The Spheres

I’m always a bit unsure about sharing things we’ve done in Seattle because I know the majority of my long term audience is UK based. But I’ve asked this question before on Instagram and Twitter and most of you want to know what we get up to – and maybe it persuades you to come over here and visit! (If you do come from the UK, could you bring me some cheese and onion crisps and the Cadbury bar with the jelly beans in? Ta)

It’s difficult to talk about downtown Seattle without mentioning Amazon in some way. In terms of office space, they occupy at least 10 million square foot (according to this Seattle Times article, which has an interesting map showing where they are located) The most obvious of these properties are the Seattle Spheres, which are located on Lenora Street, between 6th Avenue and 7th Avenue 

The Spheres are part of the main Amazon campus, and for 13 days of a fortnight, they are a workspace. Every first and third Saturday of the month though, they open up to the public to come and look around, but spots are very limited. I was idly looking at the website one evening and was lucky enough to find some timeslots open so I booked in for me and Alex to head over there.

I was surprised that the tours are self guided – because you book for certain times, I was expecting some sort of tour guide. There are some small signs around the plants to let you know what they are, but nothing that really explains why the plants are special, or why they were chosen.

I booked in for the first available time slot which was 2.45pm – we spent about an hour or so wandering around and checking out both the plants and the building. It was really interesting to look around, and was a good way to spend an afternoon downtown. 

Something that might be important if you’re visiting is that there isn’t much in the way of food and drink inside – there’s one place on the first floor which was totally closed (judging from the Spheres website, it’s not usually open at the weekends), and a small General Porpoise donut shop on the second floor, but that closed at 3pm so there were no donuts left by the time we went (sad face, I still haven’t tried their donuts yet!)

Reservations are available 30 days in advance, so if there’s a date you’re thinking of, make sure you keep an eye on the website! It’s free to visit, and there are lots of other things to check out in the area (lots of people were playing on the lawn outside by the pupper park and we also visited Amazon Go as Alex hadn’t been there yet)

The Spheres can be found at 2101 7th Ave, Seattle, WA 98119 and you can find more information about visiting them at seattlespheres.com