Amazon Adventures

1/30/18 One of three Amazon Spheres

1/30/18 View of the construction across the street
through a Sphere window.

Amazon has been in the news a lot lately. The company’s long-anticipated Spheres finally opened this week, and I have to say they look pretty cool. (I first sketched them two years ago when the glass was still going in, and then again a year later.) The triple-bubble, terrarium-like structure is a meeting place for Amazon employees, but what makes it distinctive is that it is filled with plants. This morning Greg and I visited the Understory, which is the Spheres’ visitors center and the only part open to the public. The Understory includes exhibits about the building and the types of plants in the upper levels. Video and photo projections show the bird-nest-like meeting rooms and gorgeous vegetation. It sure made us want to go upstairs!

After we got our fill of that, we walked down the street to Amazon Go, which has also been making national news. Billed as the “store of the future,” Amazon Go has no cashiers. You walk in and scan the app on your phone (which is connected to your Amazon account). The store sells snacks, ready-to-eat foods, meal kits and other convenience foods. You can take anything off the shelf that you want, and a million cameras on the ceiling are watching you. If you don’t put it back, the transaction is recorded as a purchase. A few minutes after you leave the store (“Just walk out!” the signs encourage you), a receipt shows up on your app. It does feel a bit like shoplifting, but since a friendly Amazon staff member urged me to step through the exit with my big orange bag of self-served snacks, I felt reassured.

The pattern in the ceiling
mimics the complex window structure
of the Spheres.

Creepy or cool? You decide. I guess I was more curious than paranoid, so I enjoyed the novelty. All I bought was a cookie and an exclusively branded Amazon Go chocolate bar made by local Theo Chocolate. 

Understory ceiling

Image of "bird nest" meeting room projected on the wall.

Plant projections

A model of the Spheres is behind us.

We're Amazon Go-ing!

Lots of convenience foods

Just doing my part to support the local economy.

Inside the Spheres

3/27/18 A view of the top two floors

A couple of months ago Greg and I went to the Amazon Spheres visitors center, which is on the street-level floor of the bubble-shaped complex. Since it was the first time the public had access to the long-anticipated buildings, many were disappointed that they couldn’t go up into the terrarium-like space where all the amazing plants were. I knew that was off-limits to us, so I had checked my expectations, but I still hoped that we would get an opportunity to go inside the Spheres themselves someday. Recently Amazon began allowing the public inside if accompanied by an employee, so our friend Julie invited us. What a cool privilege it was to be inside one of Seattle’s most intriguing buildings!

3/27/18 A conference room "nest" atop the trees

As soon as we walked in, our glasses steamed up! The temperature is kept in the 70s and the air very humid, like a tropical rainforest. Normally I don’t like humidity, but after walking several blocks in the drizzly cold, it felt good to shed my down jacket and be instantly warm.

First Julie walked us around each level of the five-story building so we could take photos and experience the lush, surrounding green. All the exotic plants are labeled as in a botanical garden. Nothing is at right angles or has sharp corners; everything is curved or organic. Tucked in around all the plantings are small seating areas for employees to work quietly or hold meetings. (No employees have offices in the Spheres, but any can use the space whenever they want to. If I worked for Amazon, I think I’d find an excuse to go to the Spheres every day!) A concession area offers snacks to hungry Amazonites. I was tempted by the donuts, but I didn’t want to waste precious sketching time eating.

Julie had generously taken an hour and a half out of her work day to accompany us, so after our walk-through, I had to budget the remaining time carefully. So much to sketch, so little time – and all of it overwhelming! What to choose, what to choose?

3/27/18 Lush and green inside; cold steel and glass outside

I had my eye on the coolest “conference room”: the “nest” perched high in the trees. A meeting had just broken up when I started to sketch it, so I turned around to sketch the larger view of a couple of the upper floors first (top of post). When I had finished, another meeting had started in the nest, so I quickly sketched that before we moved on. The surrounding natural light made sketching delightful.

With only 10 minutes remaining, I had to think and sketch fast. I picked an umbrella-shaped tree with fern-like foliage. In the background of every view are those crazy windows that look like they should form a geometric pattern but don’t. Through the windows of the warm bubbles, you can see the cold canyons of steel and glass that seem so ordinary by comparison.

