Next Level Law School Experience
Re-defining global best practice for inter-disciplinary collaborative law school environments
CHALLENGE
Over the past 20 years, faculty and staff growth has limited the available space on Stanford Law School’s campus, creating unintended barriers for faculty, staff and student collaboration. This inflexible condition was hampering the social and academic experience for students, many of whom had bought into the law school’s brand as an intimate, collaborative academic environment within Silicon Valley. Additionally, campus-wide growth restrictions were limiting the school’s ability to expand, calling for a need to rethink how they were using their space.
APPROACH
MKThink engaged stakeholders 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, which allowed for rapid evaluation metric generation and the active collaboration of the client on design solutions. To ensure that materials, products, and processes aligned with Stanford's ethical mission, MKThink developed an ethical sourcing framework that informed material and systems selection and the construction process.
RESULT
Through MKThink's recommended space rightsizing and scheduling improvements, an additional 245 hours of instruction time per week is available without new construction. This strategic architectural design solution captures the effective capacity of under-utilized spaces, repurposed existing environments, and a crossover of event and academic zones. The design allows Stanford Law School to optimize existing space and avoid costly new construction while reestablishing the intimate and collaborative campus experience.
CLIENT
Stanford Law School, Stanford University
SERVICES
Space Audit and Assessment
Space Optimization
Architectural Services - Renovation Stakeholder Engagement
LOCATION
Palo Alto, CA
SIZE/SCALE
Planning Scope 288,000 SF
Design Scope 16,000 SF
MARKET
Higher Education
ACCOUNT HISTORY
Future Forward Plan 2002
Master Plan Implementation
Crown Quad Architectural Services 2002-2008
Neukom Building Architectural Services 2009-2011
Space Optimization 2019-2020
Architectural Services 2020-Present