Open Amazon Headquarters Design is a Sharp Contrast to Closed Gates Foundation Campus

Taking some visitors around Seattle on Saturday, it struck me that the huge Gates Foundation campus with its tinted windows and closed off interior court does little to contribute to the surrounding community as many of us had originally hoped. For our cover story on the new Gates headquarters building, which came out in our September 2010 issue, half a year before the campus was completed, the Foundation described how the campus was designed with windows along the road looking into the building to reflect a new sense of transparency at the Gates Foundation. When the campus opened, however, it was clear that the completed campus was far different. The windows along the street are tinted and unfriendly looking, and the beautiful inner courtyard is inaccessible. Fortunately, Amazon.com appears to be taking a very different approach with its headquarters campus.

Amazon’s architects at NBBJ have provided drawings laying out plans for the company’s new downtown presence as written up on a blogpost by GeekWire. Interestingly, Amazon’s dowtown campus (image on the left,) is being designed by the same firm that designed the Gates Foundation campus. But in sharp contrast to the closed Gates design, in which the impressive common spaces (image right) are not accessible to the public, Amazon’s design proposal includes beautiful public spaces (image left) likely to enhance civic spaces in the city.