Open for Business
The School's Schwab
Residential Center Welcomed Students in August: A Look At The GSB'S
Newest Addition
by Janet Zich
The objective was to build a center
that would be part residence, part rooms and lounges for group study and
individual work.
But the Business School's new Schwab Residential Center is far more than
that. Thanks to the creativity of architect Ricardo Legorreta, the imagination
of an administration that understood his vision, the generosity of donors,
and the perseverance of builders, fundraisers, and all the people who saw
the project through, the Center is an experience in itself. In 1988, Legorreta,
a Mexican architect with an international reputation, explained his theory
of architectural design to the Japanese magazine Global Architecture Houses.
Design concepts must be based on the "real values of human life,"
he said. "People should sense spirituality, happiness, peace, love,
mystery, optimism, surprise, and humor in their everyday use of a building.
The basic tools of an architect should be the timeless elements of design
such as light, shadow, texture, color, water...." Using those tools,
Legorreta married form to function, creating a residence for 280 executive
and MBA students that, even as it meets its utilitarian function, is filled
with drama and wit--a courtyard planted with sandstone pillars from the
University's original quad; a square pueblo-style window framing an unexpected
view of Hoover Tower; a long hallway painted to the top of its barrel-vaulted
ceiling a yellow that would make a canary sing for joy.
Located only three blocks from the
Business School's classrooms, the Schwab Residential Center is a 6-acre
compound containing two residential buildings and five courtyards, one
planted with 36 palm trees. Its stucco walls enclose 140 kitchens shared
by 280 occupants, 5 lounges, 36 study rooms, a dining hall that seats 300,
three elevators, two laundry rooms, an exercise room, a computer room,
a flowering pear orchard, a sundeck, a fountain pool with a waterfall,
and three bicycle-parking areas. During the academic year, 60 rooms are
set aside for executive program participants, 200 for GSB students, and
20 for other graduate students. In the summer, all 280 rooms will be filled
by executives. Some of the public areas can be reserved for University-related
events.
The center was built to
fill a specific need. In the early 1990s, executive education began to
boom nationwide, and the GSB, which had introduced executive ed back in
1952, expanded the number of its programs, growing from seven in 1990 to
sixteen in 1998. There was one problem, however. While other schools were
able to offer their executives posh wooded hideaways or offsite hotel-like
accommodations built and serviced especially for them, Stanford, which
did not want to go into the hotel business, in part because it strongly
believes in on-campus residential learning, had one vintage-1933 dormitory
at its disposal--for summer only. Any expansion of offerings into the academic
year meant that participants would have to stay at a local hotel.
And the summer! Mind you, there was
a certain bonding among SEP participants when they arrived at their dormitory
and received desk fans to ward off the summer heat along with directions
to the appropriate restroom down the hall. Think boot camp. But clearly,
Stanford's undergrad Lagunita Court was not a long-term solution to the
GSB's problem.
"The Center was a response to
our growing need for an executive education residence that would not stand
empty when executive courses were not in session," Dean A. Michael
Spence explained at the dedication October 7. "The idea was the brainchild
of former associate dean David Baron. I'll never forget the silence that
fell over the meeting when Professor Baron suggested a residential center
shared by MBA and executive students. Everyone in the room was thinking
the same thing: 'Why didn't I think of that?'"
Baron's idea was a definite "aha."
Rents had been skyrocketing in the area as Silicon Valley and its environs
rebounded from the recession that battered California in the early nineties.
The University was short of dormitory space to house its many graduate
students, including MBAs, who were increasingly priced out of the housing
market. Baron solved two problems in a single stroke.
"The Schwab Residential Center
is a wonderful resource for the whole University," says the Business
School's director of major capital projects Sandy Scott, MBA '91 [see A
Closer Look]. And it took the whole University to make it happen--beginning
with Provost Condoleezza Rice, who endorsed the idea early on, and Stanford
President Gerhard Casper, who chaired the committee that solicited proposals
and ultimately selected the design. Robert Bass, MBA '74, who chairs the
University's board of trustees, gave advice on how to structure the finances.
"We needed a structure that appealed
to donors and protected the building from the obvious financial risk associated
with uncertain occupancy of the 60 rooms," the Dean recalls. Spence
came up with a second "aha"--the idea of a donors' fund, which
would invest in the building and then eventually receive a return as occupancy
increased. "The funds not invested in the building will generate income
for research and course development, and the net proceeds from the building
will go into the fund," says Spence. Under this structure, "donors
essentially accomplish two things at once, investing in the building and
then in the research and course development that are key to fulfilling
the mission of the School." Bass and his wife, Anne, were early investors
in the fund.
Charles Schwab, MBA '61, and his wife,
Helen, were the lead donors for whom the Center is named. Strolling through
the complex, from the Ferguson Lounge (Dan, MBA '50) to the Vidalakis Dining
Hall and Courtyard (Nick, MBA '55, Sloan '60, PhD '61), one encounters
the names of other alumni and their families who contributed to the building.
There are the McClelland Tower (Carter, MBA '73), the Rosenberg Lounge
(Claude, MBA '52), the Knight Exercise Room (Phil, MBA '62), and the MBA
Class of 1971 Lounge. A reading room named for Edmund W. Littlefield, MBA
'38, is a tribute from Leo Hindery, MBA '71.
It is especially meaningful
that two of our most celebrated alumni from Mexico have contributed to
a complex that is so steeped in Hispanic architectural tradition,"
said Spence at the dedication, calling attention to the Autrey Zocalo,
"the central gathering place at the heart of every Mexican community,"
which was donated by Sergio (MBA '78) and Maria Autrey. "This is the
blue courtyard that beautifully complements the Cemex Building, a gift
of Cemex SA, whose chairman and CEO is Lorenzo Zambrano [MBA '68],"
said Spence. Other prominent donors were L.W. "Bill" and Jean
Lane, Joan and Melvin Lane, and the Lakeside Foundation.
"Ricardo Legorreta has succeeded
in creating an architectural work of art that translates Stanford's essential
style," said Casper. "The richness of the Schwab Center lies
in its apparent simplicity. The genius of the building is that it has been
designed to complement the campus that surrounds it and at the same time
makes bold, original statements throughout its impressive interior. It
is a complex that must fulfill many different purposes. It is a center
that brings people together, that has been designed to encourage the kinds
of collaborative relationships that have reflected so positively on the
University," he said. "Legorreta has managed all of this by employing
clear, even spartan lines that befit a university and the 21st century.
If I seem enthusiastic to you, you are right."
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"The genius of
the building is that it has been designed to complement the campus and
at the same time makes bold, original statements."
-- PRESIDENT GERHARD CASPER
Photos by Richard Barnes
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