is, glass, and especially tinted or "specially treated" glass meant for display purposes, are very very hard to render beforehand. Actually, it's very difficult to tell how the glass actually looks until it starts coming out of the factory to be hung up. My fear with tinted glass is that it often appears darker than intended. A lot of the tinted glass in NYC, although colorful enough up-close, becomes dulled a mile or more away. But we'll have to see how this one turns out. Each glass curtain wall is different. Unique, like a snowflakes (if that's even true).

brudgers 14y ago
In 1991, the first time something I drew was fabricated (20 kips of prestressed double tee for a parking structure), I thought, "So that's what it really looks like." I still have the same sensation today, when exposed to built work. The only difference is that I am aware of the gap between representation on paper and presence while I am designing. The image is not the building. The rendering, like any drawing, is just a communication tool.
- thesagan 14y ago
  Agreed. Just like renderings I do for website projects, they're communication/brainstorming tools and only that. On a somewhat funnier note, every time a new massing model or rough sketch of a new building is released in NYC (for example the early World Trade Center massing models created back in '02 or '03) there's always a small, but hysteric faction of architecture enthusiasts crying out about the bad design, not realizing what they're even looking at.

yottabyte47 14y ago

Interesting contrast to what Apple is doing to expand their campus. Colorful towers v. a giant doughnut. I can't imagine Apple's campus ever being a skyscraper. Allegedly Apple's new campus is only 4 stories high to give it a "human" scale. Now I understand what that means.

wisty 14y ago
Spacious buildings can be a problem. You decrease the density of engineers / square foot, which reduces collaboration. Of course, skyscrapers can also be bad, as it limits mixing. People only tend to interact with people on the same floor.
- yottabyte47 14y ago
  I'm not sure if that's the case. Pixar's campus is another example of a large, low building and it's central atrium is specifically designed to encourage random encounters among employees.
- thornofmight 14y ago
  Apple's new campus is designed specifically to increase collaboration and random encounters.
brudgers 14y ago
Presumably, the trolly line - public transit itself being an icon of human scale development - will connect Amazon's campus to human scale staples such as shops and restaurants elsewhere in Seattle's urban fabric. The problem with Apple's site is that they have to create human scale because of the inward focus of the campus and it's isolation from dense urban fabric. The designers took the Pentagon as precedent, but missed the fundamental role that being connected to an urban center provides in mitigating the negative effects of a form designed to contain secrets. One can see Amazon flexibly leasing space on their campus to other companies, it is hard to see that with Apple's design. Apple's building is a duck. Amazon's a decorated shed. Ducks and sheds: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Duck#Legacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Duck#Legacy http://www.amst.umd.edu/Research/cultland/annotations/Venturi1.html http://www.amst.umd.edu/Research/cultland/annotations/Ventur...

bcks 14y ago

Do you really need a Grand Staircase in 2012? Why make special accommodations and a separate ADA entrance for the special wheelchair people? If you're building from scratch, why not a unified, inclusive design that's accessible to all?

Evbn 14y ago
Because ramps are uncomfortable and accident prone for most people to walk on?

bproctor 14y ago

Other than the fact that they are going to block my view of the space needle, it's really going to be an improvement for the area. The area right now is a bunch of parking lots, old junky buildings, and a car dealership that seems out of place.