Stanford Law School
THE NEXT LEVEL LAW SCHOOL EXPERIENCE
Defining the global best practice in flexible, interdisciplinary collaborative law school environments within Stanford’s Silicon Valley
CHALLENGE
Over the past 20 years, faculty and staff growth has pushed up against available space on Stanford Law School’s intimate campus, creating unintended barriers for faculty, staff and student collaboration. This inflexible condition hampered the social and academic experience for students, many of whom bought into the law school’s brand as an intimate, collaborative academic environment within Silicon Valley. However, campus-wide growth restrictions were limiting the school’s ability to expand.
APPROACH
MKThink conducted an audit and assessment process with robust stakeholder engagement to evaluate the school’s physical, cultural, and environmental assets against its goals for student, staff and faculty experience. The team explored design possibilities through a Creative Prototyping process, allowing the client to actively collaborate in design. And, to ensure that materials, products, and processes aligned with the schools’ ethical mission, MKThink developed an ethical sourcing framework that informed material selection and construction.
RESULT
The design optimized the renovation of existing space rather than building new - avoiding over $30 million in new construction costs. By rightsizing and making scheduling improvements (which harvested 245 hours of additional instruction time per week), MKThink was able to re-recapture over 15,000 square feet of effective capacity and re-activate existing spaces into new multi-use, flexible event and academic spaces.
SERVICES
Audit and Assessment
Master Plan
Professional Design Services
DATES
2018-Present
LOCATION
Palo Alto, CA
SIZE/SCALE
Planning Scope 288,000 SF
Design Scope 17,000 SF
MARKET
Higher Education
BUDGET
$11 MM
ACCOUNT HISTORY
Campus Master Plan
Neukom Building Interior Design
Crown Quad Audit and Assessment
Crown Quad Modernization