We know people who know people

On Friday, Frause had the opportunity to take a private tour of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation! We took an office fieldtrip to the foundation’s new campus, an exciting privilege considering the visitor center is not slated to open to the public until late 2011 or early 2012.

We disembarked from the Monorail in the shadow of the Space Needle and crossed the street to 500 Fifth Avenue North. The moment we were inside the lobby there were oohs and ahhs about the architecture, furnishings and art. After making it past security with a new visitor badge, you can’t help but feel like you are in a place where awesome things happen. Our tour started with a presentation about the Foundation’s work and how the new campus came to be from the desire to create a place that both showcases the foundation’s work around the globe and reflects the natural beauty and innovative culture of the Northwest.

We noticed the communal desk layout that far surpasses the den-like environment cubicles can foster, the use of natural light to reduce the need for electricity and the worldwide representation of museum-quality art from many of the foundation’s grantees. A favorite art piece was a wall instillation called “Seeds of Hope” by Ghanaian artist El Anatsui. He visited during the construction and observed the open space of the campus’ central atrium. The piece was made specifically for the central atrium where it now hangs out of discarded metallic liquor labels and bottle tops held together with copper wire. The name “Seeds of Hope” was inspired by the foundation’s works.


In our admiration of the different facets of the campus, “We need to get that for Frause’s office!” echoed throughout our tour.

The Foundation’s new campus was recently awarded LEED-Platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, one of the highest ratings for commercial building energy conservation and environmental design. Along with the flood of natural light, other environmentally-friendly and sustainable design highlights included living roofs and marshlands that mimicked the natural surroundings; a million gallon cistern tapped to water plants and toilets; and a heating system the works to heat “the individual” in the building rather than the entire building. There was even a happy family of ducks that had already made their home in one of the campus ponds.


After coming to the conclusion if we at Frause were ducks, we too would live at the Gates Foundation, it is a safe assumption that we really enjoyed the tour!