Title: Confidential Charlotte Office
Location of Proejct: Charlotte, North Carolina
Project Completion Date: December 2019
Firm Name: Gensler

Short Description: The new Charlotte office located in the heart of the city center is an environment built to serve as a professional playground and living laboratory. One where new ideas, relationships, and products are continuously explored in a space that promotes and champions curiosity. Space built on optimism – where hierarchical boundaries are purposefully blurred, and WE space outweighs ME space. Space where our continuous re-invention occurs, our people are energized, and our future is collectively built – A new home where creativity is at play.

Architect's Statement: The Confidential Charlotte office is all about creativity at play. It is an environment built to serve as a living laboratory to test and explore new ideas, relationships, and products. This project was a design build collaboration, the continuation of industry partnerships rich with mutual trust integral to the design process.

Designed with community at the forefront, this Charlotte office sits at the cross-section of Trade and Tyron streets in the heart of the city center. Between the Bank of America Stadium—home to the Carolina Panthers football team, The Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, and the serene Romare Bearden Park, the area surrounding this office is bustling with activity. The office’s high walkability and proximity to public transportation including the CTC and Trolley makes coming and going convenient and eases access. Besides its prime location, the revitalization of this historic building was another key tenant of the site selection. Breathing new life into an outdated space creates an asset that will benefit the community for years to come and mirrors the revitalization of the city of Charlotte itself.

This space is built on optimism, where hierarchical boundaries are purposefully blurred, and the community (WE) space outweighs the individual (ME) space. An almost completely free address office space, this dynamic environment supports individual, focus, and team collaboration activities. Through the introduction of an adaptable furniture collection, this space promotes curiosity and discovery. This flexible approach to planning ensured the office design was built for longevity.

Experience zones throughout the space are reminiscent of a playground and reinforce the design concept. The entry of the space is open to all—like a carousel, it is a continuous cycle of movement and a gateway to welcome and departure. The work café, like a sandbox, serves as a meeting place for mixing and exchanging ideas and developing concepts and relationships. The Design Lab is like a seesaw, where the collective outweighs the individual and where people can meet, test new ideas, and find balance. It is a dedicated makerspace for creative minds to connect and tinker with innovative new materials and ideas. The agile nature of the Lab fosters a culture of rapid testing and implementation of ideas into reality. One recent innovation that came out of the Lab is facemasks that were designed and fabricated by employees, then were delivered out to the front-line workers in the local community. The studios are like a jungle gym, a collection of systematic movements, where progress happens through process.

This is a space where continuous reinvention occurs, employees are energized, and the future is collectively built—a new home where creativity is at play.