The new headquarters of the Gates Foundation is called "Gates Foundation Campus", which is located in the north of downtown Seattle, under the Seattle landmark "Space Needle", from Frank? Gary designed the "Music Experience Hall" to cross the street.
In the middle of this month, the Gates Foundation announced that it had obtained $350 million in construction funds from the Gates.
The construction of the new headquarters will cost 500 million dollars. The headquarters with a total area of 900,000 square feet will include two six-story buildings and a citizen visitor center. The park will be completed in April 20 1 1. The construction project has been going on for more than a year, and about 40% of it has been completed.
The first phase and the largest construction project of this building project are two 6-storey office buildings designed by NBBJ Architects.
Steve, managing partner of NBBJ Architects? McConnell said that the two L-shaped buildings are shaped like "people" and face to face, which symbolizes encouraging employees to cooperate with each other. These two office buildings have an area of 600,000 square feet, and the surface is completely glass walls, which gives people a feeling that they are not heavy. The Gates Foundation hopes that the transparency of this architectural style will enhance public trust in its mission.
Because one of the goals of the Gates Foundation is sustainable development, the Gates Foundation campus also makes full use of this concept. The new building project has many "green" structures: including an underground pool capable of storing millions of gallons of rainwater, which will reduce the dependence of buildings on urban water supply. Its garage has a "green roof" planted with plants that can absorb rainwater, covering an area of 60,000 square feet-that is, 1.4 acres, which is the largest "green roof" in Seattle.
According to the foundation, the goal of the headquarters is to win the "LEED Gold".
In addition, a Gates Museum will be built to interact with tourists. This 65,438+0.10,000 square foot building shows the story of the founder of the foundation and how it works.
According to the Seattle Times, the new headquarters was built to promote the cooperation of the Gates Foundation project team and build a brand-new work park for 800 employees here. So that employees working here can share knowledge better, and at the same time, they can promote ideas, promote global health, develop innovation and education with experts from all over the world.
Do charities need luxury buildings?
Although the staff of the Gates Foundation headquarters can enjoy the best working environment, some people complain about such a luxurious office park. Many people commented: "Does a foundation's headquarters need to spend 500 million dollars?"
Robert? Frank is a full-time writer for the Wall Street Journal Health Edition.
He said in his blog, "The Gates Foundation has spent more on hardware facilities than a profit-making enterprise." He listed an account at the headquarters of the Gates Foundation. The construction cost of the Gates Foundation headquarters is more than three times that of the headquarters building of Russell Investment Company next to it. The building is a 42-story building and can accommodate 900 employees. At present, Russell Investment Company manages more than $200 billion in assets.
The headquarters of Amazon is also nearby. This company, whose revenue exceeds $65.438+09 billion and its employees exceed 20,000, recently rented about 800,000 square feet of office for $700 million, and can choose to double the rented area.
Frank did not forget to praise Gates for his great achievements in charity. He said Gates was John F. Kennedy's successor? The greatest philanthropist after Rockefeller, but he doubted whether all the money could be better used for charity projects.
The blog immediately attracted different opinions on the charity construction project after issuing this view. Have you directly accused Gates of how many people this $500 million can help? Others showed an indifferent attitude: "This money was originally Gates' own money, and how much he spent is none of our business. "
Some people commented that there is no doubt that the Gates Foundation needs an important space. There are nearly 800 employees here, managing more than $34 billion in donations, and providing $2 billion for various funds last year. With the further capital injection of Gates and Buffett, the scale of this foundation is expected to be further expanded next year, and the number of employees may also exceed 1 1,000. However, is it too extravagant to spend $500 million to build a headquarters for a charitable foundation?
Some experts said, shouldn't this money be included in the operation of the foundation? Wouldn't this 500 million dollars be better spent on malaria research or building schools in Africa? And so many commercial buildings near Seattle are empty and unoccupied.
Why can't the Gates Foundation solve the problem in an effective and cheap way? Others believe that the rich have every right to decide how to spend their money, especially in charity.
Sensitive to the possibility of criticism, the Gates have promised to invest 350 million dollars from private funds in construction funds.
However, in the new wave of setting up private funds and enterprises to engage in charity, a core principle is to spend more money on the cutting edge than existing charitable organizations. Even if the Gates Foundation building is built in a reasonable way, it will send the wrong signal to people.
A representative of the Gates Foundation clarified that there are several key priorities in the budget planning of the new headquarters building: the need for a well-designed building to help employees cooperate better; It needs enough space to gather the foundation's partners and grantees, but the current office in Nanhu Alliance is too small to do this. Bill and Melinda also hope that this headquarters building will become a beautiful landscape in downtown Seattle.
A representative of the Gates Foundation clarified that there are several key priorities in the budget planning of the new headquarters building: the need for a well-designed building to help employees cooperate better; It needs enough space to gather the foundation's partners and grantees, but the current office in Nanhu Alliance is too small to do this. Bill and Melinda also hope that this headquarters building will become a beautiful landscape in downtown Seattle.