What does it take to house three of Stanford University’s premier design-thinking groups— the Institute of Design (d.school), the Design Group, the Center for Design Research— in world-class interdisciplinary design center? Start with full cultural emersion, great listening skills, and design after iterative design. While the three are branches of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, each brought to the project a unique culture and a widely differing approach toward design-thinking. The Department wanted to leverage the strengths of each and foster deep collaboration and cross-pollination of ideas. A successful project would provide an environment that encouraged germination of big-idea thinking and complex problem-solving, but still allowed each group to maintain its area of study and unique culture. Further, this would need to happen in an historic Stanford structure that required full modernization with seismic upgrades, recognizing the building’s rich history.
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