I have wanted to see the Amazon Spheres since they opened on January 30, 2018. Amazon’s website says:
The Spheres are a place where employees can think and work differently surrounded by plants.
The Spheres are a result of innovative thinking about the character of a workplace and an extended conversation about what is typically missing from urban offices– a direct link to nature. The Spheres are home to more than 40,000 plants from the cloud forest regions of over 30 countries.
Amazon offers two public showings a month, but at the time I checked on them the reserved spaces were full far into the future. I decided to ask a friend who works at Amazon if employees were allowed to bring visitors. He said “Yes”, and offered to show me the Spheres. It took me until November 20th to take him up on his generous offer, but the day finally arrived.
When we entered the Spheres, the first thing I saw was a living wall (aka green wall). I had looked up living walls when I was working on a PNW GreenFriends Newsletter (Issue 87, page 23) a few months ago. I was impressed by the concept and by seeing photos of living walls throughout the world. And now I was standing in front of one.
This living wall was 3 stories high. It was impossible for me to photograph it in its entirety but I did my best.
When I left the wall, I looked around me. I felt as if I had entered a wonderland. The area shown in the photo below had small waterfalls.
There were so many beautiful plants.
(Click on the galleries to enlarge the photos.)
I was surprised to learn that these were ginger plants.
I thought these carnivorous plants were fascinating. They reminded me of the Venus fly trap plant I had when I was a kid.
As Rashmesh and I walked up the stairs, we had various views of the big living wall.
There was a tree inside the spheres that was three stories high. How in the world had they brought it to Seattle? And how did they get it into the building, or did they build the spheres around it? I wish I had asked. The first photo shows the top part of the tree; the second shows the middle section; and you can see part of the trunk on the right side of the third photo.
The plant in the first photo below was called fan aloe. I’ve never seen aloe that looks like that! I don’t know the name of the plant in the second and third picture but I thought it was beautiful… and fascinating.
Before I knew it, we had made it through the spheres. I imagine I could visit these structures over and over and each time see plants I hadn’t seen before. Perhaps I will do that.
Thank you Rashmesh… for giving me this experience!
Living, Learning and Letting Go 
Carnivorous plants sounds kinda scary.
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True, it would be scary if you were a small insect! I was also surprised by the name.
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I did an internet search for “how did they get the tree inside the amazon sphere”. I love finding answers. It led me to a link on Amazon’s official blog, and a video named “1,200 miles with Rubi”. I’d link it directly, but I know WordPress would flag it as spam.
Anyway, congratulations on your visit to the spheres!
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Thanks for the lead. I will look it up.
Sent from my iPhone
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Oh so very cool. 😀
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