ET109b – Amazon HQ2: Knitting Together Campus, Community, & Planet

Additional fee, registration required.

Amazon's second headquarters in Crystal City, Virginia, involved a seven-month public engagement process and two key design goals:

1. Reject the insular corporate campus model in favor of an open neighborhood serving both employees and community.
2. Uphold Amazon's climate pledge commitment to meet net-zero carbon by 2040 and 100% renewable energy use by 2030.

You'll be awed by the design team's coup: A welcoming 2.5-acre public park, two 22-story buildings with over 2 million sq. ft. of office space, and 50,000 sq. ft. of retail with a publicly accessible lobby prioritizing small, female- and minority-owned businesses, art installations, and neighborhood connections.

This is a bus tour.


Learning Objectives

  1. Review key elements and essential qualities for a multidisciplinary collaboration to spur growth or enhance development.
  2. Discuss long-range planning approaches that can engage public audiences and mitigate developer risk.
  3. Identify design strategies to program open and inviting campuses that align with intensive corporate security requirements.
  4. Witness how establishing sustainability targets can incentivize the market and drive design innovation.