flexiblefullpage
billboard
interstitial1
catfish1
Currently Reading

Thrown a curve: Fitting a restaurant into spherical dome was the design challenge for Willmott’s Ghost

Architects

Thrown a curve: Fitting a restaurant into spherical dome was the design challenge for Willmott’s Ghost

The Seattle eatery nests inside the conservatories on Amazon’s massive campus.


By John Caulfield, Senior Editor | March 12, 2019

The Seattle restaurant Willmott's Ghost is inside Amazon Spheres, the three-domed complex that is equal parts workspace and botanical garden. Image: Aaron Leitz

Willmott’s Ghost, the recently opened restaurant occupying the ground floor of The Spheres on Amazon’s campus in Seattle, evokes different images simultaneously.

The 1,900-sf, 50-seat restaurant was named after a thistle-like flower christened in honor of the Victorian horticulturalist Ellen Ann Willmott. The restaurant’s cuisine leans Italian, and its color scheme has been said to resemble a Margherita pizza. One review described its modernist design, enclosed as it is inside a spherical envelope, as being like an aquarium. Heliotrope Architects, the restaurant’s architect, has called the project “a ship in a bottle.” 

The restaurant, which opened last October, is one of only three spaces in The Spheres open to the public. Its chef, Renee Erickson, is a regional star whose rapidly expanding food and beverage portfolio includes Deep Dive, a bar in The Sphere’s basement. (Her Sea Creatures restaurant group is the exclusive food operator of both venues.)

Willmott’s Ghost is in line with Erickson’s typically upscale, light-filled style, “with white marble accents yet filtered through a futuristic lens,” according to The Seattle Times’ review of the restaurant last month.

The 1,900-sf restaurant seats around 50 people, and its interior design was dictated by the curved space of the building. Image: Heliotrope Architects

 

Amazon Spheres, which opened 14 months ago, consists of three intersecting glass domes that serve as lounges and workplaces for Amazon’s employees. The domes also house more than 40,000 plants from 50 countries.

The restaurant’s design team—which included the interior design firm Price Erickson and the general contractor Dovetail—drew its inspiration from the NBBJ-designed Spheres’ geometry, as well as the airy environments of art museums and galleries.  

Enclosed within the domes’ envelope, much of the architecture for the restaurant was dictated by curves: Curved leather banquettes and booths hug the glass perimeter. Curved walls clad in painted wood pickets, inspired by the knurling on the sides of coins, define the dining room. Curved bars with Italian marble countertops fill the space.

The restaurant's pastel palette and modernist design are in stark contrast to the forest of trees and plants above it. Image: Kevin Scott 

 

“We made craft the main ingredient of the restaurant buildout,” explains Jeremy Price, a Principal with Price Erickson. That buildout was complicated by the curved nature of the building and a sophisticated mechanical system that runs The Spheres’ complex and keeps alive the plants and trees that form a three-story botanical garden above the restaurant.

The restaurant’s pastel-colored interior palette favors whites, pinks, mints, and forest greens. For example, pink Moroccan tiles are a custom color from Ann Sacks, a specialty supplier. Brass light fixtures illuminate original artwork by Ellen Lesperance. Above the tables hang crescent pendant lights by Lee Broom.

Tags

Related Stories

| Aug 23, 2022

New Mass. climate and energy law allows local bans on fossil fuel-powered appliances

A sweeping Massachusetts climate and energy bill recently signed into law by Republican governor Charlie Baker allows local bans on fossil fuel-powered appliances.

Giants 400 | Aug 22, 2022

Top 100 Science + Technology Facility Architecture + AE Firms 2022

HDR, Flad Architects, Gensler, and DGA top the rankings of the nation's largest science and technology (S+T) facility architecture and architecture/engineering (AE) firms, as reported in Building Design+Construction's 2022 Giants 400 Report.

Giants 400 | Aug 22, 2022

Top 85 Laboratory Facility Architecture + AE Firms for 2022

Flad Architects, HDR, DGA, and Payette top the ranking of the nation's largest science and technology (S+T) laboratory facility architecture and architecture/engineering (AE) firms, as reported in Building Design+Construction's 2022 Giants 400 Report.

Giants 400 | Aug 22, 2022

Top 85 University Engineering + EA Firms for 2022

AECOM, Jacobs, Salas O'Brien, and IMEG head the ranking of the nation's largest university sector engineering and engineering/architecture (EA) firms, as reported in Building Design+Construction's 2022 Giants 400 Report.

Giants 400 | Aug 22, 2022

Top 150 University Architecture + AE Firms for 2022

Gensler, CannonDesign, SmithGroup, and Perkins and Will top the ranking of the nation's largest university sector architecture and architecture/engineering (AE) firms, as reported in Building Design+Construction's 2022 Giants 400 Report.

| Aug 22, 2022

Gainesville, Fla., lawmakers moved to end single-family zoning

The Gainesville City Commission recently voted to advance zoning changes that would allow duplexes, triplexes, and quadplexes to be built on land currently zoned for single-family homes.

| Aug 22, 2022

For Gen Z, “enhanced communication” won’t cut it

As the fastest-growing generation, Generation Z, loosely defined as those born between the mid-1990s and early 2000s, has become a hot topic in conversations surrounding workplace design.

| Aug 22, 2022

Less bad is no longer good enough

As we enter the next phase of our fight against climate change, I am cautiously optimistic about our sustainable future and the design industry’s ability to affect what the American Institute of Architects (AIA) calls the biggest challenge of our generation.

Giants 400 | Aug 21, 2022

Top 110 Architecture/Engineering Firms for 2022

Stantec, HDR, HOK, and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill top the rankings of the nation's largest architecture engineering (AE) firms for nonresidential and multifamily buildings work, as reported in Building Design+Construction's 2022 Giants 400 Report.

Giants 400 | Aug 20, 2022

Top 180 Architecture Firms for 2022

Gensler, Perkins and Will, HKS, and Perkins Eastman top the rankings of the nation's largest architecture firms for nonresidential and multifamily buildings work, as reported in Building Design+Construction's 2022 Giants 400 Report.

boombox1
boombox2
native1

More In Category


Urban Planning

Bridging the gap: How early architect involvement can revolutionize a city’s capital improvement plans

Capital Improvement Plans (CIPs) typically span three to five years and outline future city projects and their costs. While they set the stage, the design and construction of these projects often extend beyond the CIP window, leading to a disconnect between the initial budget and evolving project scope. This can result in financial shortfalls, forcing cities to cut back on critical project features.



Libraries

Reasons to reinvent the Midcentury academic library

DLR Group's Interior Design Leader Gretchen Holy, Assoc. IIDA, shares the idea that a designer's responsibility to embrace a library’s history, respect its past, and create an environment that will serve student populations for the next 100 years.

halfpage1

Most Popular Content

  1. 2021 Giants 400 Report
  2. Top 150 Architecture Firms for 2019
  3. 13 projects that represent the future of affordable housing
  4. Sagrada Familia completion date pushed back due to coronavirus
  5. Top 160 Architecture Firms 2021