Soon enough, it was time to put our jackets on and go back out to cold reality. 

The Spheres from outside

The "green wall" is a popular selfie spot

Climbing vines on the pillars

The "nest" from below

The "nest" from above

Exotic!

Thanks, Julie, for a peek inside the fantastic Spheres!

The Shapes of South Lake Union

 

4/27/24 South Lake Union

Spheres selfie

Although the wind and drizzle made Saturday morning feel colder than 51 degrees, USk Seattle made a good turnout at South Lake Union. With rain in the forecast for the throwdown time, I was glad I had gotten a tip from Gabi about The Stumpery, which has a large sheltered area. Part of Amazon’s Urban Arboretum near the Spheres, The Stumpery is a collection of old-growth cedars that originated in the Olympic Peninsula. Some as old as 500 years when they died, the stumps attracted several sketchers (one made a cameo appearance next to the Space Needle in my sketch).

The star of the sketch outing was the vintage Elephant Super Car Wash sign. Amazon received the sign from car wash owner Bob Haney after the business closed in 2020. A beloved Seattle icon for more than 60 years, the elephant gave several sketchers an opportunity for a pop of pink.

In my favorite way lately, I walked around the South Lake Union area dominated by Amazon buildings and tried to capture a variety of small shapes and textures (top of post). Although the Amazon Spheres were another favorite subject among sketchers, I had sketched them often enough in the past that I didn’t feel compelled to sketch them again. Instead, I made a selfie reflected in the Spheres’ geodesic glass panes.

By the time I filled the spread, my gloveless hands were starting to complain. I retreated to Kitanda Coffee to warm them up and finish writing the captions on my urban sketching comic page.

Ameya, Natalie and me at Shake Shack.

After the outing, Natalie and I stopped for lunch at Shake Shack, where we met Ameya. He had missed the throwdown, so it was fun to share sketches over lunch and do a little more sketching as we chatted.

4/27/24 Shake Shack with Natalie and Ameya. (In case you're wondering, SLUT stands for South Lake Union Trolley.)

Despite the cold and rain, it was a terrific day of sketching with my tribe in a part of downtown that’s full of dynamic urban shapes.

Tina’s Top 10 Memorable Sketches of 2018

3/27/18 Amazon Spheres

I have a few year-end traditions on this blog, and one is to review my most memorable sketches of the year. As always, these are not necessarily my “best” or “favorite” sketches; they are ones that evoke the strongest memories and remind me of what I love so much about sketching. (Click the title of the sketch to go to the original post and full-size images.)

Here are links to my most memorable sketches from past years: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013.

March 27, inside the Amazon Spheres:

Exploring and sketching inside Amazon’s remarkable Spheres was certainly one of my most memorable experiences this year. It lived up to all the curiosity and wonderment it aroused during the years that the facility was being built.

5/3/18 Dutch Colonial

May 3, Dutch Colonial:

This sketch is one of my favorites in the neighborhood architecture series that I started this year. While sketching, a contractor working inside spotted me, came out and chatted me up, making it also one of the most memorable.

5/15/18 Aaron Draplin

May 15, Aaron Draplin:

At the risk of revealing my fangirldom, I went to meet designer Aaron Draplin (co-founder of Field Notes) when he was in town giving a workshop. In addition to getting his autograph, of course I had to sketch him.

May 22, El Capitan, Yosemite National Park:

El Capitan was the first of many wondrous sights I saw when I first entered Yosemite National Park, and I couldn’t resist making a couple of quick thumbnails. I intended to eventually get back to El Cap for a full-size sketch, but I never did. The thumbnails, however, are enough to evoke the memories of seeing that spectacular monolith.

5/22/18 Thumbnails of El Capitan

7/19/18 Bajzek workshop, Porto

July 19, Porto USk symposium workshop with Eduardo Bajzek:

I’ve mentioned his name often enough since July that you won’t be surprised to hear that Eduardo Bajzek’s workshop at the Porto symposium had a significant influence on my sketching. He changed both the way I understand values and the way I use graphite.

