Stanford University for The Science & Engineering Quad, with Boora Architects; also Hargreaves Associates; Arup Engineers; Hathaway Dinwiddie Construction Company

Rendering by Richard Hoyen

    
Images provided courtesy of Boora Architects

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The planning initiative for Stanford University’s new Science and Engineering Quad (SEQ) was launched to help maintain the university’s competitive edge in research and teaching. Building on Frederick Law Olmsted’s original plan for the cam­pus, the plan establishes a comprehensive vision for a second quad west of Stanford’s historic main quad and creates a flexible interdisciplinary hub for science and engineering designed for the next 100 years. The plan also sets strategies to govern infrastructure, program, landscape, architecture, sustainable performance, implementation and cost.

Four new state-of-the-art buildings comprise the SEQ. It supports interdisciplinary collaboration by bringing together disciplines previously spread across campus; creating permeable boundaries between disciplines; consolidating critical regional program elements; and strengthening spatial and program­matic connection to neighboring precincts.

The plan positions the quad in roughly the same position and scale as indicated in Olmsted’s plan, using it as precedent for SEQ’s organizing elements including axes, malls, arcades and interconnections of buildings and open space.

Like the original design for Stanford’s main quad, the SEQ plan has set new benchmarks for sustainable building and landscape performance,” says David P. Lenox, university architect and director of campus planning.

Environmental stewardship and resource conservation overlapped with academic priorities, operational needs and fiscal goals. The plan established hard targets for energy performance, water conservation, materials use and environmental quality. These criteria make the four SEQ buildings among the most sustainable research and teaching buildings in the nation.

The SEQ plan establishes a comprehensive and fully integrated roadmap to build the quad in phases over 10 years. Fast track schedules are bringing these projects on line faster, with savings for Stanford and allowing new academic initiatives to be implemented.

The jury said, ". . . real sense of the district that it was planning . . . successful combination of respecting historic context and building in flexibility . . . second major quad on campus in 100 years . . . goes back to Olmstead’s plan . . . "

Project Team: Stanford University with Boora Architects; also Hargreaves Associates; Arup Engineers; Hathaway Dinwiddie Construction Company