The other Amazon forest! Retail giant will build helix-shaped tower at its new Virginia 'HQ2', complete with tree-lined ‘mountain’ visitors can climb at weekends

UK Daily Mail ^ | 4/25/2022 | Jimmy McClosky

[fruser1]

Will be the centerpiece of Amazon's $2.5 billion Virginia campus when it opens in 2025.

Includes ramp running around the outside of the building to its summit which is lined with greenery.

From some vantage points the helix will dominate the region´s skyline like no building other than the Washington Monument.

The helix features a spiral-hike around its exterior, complete with trees, and will let visitors follow a winding outdoor ramp around the edge of the building to its summit.

[SisterK]

because it worked so well in Nimrod’s time

[Iron Munro]

Knowledge is knowing how to engineer and construct such an outlandish monstrosity.

Wisdom is knowing that just because you can build an ugly blight on the landscape like this it is an affront on intelligence, common sense and good taste to do so.

[Radix]

That is genuinely ugly.

[Vaduz]

Wonder how long the greenery will last with all that glass around.

Wait for smoke

[sergeantdave]

I’d bet a sawbuck that there’s a gold-lined burial vault/survivalist maze, complete with horses and a chariot, for Pharaoh Bezos 100-feet below this structure.

[Iron Munro]

[Iron Munro]

The pedestrian zone for hiking the spiral will probably be a ramp with regularly spaced horizontal, flat spots for a place to to rest and to exit the ramp to an interior elevator. It would not be good PR to have people stroking out from the stress of the hike. LOL.

But is the ramp in compliance with the design and slope specifications required for wheelchair access as defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990?

[jimfree]

Resembles depictions of the Tower of Babel.

[Hootowl99]

Yah, you're probably right about ADA compliance as you mentioned and also OSHA is also bound to be involved as well.

But as an alternate reality!

Wouldn't be a hoot if this could be finagled as being under USDA and Forest Service auspicious! No slope restrictions. Rocks on the trail. Heck, go all in and have some stream crossings. Pop a stove out of your backpack and fix some coffee and a meal. Throw up a tent for overnight. You want a mountain, you gotta mountain!

REI could pull this off. Does Amazon have the cojones?

Don’t forget the bobsled track.

[Iron Munro]

Wait 'til the bums homeless establish camps on the various levels and use the pedestrian way for an open toilet ala the streets of San Francisco.

And when the bums homeless threaten and intimidate the climbers for handouts, drugs and booze it will be even more like the real thing!