7/25/18 Coimbra

July 25, Coimbra:

A few days after Eduardo’s workshop, I was relaxing in the small college town of Coimbra and got to practice what I had learned. After all the excitement of the symposium, this quiet sketch turned out to be my most memorable and evocative of my time in Portugal.

8/18/18 Mammoth at Bell Museum

Aug. 18, Bell Museum, St. Paul:

During a very short trip to St. Paul, I squeezed in a visit to the brand new Bell Museum and met up with a few sketcher friends there. Chatting with hilarious Roz Stendahl as I sketched this humongous mammoth (which was made of the same fur as Chewbacca!) made the morning very memorable, indeed.

10/5/18 Zoka Coffee

Oct. 5, Zoka Coffee:

Although there is usually nothing particularly memorable about sketching at Zoka Coffee, my usual neighborhood coffee shop, this was the first time I attempted this type of scene in ballpoint. Sketched on the fifth day of InkTober, it made me realize that I could love ballpoint after all, despite my doubts – and I ended the month with a whole new respect for the lowly Bic.

Oct. 11, Green Lake:

I walk around Green Lake at least weekly year-round and, during the good-weather months, I also sketch there frequently, so it’s easy to take for granted the sights I see so regularly. On this fall day, I felt like I was seeing its beauty with fresh eyes, and I was grateful to live so close to such a treasure.

10/11/18 Green Lake

Nov. 13, Cannon Beach from Ecola State Park:

Whenever we visit Cannon Beach, Oregon, we stay right on the beach in front of monolithic Haystack Rock. From Ecola State Park a mile or two north, that ancient boulder looks like a tiny pebble in the context of the mighty Pacific, and if I had seen myself standing next to Haystack, I would have been smaller than a grain of sand. That trip to Cannon Beach was a celebration of my 60^th birthday, and sketching this scene made me feel both whole and utterly insignificant in the larger picture. Life is good.

11/13/18 Cannon Beach from Ecola State Park

Amazon’s Spheres

4/29/16 inks, colored pencils, Zig marker

Spheres, domes, bubbles, fly eyeballs – they’ve been called many things by locals and tourists alike. (Native “of a certain age” that I am, I can’t help but think of the Bubbleator from the Seattle World’s Fair.) They are definitely a head-turning addition to the north downtown area that is otherwise a canyon of mostly boring, glassy highrises. The spheres are part of Amazon’s brand-new campus of buildings. According to GeekWire, “the unusual buildings will be filled with more than 300 plants, including full-grown trees. It’s designed as a place for Amazon workers to meet, hangout and share ideas.”

After seeing the partially constructed domes in photos and David Chamness’s sketches, I figured I’d better get over there if I wanted to catch them still under construction. Strange as they are, they look quite cool compared to all the ordinary buildings around them. I predict they will be among the most-sketched structures around here in the summer months because they sure are fun to draw! 

Inside the Spheres Again

 

3/28/25 Waiting for coffee inside the Amazon Spheres.

Shortly after they had opened, a friend who works at Amazon invited Greg and me to visit inside the company’s amazing Spheres. That was back in 2018, and although I have sketched the geodesic domed buildings many times from the outside, I hadn’t been back inside since then. As good fortune would have it, Ching works there now, and she invited Natalie and me to sketch inside with her. (Although the buildings are open to the public at certain times, you can only enter as part of a guided tour. When accompanied by an employee, you can wander and stay – and sketch – as long as you like.)

It’s still a wondrous terrarium of green; in fact, many of the plants had grown, so it seemed even more jungly than before. On a cold, wet afternoon, the warm, humid interior climate felt comforting. (I was so eager to get on with sketching that I forgot to take photos this time! Please see my 2018 post for lots of images of the interior.)

It was jam-packed with employees trying to work while many visitors ooh-ed and ahh-ed while taking selfies. (Not that I know anything about the latter.)

After all that fun, we adjourned to happy hour at a nearby pub, where I had a personal celebration. This time, it wasn’t for a downsizing accomplishment. Instead, I had just gotten good news from my doctor. All my bone-building exercises, a calcium-rich diet and meds had paid off!

3/28/25 King Leroy pub, South Lake Union