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.

Relocation of 400+ administrative staff off the main campus without sacrificing connection and the community experience
Change management process and migration planning from private offices to open work environment
New functional specification for work place requirement
Assessment and planning around existing building constraints and physical challenged to maintaining required adjacencies
Building and furniture solutions to maximize budget with emphasis on collaboration, teaming and conference spaces
Post Occupancy evaluation and space program refinement