Cartersville, Ga.—The Shaw Create Centre has been awarded top honors in the Workplace category in Fast Company’s 2019 Innovation by Design Awards, the only competition to honor creative work at the intersection of design, business and innovation. With more than 4,300 entries from the industry’s top design brands, this year’s applicant pool was the strongest in the competition’s history. The judges included renowned designers from a variety of disciplines, business leaders from some of the most innovative companies in the world and Fast Company’s own editors. Entries were judged on the key ingredients of innovation: functionality, originality, beauty, sustainability, depth of user insight, cultural impact and business impact.
The Shaw Create Centre, designed by a team from Gensler Atlanta, is a cutting-edge, three-story facility that is a living representation of the brands’ mission, people and values. Based on the idea that space shapes the personality of a business, the Shaw Create Centre opens opportunities to develop a culture that is authentic and aspirational—and, more than ever, to design and create things that matter.
With a focus on current and future employees, as well as clients and industry partners, the Create Centre boasts a break-through concept strategically designed with productivity and wellbeing in mind. A range of workspaces, from an open seating plan to common areas used for impromptu team engagement and deliberately placed breakout rooms, promote connectivity, collaboration, productivity, movement and well-being—allowing associates to do their best work.
“The Create Centre showcases the unique balance between culture and outcomes that drive today’s fast-paced need for innovating and iterating products; blurring the lines between studio, laboratory and showroom,” said John Cantrell, co-studio director, workplace and project director, Gensler Atlanta. “Our design team worked closely with Patcraft and Shaw Contract to build a space that nourishes the design conversation, provides inspiration, and encourages collaboration, resulting in a space that employees are excited to work at.”
To promote well-being and sustainability, this LEED Silver certified facility was built with a solar façade for energy and glare reductions. The specific rotation of this façade of “fins” resulted in 25% less material used and allowed the use of glass with a high light transmittance, providing ample natural light to the space.