Boora Architects

Stanford University broke ground on its new 9 building campus for the Graduate School of Business in September, 2008. Named in honor of Nike founder and Stanford alumnus Phil Knight, the Knight Management Center has been designed by Boora to fulfill the needs of the school’s new MBA program, embody its commitment to social responsibility and take full advantage of its intimate scale and informal California culture.

The new Knight Management Center for the Graduate School of Business is currently under construction and will be completed in 2011.

The 415,000-square-foot campus is conceived as a permeable complex of buildings organized around four primary outdoor spaces. This permeability supports the school’s goal of greater collaboration through joint programs and degree offerings among engineering, law, education, earth sciences, medicine and humanities disciplines.

The campus was intentionally designed by Boora to create an intimate feel. The scale of the buildings was carefully modulated and organized around a series of small-scale outdoor spaces and courtyards. These include the Town Square, the Academic Walk, the Faculty Courtyard and the Community Court. The buildings enjoy easy connections to one or more of these outdoor spaces, taking full advantage of the temperate South Bay climate.

The buildings of the Knight Management Center will offer a wide array of flexible classroom space and breakout study rooms to accommodate a greater number of small classes and programs in the Graduate School of Business’s new MBA curriculum. In addition, the campus will include a 600-seat lecture hall, a new dining pavilion, a 900-car underground parking structure, faculty and staff offices, and dedicated space for career management and executive education programs.

It also will offer classrooms for collaborative hands-on learning and virtual communication linking students and faculty from other schools at Stanford and around the globe.

The construction of the Knight Management Center campus leverages Stanford President John Hennessy’s call for the university to be a force for change on issues of global importance, especially regarding the environment. The Graduate School of Business will play a key role in helping to address these challenges. The new campus will blend indoor and outdoor spaces and solar technology to reduce energy needs and help achieve LEED Platinum certification.

Additional sustainable design features for the Graduate School of Business include:

-  Reducing overall water usage by at least 30%.
-  Exceeding current energy efficiency standards by at least 40%.
-  Recycling or salvaging 50 to 75% of non-hazardous construction debris.
-  Using rainwater or re-circulated gray water to reduce potable water use for building sewage conveyance by 80%.
-  Using low or non-volatile organic compound-emitting materials to ensure exceptional indoor air quality.
-  Satisfying the university’s Guidelines for Sustainable Building while also achieving LEED Platinum certification.