Amazon's Next Headquarters Is a Glass Poop Emoji Covered In Trees (theverge.com) 107
Amazon has unveiled the design for the next portion of its Arlington, Virginia headquarters, and one building stands out far from the rest: a swirling glass tower covered in trees that rises to a point above the rest of the city's skyline. The Verge's Jacob Kastrenakes likens it to "the swirling poop emoji, though with some healthier colors mixed in." From the report: Amazon calls the building "the Helix" because its corkscrew shape is supposed to take inspiration from "the natural beauty of a double helix." On the inside, the Helix will be filled with a "variety of alternative work environments" that Amazon employees can use. On the outside, there'll be two sets of spiraling paths dotted with local plants that you'll literally be able to hike up. (Though you may want to bring a water bottle -- the renders seem to show stairs along the whole route, suggesting it's a steep path up.) The building will be 350 feet tall, according to The Wall Street Journal. Amazon says that it plans to offer public tours on weekends.
Along with the Helix, Amazon also unveiled plans for the campus around it. It's planning to construct three 22-story buildings around the Helix. Between them, Amazon plans to create a plaza filled with green space and a dog run that'll all be open to the public. The company is planning to make room for retail stores and restaurants, and, of course, food trucks. There'll also be parking for 950 bicycles, according to the Journal. This portion of the campus will be located at Pen Place within Arlington's Pentagon City neighborhood. It still has to get local approval, but the company hopes to begin work next year with a projected completion date of 2025.
Along with the Helix, Amazon also unveiled plans for the campus around it. It's planning to construct three 22-story buildings around the Helix. Between them, Amazon plans to create a plaza filled with green space and a dog run that'll all be open to the public. The company is planning to make room for retail stores and restaurants, and, of course, food trucks. There'll also be parking for 950 bicycles, according to the Journal. This portion of the campus will be located at Pen Place within Arlington's Pentagon City neighborhood. It still has to get local approval, but the company hopes to begin work next year with a projected completion date of 2025.
Architecture which Speaks to You. (Score:5, Insightful)
It is certainly a building which makes a statement. A statement such as, "We have way too fucking much money to know what to do with it all."
At least the Amazon employees will be less-depressed [slashdot.org] working in there.
Re:Architecture which Speaks to You. (Score:4, Informative)
It is certainly a building which makes a statement. A statement such as, "We have way too fucking much money to know what to do with it all."
Ah, tis but a few grains of rice. [youtube.com]
At least the Amazon employees will be less-depressed [slashdot.org] working in there.
Uh, let's not get ahead of ourselves and pretend Amazon doesn't know what automation is. Guess I'm not quite ready to assume humans will be employed there.
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Amazon's employees will be less depressed because they will be robots and robots don't get depressed.
Well, except for Marvin.
Or This is how you get treated when you work here (Score:2)
At least they can't say they weren't warned when they go to work for the megalomaniac now.
Re:Architecture which Speaks to You. (Score:4)
A statement such as, "We have way too fucking much money to know what to do with it all."
There is a very simple solution for this supposed problem. Stop buying from Amazon.
But, as always, because it's so simple, people won't do it. It is even easier to whine and bitch and moan about Bezos' wealth than it is to kick him where it hurts.
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A statement such as, "We have way too fucking much money to know what to do with it all."
There is a very simple solution for this supposed problem. Stop buying from Amazon.
But, as always, because it's so simple, people won't do it. It is even easier to whine and bitch and moan about Bezos' wealth than it is to kick him where it hurts.
Spend your money elsewhere, making yourself poorer. That will teach him...
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To be honest, as ugly as it is, it would be interesting if someone designed a building like this with no elevators (or perhaps only those reserved for freight and people with handicaps or other health issues). Provide a covered path for inclement weather, and force everyone to walk up/down the big ramp with green space to reach their level. After the employees got used to it, the exercise would help prevent depression far more than just having the trees.
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There is a shopping center in Frankfurt that is a big upwards spiral, with escalators going down. One big long walk to the top then you can rest when going down to the exit. There may have been elevators but they weren't obvious.
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Somebody did design a building like that, without elevators. It's called the Pentagon. They didn't go back and install elevators (for ADA compliance) until 2011.
Re: Architecture which Speaks to You. (Score:1)
Maybe by not exploiting the chinese muslim slave labor camps and manufacture shit here instead, they would have less disposable income to waste on architectural art. Why does he feel the need to have his own Tyrell corporation landmark anyway? Overcompensation for a recent onset of impotence? Small hands?
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To be clear, I was criticizing the architecture specifically, I am not against either expensive or modern buildings in general.
That Amazon building looks like Bezos clicked all the most expensive options in the webform for ordering a corporate HQ and then some Amazon warehouse cardboard box packing algorithm was adapted to fit them all together somehow. Just no sense of proportion or harmony at all. So its not so much about all the money. The wealthy have commissioned extravagant buildings which turned o
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More likely, the new building committee got 27 different proposal tendered from architects and they picked the top five, ranked them, and presented to the executive committee for a final decision.
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Any large modern office building that is not a tilt-up concrete slab architecture will be "way too much fucking money".
