Innovation Curve, A 24,702 square-meter, LEED Platinum campus on the edge of the Stanford Research Park, celebrates Silicon Valley’s innovation process. The mid-level blue horizontal ribbon shading element follows the shape of the classic R&D timeline; from creative spark, though trial and tribulation, to welcome success. The highs and lows of an idea within reach, form the discreet points of a curve, metaphorically bearing anticipation and anxiety.
For this scheme, the innovation diagram is generative of the compound’s urban appearance as well as its internal parti. To further activate the space, terraces break down the scale of the building along the inner campus to create places for people to work or meet. In erecting a billboard of the innovation rollercoaster, the community is reminded of the peaks and valley of effervescent thinking characteristic of the process of change.
Ever conscious of the importance of sustainability, the envelope shading strategy, conceived in a lyrical way, takes on a form evocative of this entrepreneurial spirit. The clear glass envelope with glass shading fins creates a crystalline form that evokes a sense of lightness and spirit.
In making the innovation diagram the face of the buildings, users and visitors inhabit symbolically a space of and for innovation, for expansive and intense focus. It is at the building's entry point, however, where the spatial experience reaches its apex. The valley of this innovation vessel gives a magnetic material form to the intoxicating excitement of what is yet to come. Tomorrow is already here.
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