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Inside Amazon's spheres, where workers chill in a rainforest

Three years ago, Amazon.com's horticulturalist was giving Jeff Bezos a preview of what the company's three plant-filled spheres-the centerpiece of its $4 billion downtown Seattle office project-would look like on opening day. One rendering showed the view from a 30-foot-high suspension bridge looking down on a tree.

From article, (The online retailer is scheduled to unveil the spheres Monday morning following seven years of planning and construction. The glass orbs were built to let Amazon workers escape from emails, meetings, reports and deadlines to walk along stone paths beside waterfalls, let ferns from South America brush their shoulders and the moist, tropical air fill their lungs.

Wi-Fi is available for those looking to work, as well as small meeting spaces like the "bird's nest," perched along the suspension bridge beneath Rubi that resembles a tree fort swaying in the branches. The spheres can accommodate 800 people at a time, and Amazon will use employee badges to monitor time spent inside and make sure no one hogs the tree fort. Management wants employees to relax, just not too much.

 Besides creating a park-like setting where workers can recharge, the spheres will serve as a recruiting tool, says John Schoettler, who runs Amazon's global real estate division and oversaw the project. Candidates interviewed in the spheres will leave with the impression that Amazon remains a forward-thinking company, he says.

"From the moment we started construction, people would stand on the street corners taking photographs," Schoettler said. "This structure is about thinking big and thinking long term.")

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