Someone critized Silicon Valley here last week because architecture was boring, which is because it's mostly a lot of tilt-up concrete slab stuff, one to three stories, because that's inexpensive to build. If you want an office building in a downtown core and you're a major corporation, it needs to not be a boring square concrete block so that you don't look insignificant next to your neig
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Also, just have to point this out, this is a much better and healthier solution for having too much fucking money than to spend it becoming president to fulfill an ego driven dream.
Re: Architecture which Speaks to You. (Score:1)
Come on, be fair (Score:5, Insightful)
I know it's cool to hate on large companies and all but...
That is actually pretty cool looking. And also not at all like poop, if anything it's like soft serve ice cream with toppings.
Poop is way flatter. And in case some of you have not pooped for a while and forgotten, brown.
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Oh! Poop connoisseur. I've never seen one before.
Yeah well I'm half German, it's part of my heritage. :-)
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The poop emoji is what Apple thinks shit looks like.
It's a touchy topic within the company headquartered at the giant Heaven's Gate spaceship: "what does shit really look like?" They've been detached from mere mortal reality too long to really know. One of their graphic designers started the design with a swirly style buttplug that was over in the corner of the office.
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It reminds me of the arcos in Sim City 2000 and I like it.
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It may well end up covered in poop though, given that birds tend to nest in trees and have little concern for where they defecate.
These buildings are often very hit and miss, there are some really ugly ones in London, but this isn't terrible. There is one in Japan called the "Asahi Beer Hall" which is supposed to have a flame on top, but it's commonly known as the golden turd.
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The Asahi flame doesn't actually look much like a turd, but I guess if that's what's on someone's mind it may be what things look like.
https://michaeljohngrist.com/w... [michaeljohngrist.com]
Beats the hell out of Brutalism (Score:5, Insightful)
and the bog standard glass boxes all over the place.
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I'd have been marginally less traumatised as a kid (Score:2)
... if my poop looked like that.
Agree: rare, very cool example of modern architecture.
It is fair to call it "poop" (Score:2)
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Buildings almost never look like the architect's rendition.
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Well that was a shit post .... /s
ba dum tsh
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The first time it snows (it does that in Winter in Virginia) it'll look just like a soft serve cone.
Where did you get that?!! (Score:2)
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But why would Slashdot do away with emojis?
:-)
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But why would Slashdot do away with emojis?
Perhaps we should ask the Director of Unicode Support.
* mic drop *
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Slashdot can't even handle MacOS smart quotes and apostrophes.
To symbolize (Score:1)
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Architectural hubris (Score:2)
Buildings like this offend me on two fronts. First, this is a poor use of space, especially as the diameter decreases in the upper floors. Second, they are architectural hubris, hugely expensive to build (just think of all the custom glass shapes required), and hence a poor use of corporate funds.
Building stuff like this is a dominance display by the huge egos on the corporate board.
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In other words, it's a fitting edifice for Amazon's HQ.
It looks somewhat nice, though with a shape like that you're practically inviting the city's residents to give your building a nickname: "the Turd". Refers to the building and to what's within.
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If construction was anything like programming, you could spend a lot of time and money making sure the building was constructed exactly as needed, and then make 1,000s of copies for almost no cost.
FTFY
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True, although it also perhaps serves two other purposes: Attract cool crowd, and maybe alleviate mental stress. That said I am wondering how long it will take for someone to roller blade, skateboard or wheelchair all the way down. That second loop is *really* steep. like steep enough you could build a ramp and fly off the building. And doesn't the weather go below freezing in Arlington? If you slid on a sheet of ice would you stop before hitting terminal velocity or whacking into a tree? All that said you
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Right it violates the whole form should follow function principle. Its not a good use of space in terms of valuable land vs enclosed square footage. Its not generally an efficient interior space for people either because its a loot of elliptical sharped rooms to try and put square furniture and equipment into.
Its not a good design if you are going for the urban garden/green space thing either because again it does not yield a lot of surfaces you can grow stuff on easily. At least not places people can also
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Those custom glass shapes are going to mean higher maintenance costs as well. If you're in a normal building and a window breaks, you buy a new window from any of a dozen different companies and replace it. In this building if part of the glass cracks they will need a whole new custom part created and installed.
Then there's the reuse issue. If the owners of a normal building decide they don't want the building anymore, dozens of other companies can buy the place and set up their businesses inside. With this
Tower of Babel (Score:5, Interesting)
it's not as tall as the summary implies, but it looks like an updated version of this [learnreligions.com].
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I seem to recall a building, maybe a library, that was a continual spiral with an endless sloping floor. Naturally it caused a lot of problems. Can't find it now.
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Could be... I am having trouble finding good photos of the issue, I remember there was one that clearly showed the slope and how it made installing any furniture difficult.
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They didn't think of building stairs for the furniture itself?
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Could be... I am having trouble finding good photos of the issue, I remember there was one that clearly showed the slope and how it made installing any furniture difficult.
