I love architecture. And so, when I stumbled upon photos of the office building in Madrid, Spain, that you see here to the right, I was initially blown away by how it was literally embedded in the natural landscape. (Click here for more shots.)

I tried to imagine how it would be to work in an office like that, surrounded by trees and foliage…

…and then I thought about where I actually do work, how Western Washington University’s campus is home to over 70 species of trees, how my actual office building is nestled amongst Western Red Cedar, Douglas Fir, Alder, Sugar Maple, Shore Pine, Sawara Cypress, Ginkgo, Purple Norway Maple, Yellow Buckeye, and right outside my window…a Giant Sequoia!

So, I went back and looked at the Madrid office again. And the more I looked at it the more I started to prefer my own, old-school office. Also, as I studied the tube-like structure and imagined moving about inside, it started to remind me of something, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

After about five minutes of scanning my cerebral hard drive, I suddenly realized that it reminded me of this: