Shaw Create Centre

Design Challenge

DESIGN CHALLENGE The challenge was to build an environment that supported an innovative design culture and connect the commercial facility process to the designers. By enhancing the design process with this connection, the new space can foster collaboration, cross-pollination of ideas across teams, and create a greater speed to market of products. The exterior and interior design needed to reflect the brand mission, and sustainability story. The story is flooring. The stage is the Create Centre. The design is to be a blank canvas to support the creative process, the Create Centre serves a hub of innovation for Shaw Industries. Special attention was paid to elevate the user experience by positioning the building in the best location in relation to an existing manufacturing and campus building and the need for on-grade parking. DESIGN SOLUTION The arrangement of program, which places the atrium, ground floor conference space, and second and third floor showrooms on the west side of the building, allows an offset core to mediate connection of the collaborative program to the workplace, bundled on the east side of the plan and separated by a core of focus and service spaces. A ground-floor social hub offers direct outdoor connection to the natural landscape to the south. The Centre pushes close to the adjacent street to allow unimpeded views into the collaboration spaces arranged along the western elevation, including a triple height atrium at the building corner. To promote the highest level of well-being and sustainability, this LEED Silver certified and WELL Building Pilot 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. Collectively, the building serves as a frame to the story of Shaw Industries, and their drive for innovation. Results from the Workplace Performance Index conducted before and after moving into the space, showed that the design, abundance of natural light and optimization of work spaces has increased collaboration, productivity and loyalty to the brand. The new Create Centre enables two brands, Patcraft and Shaw Contract to serve the global design community better than ever before. The design serves as a place for collaborative breakthroughs, for the best talent, and for promoting a healthy culture - a place where people truly want to be. At Shaw Industries, this desire to make an impact, paired with the freedom to try new ways of doing so, are vital parts of the creative process.

Physical Context

Due to the project’s modest surrounds, special attention was paid to elevate the user experience by positioning the building in the best location in relation to an existing manufacturing and campus building and the need for on-grade parking. The Centre pushes close to the adjacent street to allow unimpeded views into the collaboration spaces arranged along the western elevation, including a triple height atrium at the building corner. A ground-floor social hub offers direct outdoor connection to the natural landscape to the south. Over 90% of regularly occupied spaces have a view to nature – the building was designed this way to improve occupant happiness and connection to nature and surroundings. The project was also designed to maximize access to natural daylight as verified through computational modeling that 80% of regularly occupied spaces have access to adequate levels of daylight. To promote the highest level of well-being and sustainability, this LEED Silver certified and WELL Building Pilot 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. Collectively, the building serves as a frame to the story of Shaw Industries, and their drive for innovation. During construction, 33.19% of all materials are composed of recycled content. A major contributor to the project's high recycled content is the structural steel, which contains 77% post-consumer recycled content and 78.3% of the construction waste was recycled keeping 367.9 tons of construction waste out of the landfill. The project limits the disruption of the site's natural hydrology by reducing impervious cover, increasing onsite filtration, reducing pollution from stormwater runoff and eliminating contaminants. The project's site design decreases the volume of stormwater runoff by 25% from a typical 24-hour rain event primarily through the rain garden located at the Southwest corner of the Create Centre and the stormwater management pond located in the Southeast corner of the project site. High albedo roofing was selected to minimize heat island effect. This bright white color material allows the roof of the Create Centre to reflect sunlight and limit the amount of heat transferred into the third floor, resulting in lower cooling loads during periods of hot weather.