Studio Gang Selected to Design Stanford Sustainability Commons

Studio Gang, alongside SCAPE and Atelier Ten, have been selected to design the new Stanford Sustainability Commons. The Sustainability Commons, located on the west side of the University’s Palo Alto campus, will serve as the new home for the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability – Stanford’s first new school in 70 years.

The Doerr School of Sustainability launched in September 2022 to tackle urgent climate and sustainability challenges facing people and ecosystems worldwide. The Sustainability Commons will unite Stanford faculty and students from across a wide range of academic disciplines and will serve as a hub for a local and global network academic, business, technology, and policy partners working to drive solutions that advance the long-term prosperity of the planet. It will also seek to welcome those most affected by climate change–from its neighbors in Silicon Valley to Indigenous communities from around the world and to transform its site into a thriving habitat supporting the region’s larger network of living things.

“The climate crisis is the most urgent challenge facing our world today,” said Jeanne Gang. “We are going to be working with Stanford to design a home for the Doerr School of Sustainability that can support the cross-disciplinary collaboration needed for generating climate solutions in all industries. At the same time, we are excited to model ways for the built environment to address this challenge head on.”

The Sustainability Commons will comprise new anchor buildings and a series of outdoor spaces on the west side of Stanford’s campus that will support both new programs for the school and existing programs that are currently housed in other locations. The project will also create new connections with the school’s other spaces, including the Green Earth Sciences Building, the Yang and Yamazaki Environment and Energy Building, the Braun Building, and the O’Donohue Family Stanford Educational Farm.

The new buildings will be designed to align with Stanford’s ambitious university-wide goals, which include achieving zero waste by 2030 and achieving net-zero Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gases by 2050. Construction of the Sustainability Commons is expected to begin by late 2026.