In this awards video, the team behind Century One (also known as Sentry One) celebrates winning Coronet Carolina’s 2019 Project of the Year award for projects under 50,000 sq ft. Speakers describe how an abandoned, window‑less warehouse was transformed into a vibrant workplace featuring a mix of nooks, conference rooms, container‑defined neighborhoods, bean‑bag lounges, and custom‑designed chairs. A standout design element is a staircase shaped like a database cylinder, conceived by Greg Gonzalez and the design lead, which serves as a storytelling focal point that reflects the client’s data‑centric culture. The project was a collaborative effort among the client’s leadership, Gensler, Behringer, and the internal design team, emphasizing co‑creation from concept to completion. The space is portrayed as warm, home‑like, and adaptable to the organization’s growing needs, embodying its culture and earning industry recognition.
Chapters
Coronet, Carolina's 2019 Project of the Year, less than 50,000 square feet. Congratulations, Century One!
We chose what was an abandoned warehouse, what was essentially a wide-open volume of space. There weren't windows, there was a couple random skylights. We opened the doors, pigeons come flying out of the place. What we accomplished is we created a lot of nooks and crannies, a lot of small spaces, a lot of conference spaces. We've got containers that not only separate the neighborhoods but give you some really nice cozy space inside for another meeting space of 6 to 10 people. We just tried to create a nice variety of different kinds of places to work.
From day one, the team came together and brought the leadership team into the room, and we did kind of an uncovering of what we like. The way that this space came out creates this warmth and this feeling of home, and we have beanbags and we have fun spaces and cool designed chairs, and it allows everybody to kind of have a place that they can find that's their home or their space. It's been great.
The staircase was originally an inside concept from Greg Gonzalez and myself of trying to have some kind of iconic focus in the building. And we thought of a big database cylinder.
The part of the database was the most exciting, honestly, because it was a client idea that we all brought to life. It's the most storytelling element in the whole space. It speaks so clearly to what they do as an organization, and it just, it works successfully to do the job.
It was great to work with Gensler, Behringer, and our team and have all 3 kind of have a say in the process from the beginning to the end. So everybody kind of came together to get us to this perfect space.
I'm just so proud that this works so well for their culture, that it really embodies their culture. It shows who they are as an organization, and there's a lot of room for them to grow.
Congratulations, Century One! Cornet Carolina's 2019 Project of the Year, less than 50,000 square feet.
