Challenges

How do you relocate hundreds of administrative staff off main campus without sacrificing the Stanford community experience? How do you manage the migration from predominantly private offices to predominantly open work environment? How do you deal with an existing building that poses numerous physical challenges, lacks overall cohesion and is very confusing to navigate?

Approach

Our work initiated with a change management process to mitigate the impact of employee relocation to an off-campus location. The building solution used limited dollars wisely, focusing on a furniture intensive solution and limited fixed architectural elements to the greatest extent possible. In addition to dedicated workplace areas the design focused on maximizing collaboration and team spaces.

Solution

Our work transformed a dated and disorganized 72,000 sf complex of buildings into a creative workspace for over 350 Stanford University employees from Stanford’s main campus. The complex building now has a clear navigation and messaging system, providing users greater connectivity to the main campus than was ever thought possible. Through virtual and actual prototyping we were able to shift the desire for a private office culture into one that is more open, and collaborative, creating many modes and varieties of group interaction & team spaces. Through implementing a follow-on post-occupancy survey we were able to validate the expected results. Even better, the reaction of those who now identify this facility as their primary work environment has been overwhelmingly positive.

Challenge

How does one transform a dated 1970’s concrete structure into a state-of-the-art research, instructional and clinic facility? How does one squeeze new program areas into an existing facility without actually adding new square footage? How does one improve day-lighting, and find opportunities to enhance student and faculty interaction?

Approach

MKThink has been Stanford Law School’s lead programming, strategic, and design consultant since 2000. The 60,000 sf Crown Quad Modernization dramatically transformed the school’s existing, outdated facilities, aligning them with its world-class reputation. Renovations, fast-tracked and completed during 10-week summer breaks, include classrooms, legal clinics, a moot court room, and the multistory law library. MKThink also led the strategic assessment and concept validation for the new 60,000 sf faculty and clinics building and partnered with Ennead Architects to finalize the design. Solution The answers lie in identifying space that is not performing optimally or is underutilized. One key to the solution is addressing how university libraries have evolved in the past 40 years. The Stanford Law Library, prior to our involvement, was a collection of dated spaces with an emphasis on the storage of book volumes. With so much of the collection available now through digital archives the opportunity to move books to less desirable space permitted introducing new space for research, group and independent study which the School desperately lacked. The resulting improvements were designed to place an emphasis on maximizing the day lighting available. The library and other key spaces have been opened up so that they are more visible to users and the spaces themselves are flooded with natural light wherever possible.

Results

More student use; enhanced accessibility; greater ability for staff to work well within a smaller footprint because of organized common areas and efficient furniture solutions.

Challenge

How can a building help a school reinforce its identity and produce lawyers prepared to address today’s multi-disciplinarian problems?   Stanford Law School’s long-standing dedication to excellence in legal education has consistently earned it a top ranking among the nation’s pre-eminent law schools.  In recent years, it has experienced a growing population of faculty and students, a resulting shortage space, and the mission to teach its students how to handle a complex legal realm.  With a state-of-the-art Law Clinic and faculty building, the right solution would provide graduates with an extraordinary collaborative environment enabling them to learn how to address today’s (and tomorrow’s) challenges.  

Approach & Solution

The architectural team explored design strategies that would encourage collaboration between faculty and student, and a visual aesthetic that would strengthen the school’s brand & identity. Key space programs such as the Law Clinic and student seminar rooms would best serve the populace (which includes select public seeking special council) by being as accessible as possible on the ground floor.  Locating the Law Clinic on the ground floor, front and center, signifies the School’s commitment to this teaching model and to the community.  The predominance of faculty offices are positioned on upper floors, bracketed at the corners by breakout lounges and meeting spaces that foster student/faculty interaction.  A central courtyard surrounded allows all to have serene views and maximum natural light exposure.  The project also considers other human and environmental factors, by providing a high degree of occupant control over natural/artificial light and thermal comfort settings, glare control, and indoor air quality, with the use of smart-building control systems.   The building was designed inside and out to connect to the current school facility with visual references as well as with the larger campus by clever positioning along a main pedestrian thoroughfare.  The building enhances this quadrant of the campus and the status of the Law School amongst its peers.