I've never heard of furniture being a problem at the Guggenheim, though displaying art is problematic... which is kind of an issue in an art museum. With curved walls in a slanted spiral, paintings don't hang flat and basically have to be mounted on frames that hold them them away from the wall. Sculptures are often even worse because they all look like they're leaning, no matter how you place or support them. This is fine for sculptures that don't have a lot of straight lines or a clearly-correct orienta
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The diameter of the Guggenheim is large enough that you don't really notice the walls being curved behind the artwork. But it does make the paintings look ever so slightly off-level (because they're angled relative to the floor and ceiling) and I could see that driving some OCD folks crazy. And you're basically on a ramp - looking at a painting your left foot is subtly on a higher ground than your right, which feels odd at first. I still loved the place when I went, their collection is fantastic! The sculpt
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(affectionately called the "holy screw" by the locals when I lived there).
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I don't think so, but thanks anyway.
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Was it the Seattle Central Library? https://www.archdaily.com/1165... [archdaily.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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It was not... I wish I could find it now.
Re: Tower of Babel (Score:1)
Exactly like this. Thanks. The reference was hanging in my head ("where have I seen this before?"). Thanks
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Completely different. The Tower of Babel has a right hand thread. The Amazon HQ has a left hand thread.
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Literal pyramid (Score:2)
I wonder who gets the top office?
Certainly doesn't look like a very space efficient design.
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I wonder who gets the top office?
King shit of Amazon mountain.
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Top is reserved for an open air trampoline court.
Materials & tools from Amazon (Score:5, Interesting)
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*I'm assuming that you can buy them all on Amazon,
Why would you do that? Highly unlikely that construction materials such as several tonnes of premixed concrete would have much of a market in an online store.
Possibly not Poop (Score:5, Funny)
It could also be a giant "Screw you!"
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It does look like a monument to The Underminer's boring machine.
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Maybe they just want to build a drill, the one that will pierce the heavens.
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I drive by HQ2â(TM)s prospective location eve (Score:2, Interesting)
Not sure how or where they plan to build this thing, there just isnâ(TM)t enough room. I sure as heck know their existing building site in Crystal City couldnâ(TM)t fit this, unless they planned on totally starting from scratch again.
It would be interesting to know what other site they plan to use to hold this building.
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There's plenty of room. They're building on a huge lot that was once home to one of the last single-story buildings in the area.
Also, why do your apostrophes look like "a(TM)"?
Homage to fun (Score:3)
The design is interesting. To me, it looks like they are trying for a representation of the slides found in children's playgrounds, or maybe the larger versions found at some waterparks. Non-conformist, and a bit whimsical. I like it.
A crystal turd is appropriate (Score:4, Insightful)
Built, no doubt, using tip money stolen from delivery drivers.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidjeans/2021/02/02/amazon-settles-ftc-claim-it-withheld-tips-to-delivery-drivers-for-62-million/
There's no hell hot enough to punish these greed-crazed scum.
Poop Emoji? Come on now, that's just trolling (Score:2)
Oh, never mind then. "Poop trail" would be a better name for it, though. Fucking dogs pooping everywhere. Even if you "pick it up" it doesn't magically clean the surface it landed on.
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The dog runs on the Seattle corporate campus are astroturf on top of a honeycomb platform. Hose the space down a couple of times a day and it all drains down into the sewer. Works really well.
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Tell me again why mature, working adults need to have dogs in their offices.
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Mine is warming my feet at the moment. I used to take my co-worker's for a walk at lunch time when we were still in the office, just because I like walking with a dog.
I have a better idea (Score:1)
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Monopoly? Anyone can start an online ordering and delivery service, the barrier to entry is extremely low. Now all you have to do is keep customers happier than Amazon and you too can become a household name! What, you can't do that? No surprise, no one else seems to be able to either.
I wonder (Score:1)
Solves an Obvious Management Problem! (Score:2)
Bring your dog to work day they said.... (Score:1)
Two design precedents in nerddom (Score:2)
Will flies cover it? (Score:2)
As others have noted, it's shaped like an emoji; a fairly crappy emoji at that. When the sun comes out, will it smell? If it rains, is it going to be difficult to pick up? Will flies cover it on hot summer days? Will the people who work there have to scrape off their shoes on the edge of the curb before going home? Everyone who works there should get free water-wings. It's built on a flood plain, so they might be swimming home in 20 years.
Coming from the Verge... (Score:2)
Well is is not like seattle (Score:1)
Here we got a couple of balls, with a tower in the middle.
Minimum age? (Score:2)
The Verge's Jacob Kastrenakes likens it to "the swirling poop emoji, though with some healthier colors mixed in."
When did they start letting 10-year olds write for the Verge?
Finally, a headline I can agree with! (Score:2)
Food trucks?! (Score:2)
Food trucks?! They are terrible for the environment, with their packaging waste and those horrible generators.
If AMZN is serious about hosting food trucks they need to provide them 220-volt electrical service so the generators won't pollute the local environment.
Looks like a Christmas tree (Score:2)
Should be near the toilet bowl building (Score:1)
In Vienna VA there is a building known as the toilet bowl building. It's on Chain Bridge Road. Just duckduckgo it. It'll pop up.
Should call the new building the ice cream cone building. That's where the poop emoji came from, ice cream emoji.