Knight Management Center Vision

The vision for the Knight Management Center reflects a commitment to creating space that enables collaboration between faculty and students, between the GSB and the rest of Stanford, and with the global business community. The buildings support today’s GSB community and provide space flexible enough to enable growth and change over the next century and beyond. And, it is done on a site that is responsible in its use of energy, water, and materials while providing a wonderful environment for people

Curriculum and Collaboration

The Knight Management Center delivers the space needed to foster a small class size, a collaborative atmosphere, a close-knit community, and access to Stanford’s intellectual capital, as well as collaboration with colleagues at Stanford and beyond.

Curriculum
The MBA curriculum utilizes:

  • More seminar rooms
  • Team meeting spaces
  • Smaller breakout rooms
  • More flexible classrooms

Four key benefits for students:

  • Highly personalized course offerings
  • Deeper, more engaging intellectual experience
  • More global curriculum
  • Expanded leadership and communication development

Collaboration
The GSB has multidisciplinary and joint degree programs with six other schools. These intellectual pairings have a home and room to grow within the Knight Management Center.

  • School of Law
  • School of Education
  • School of Medicine
  • School of Engineering
  • Hasso Plattner Institute of Design
  • Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Environment and Resources
  

Business and the Environment

In recognition of the important role business plays in the environment, the GSB identified goals, strategies, and tactics for our new academic home.

Green Certification
The GSB is pursuing Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) certification for the Knight Management Center — the Platinum rating — the highest level of certification currently offered by the LEED® Green Building Rating System from the U.S. Green Building Council.

Human and Environmental Health
LEED® promotes sustainability by recognizing performance in five key areas of human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection, and indoor environmental quality.

Promote Environmental Leadership
The Knight Management Center's smart building design dramatically reduces environmental impacts and decreases lifetime cost. This represents a tremendous opportunity for the GSB to promote environmental leadership by making a commitment to the environment and demonstrating this commitment to the academic community, the business community, and the world.

  

Living and Learning

The Knight Management Center is built directly across from the Schwab Residential Center, which houses more than 50% of first-year MBAs, as well as executive education participants. This creates an integrated living and learning environment that enhances the GSB's tight-knit community.

The Knight Management Center:

  • Offers enhanced teaching and learning opportunities and enables more personalized education and greater academic collaboration.
  • Provides more gathering spaces for interaction of faculty, students, staff, and alumni (e.g. Town Square, TA Associates' Café, GSB Bowl, McCoy Family Faculty Courtyard, and student lounges).
  • Inspires students, faculty, staff and the business community through great spaces that integrate the indoors with the outdoors.

Photo of people collaborating

 

Using Outdoor Spaces for Collaboration

The Knight Management Center is comprised of a series of small buildings situated around vital outdoor spaces. The outdoor spaces — Town Square, McCoy Family Faculty Courtyard, Community Court, GSB Bowl, and Knight Way — provide numerous opportunities for teams to find special spaces to collaborate and work.

drawing of primary public spaces

Facility Improvements

Benefits of the Knight Management Center — new home of the Stanford Graduate School of Business — include a wider variety of instructional, research, and working spaces over the school's prior facility.