Stanford School of Medicine 1651 Page Mill Renewal

The design transformed a 1960s-era office building into a modern, light-filled research workplace for advancing medical science at the Stanford School of Medicine.

Housing high-performance biomedical research labs, the facility accommodates a wide variety of collaborative research teams. Specialized spaces include core facilities, shared workspaces and infrastructure to support each team.

Skylights welcome daylight deep into two-story gathering and circulation spaces. Glass walls with simple, origami-like folds replaced outdated glass window walls at the north and south ends of the existing building. This floor-to-ceiling glass floats above a wide-planked boardwalk along the edge of the outdoor gardens, blurring the lines between interior and exterior environments.

The design team collaborated with the client to identify the needs of each type of researcher. This informed the size and configuration of open and closed labs, infrastructure, support facilities and collaboration areas.

To find the best solution, parametric design tools enabled the team to test the long-term flexibility and viability of three different concepts. The analysis revealed that 20 percent of the lab space needed to be flexible to adapt to changing research programs and future technologies.

This project has enabled the Stanford School of Medicine to implement, test and refine new standards for planning interdisciplinary research space.