Project Description
Stanford University has been affectionately known as “The Farm” ever
since it was established by founders Leland and Jane Stanford on their
Palo Alto stock farm. The Stanfords’ founding grant decreed that “a
farm for instruction in agriculture” should forever be maintained on
university lands. After nearly 20 years of student and faculty advocacy
and planning, the O’Donahue Family Stanford Educational Farm was
established on six acres near the university’s historic Red Barn. The
Huffington Barn and Welch Family Kitchen complete our work at the
Farm, a living laboratory where students, faculty, and the surrounding
community can test new ideas about the social and environmental
aspects of farming and urban agriculture.
Our design centrally organized farm structures amongst six acres of
field crops and orchards, frame open gathering space, and create a
promenade through the fields that lead to it. Central to the design is the
Huffington Barn, a large and iconic structure that combines the desired
programs of barn, classrooms, office space, and open demonstration
pavilion. Two greenhouses and a lath house act as accessory structures
to the barn, embodying a purely functional design. This new working
farm will supply Stanford dining halls with over 15,000 pounds of
produce each year, and cultivate a new generation of experts versed in
both the principles and practices of sustainable farming.