Computer Science & Technology
Named for icons in the industry, the Gates, Allen, Hewlett, and Packard buildings provide a gateway to Stanford’s science, technology and engineering areas, which house an amazing breadth and array of cutting edge programs and facilities in physical, informational, and interdisciplinary sciences.
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Science & Engineering Gateway
Makerspaces
🤖 Science & Engineering Gateway
Marking the physical and academic intersection of the natural sciences, physical sciences and technology, the William R. Hewlett Teaching Center, David Packard Electrical Engineering building, William Gates Computer Sciences Building, and Paul G. Allen Center for Integrated Systems Annex mark the south access to many of Stanford’s primary physical science and engineering facilities.
Gates and Allen
The Gates Building, completed in January 1996 and refurbished in 2021, is the home of the Computer Science Department (CSD) and the Computer Systems Laboratory (CSL). The 150,000 square foot building was designed to promote interaction. Previously, CSD and CSL were located in 11 different buildings, both on campus and off. Now scientists can exchange ideas with colleagues by walking just a few steps. The Paul G. Allen Center for Integrated Systems Annex houses the Stanford Nanofabrication Facility and numerous laboratories and offices for multidisciplinary research.
Microsoft co-founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen -- neither of whom attended Stanford -- first met as teenagers in high school in Seattle. In 1975, when Gates was 19, he dropped out of his sophomore year of college at Harvard to launch Microsoft, with Allen.
Hewlett and Packard
David Hewlett and William Packard met at Stanford in the 1930s, and went on to found Hewlett-Packard (HP) in Packard's garage in Palo Alto. The Packard Electrical Engineering Building houses the administrative office of the Department of Electrical Engineering, undergraduate instructional laboratories, and the Bytes Café.
While many of the buildings in this area mainly serve students studying in those programs, almost every student at Stanford will spend time in the Hewlett Teaching Center which houses the largest lecture hall on campus. Two state-of-the-art auditoriums accommodate 400 and 280 students respectively and feature full multimedia and closed circuit television capability as well as rotating stages that enable one lecture and demonstration to be going on while another is being set up backstage. Although the lecture hall is large, students in these classes have access to discussion sections and lots of office hours to work through material in smaller groups.
🛠️ Makerspaces
Stanford University has a variety of makerspaces spread throughout the campus, ranging from general facilities designed to provide opportunities for creative expression and practical construction to specialized spaces to support research, courses and thousands of students.
Makerspace - lab64 (Electronics)
Lab64 is a maker space that focuses on electronic systems, physical devices that include electronics and computing, and is open to the entire Stanford community. Housed in the Packard building of the electrical engineering department, lab64 provides tools, equipment, workshops and advice on building systems.
Makerspace - "The d.school"
The “d.school” (officially: The Hasso Plattner Institute of Design) is a recognized thought leader in human-centered design, and a leading teaching center for design and experiential learning. Despite its nickname, it is not a “school” of the university, but an internationally acclaimed institute, providing offerings to students from all seven of its schools, both graduate and undergraduate. In 2012, the d.school started the ‘Project Fellowship,’ inviting professionals with expertise in their respective fields to join the d.school to advance an ambitious project to create systems-level change in the world.
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