Challenge

With competitive pressures from peer institutions investing in new buildings coupled with an aging infrastructure inconsistent with current pedagogies, the Graduate School of Business desired a growth strategy organized around its unique strengths and assets. As a premier business school focused on entrepreneurial thinking and individualized development, the school sought to understand the long-term potential of the current campus and establish a plan for expansion and modification that would accommodate both immediate and projected growth.  

Approach

MKThink was selected to evaluate the costs and benefits associated with remaining at the current location versus relocating and building a new campus on an alternate site. To begin, the MKThink Strategy group dove into a comprehensive accounting and evaluation of the more than 400,000 GSF of current facilities. Then, the team worked with GSB leadership to understand the school’s projected needs. Working with faculty and senior staff, a dramatic re-envisioning of the campus was realized. The final analysis determined that the current site was fatally flawed and would affect the long-term competitiveness of the institution.  

Solution

The new long-term plan relocates the school into a new campus that allows for uninhibited expansion and an interrelationship among program components that will create the leading paradigm for business education environments while providing better fundraising opportunities. MKThink Strategy developed the program to enable incremental short, medium and long-term improvements to maintain continuity and performance. Today, the GSB is successfully moved into their new campus, the Knight Management Center. This campus of 8 building ranging from 10,000 – 100,000 GSF features:

• More flexible teaching spaces for both larger and smaller classes in configurations to support a variety of teaching styles and integrate instructional technology,
• A state-of-the-art auditorium large enough for the entire student body and to host important events,
• Welcoming casual and academic space for students, visitors, and the Stanford community at large,
• Creative workspace for faculty to encourage collaboration,
• New space to house our centers and host their activities, and
• Custom-designed space to expand and support our executive education programs.

 The Knight Center also boasts a sustainable design that will result in a 700-ton reduction in carbon dioxide emissions each year for the life of the campus and will likely result in a LEED Platinum rating, the highest certification offered by the U.S. Green Building Council.  

The “Stay or Go” study propelled the Stanford GSB forward, giving them the clarity necessary to choose to leave their existing campus in order to enhance their reputation as a world class leader in business education. “New curriculum. New collaboration. New campus.”        

Challenge

What does it take to house three of Stanford University’s premier design-thinking groups— the Institute of Design (d.school), the Design Group, the Center for Design Research— in world-class interdisciplinary design center?   Start with full cultural emersion, great listening skills, and design after iterative design.   While the three are branches of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, each brought to the project a unique culture and a widely differing approach toward design-thinking.  The Department wanted to leverage the strengths of each and foster deep collaboration and cross-pollination of ideas.  A successful project would provide an environment that encouraged germination of big-idea thinking and complex problem-solving, but still allowed each group to maintain its area of study and unique culture.  Further, this would need to happen in an historic Stanford structure that required full modernization with seismic upgrades, recognizing the building’s rich history.  

Approach & Solution  

“Creativity follows context,” says d.school Executive Director George Kembel. “If I want an organization to behave in a certain way, I need to design for that.”   Thus, critical to success was developing an understanding of context through ethnographic study and observation, which was led by MKThink’s multi-disciplinary Strategy Team of analysts, planners, and an educational psychologist.  A series of interactive, iterative design workshops led an overall design that would encourage students and faculty to use the space in ways leadership intended.  

Institute of Design Fellow, Scott Whitthoft, stated that the building is a tool to change how students act.  “Space can fuel the creative process by encouraging — or discouraging — specific behaviors.”   The building provides a variety of opportunities that promote big idea-generation and critical design-thinking.  Flexible, re-configurable spaces encourage user ownership.  Openings between floors, a variety of large- and intimately-scaled space, and a central interaction hub are the key spatial features facilitating human connectivity and interaction.   The design offers welcome elements of surprise and unconventional use of rough and refined materials, lighting, and furniture juxtaposed against the building’s characteristic sandstone and exposed brick walls.  

“The space isn’t precious,” says d.school founder David Kelley, who also started the design firm Ideo. “The whole culture of the place says ‘we’re looking for better ideas,’ not ‘keep your feet off the furniture.’ “Every element is meant to stir innovation…”