University IT Supports Stanford Redwood City Pilot Workspace

The saying “it takes a village” certainly rings true as countless staff from all over campus join together to work on the monumental effort of opening the Stanford Redwood City campus in 2019. Building a new 35-acre campus, relocating approximately 2,700 Stanford employees, and managing the innumerable amount of logistics involved in this move is no small feat.

University IT (UIT) plays an instrumental role in this process and our staff members are working hard to ensure the new campus will offer the highest quality technical infrastructure to support employees making the move.

A big step forward

In March, the Redwood City Advisory Committee made a big, tangible step forward by opening the Stanford Redwood City Pilot Workplace at 3160 Porter Drive. The purpose of the pilot is to showcase and test the new workspace design, furniture concepts, and technology options that staff can expect at the Stanford Redwood City campus.

Each workstation is equipped with a VoIP phone, widescreen monitor, and wireless keyboard and mouse.

Bringing this pilot to life required relocating Office of Sponsored Research (OSR) employees, who previously occupied the workspace, to new offices. UIT assisted in this effort by setting up the workstations and technology in their new location.

Once these moves were complete, UIT was in lock step with architects and construction crews over winter closure in order to pull wiring and set up the technology for the new Pilot Workspace.

The Pilot Workspace allows 33 staff to test the new work environment, which integrates individual workstations with collaborative open space, meeting rooms of various sizes, and enclosed offices to allow for flexibility and a brighter work environment.

Each workstation is equipped with a VoIP phone, a widescreen monitor, and a wireless keyboard and mouse (both of which support Mac and Windows). This equipment enables pilot users to quickly connect their laptops and get to work. The Pilot Workspace also has a robust wireless network, which enables participants to easily move around the workspace while staying connected.

Conference rooms in Redwood City will be equipped with the highest-quality video conferencing equipment to ensure seamless connectivity between Stanford and Stanford Redwood City.

UIT staff  equipped the conference rooms with video conferencing hardware, which allows participants to collaborate with colleagues regardless of location. This also creates a prime opportunity for UIT to test multiple video conferencing solutions that are being considered for the Redwood City campus.

“Rich, deep, highly available and easy-to-use audiovisual connectivity at both Stanford and Stanford Redwood City will be essential to the transition,” said Matthew Ricks, director of IT facilities management in UIT.

In addition to video conferencing hardware, UIT is also using the Pilot Workspace to test options for printing, laptop docking, and video white boarding.

Group rotation now through July

Individual workspaces are integrated with group spaces to give employees flexibility and options to collaborate.

Groups that will move to Redwood City are testing the pilot space in two-week rotations from now through July. These rotations require a lot of coordination, and staff from UIT’s Computer Resource Consulting (CRC) and Communication Services (VAST, Service Integration, and Installation & Maintenance) teams are supporting each group as they cycle through.

Employee feedback about the space will be collected and used as input to influence the furniture and technology planned for the new campus.

Noel Hirst, assistant vice president for Business Affairs Finance and Facilities (who is also the executive sponsor of the pilot space), offered her perspective on the technology component of the pilot.

“This pilot is very important in assisting Stanford to define what is needed to support the increasingly mobile workforce,” she said. “It will help us frame our thinking around technology choices and standards necessary to support our work processes. We could not have delivered this pilot experience without all of the efforts that the UIT team has put into this space.”

Learn more

More updates about Redwood City can be found in the April 12 Stanford Report article, Planning Progresses for Stanford Redwood City.

Also be sure to check out and bookmark the new Working at Stanford Redwood City microsite for the latest updates and information.