If you build it, excellence will come.

That was the theme of University President John Hennessy’s annual address to the Academic Council yesterday entitled “Positioning Stanford for the Future: New Places and Spaces.” In the two-part talk and walking tour, which began in the auditorium of the newly dedicated Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) building and then moved to the newly-opened Jen-Hsun Huang Engineering Center in the southeast corner of the new Science and Engineering Quadrangle, Hennessy laid out the “big picture” of Stanford’s construction projects.

“In 1895, in an address, David Starr Jordan was unequivocal that the University was an investment in the future,” Hennessy said, addressing dozens of assembled faculty. “The best spent money of the present is to invest in the future. And we’re focusing on the future.”

Hennessy said the main goals of the expansion are to equip Stanford with state-of-the-art research facilities that meet 21st-century needs but maintain the architectural integrity of the old campus established by architect Frederick Law Olmsted. The construction model is based on the idea of developing “academic precincts” along major roads of campus, such as Serra Mall, to increase access to new departments and help solidify community among and between different departments — and, in the process, adhere to Olmsted’s idea of creating open vistas and quadrangles that make the most of Stanford’s natural environment.

The major projects discussed on Thursday were the new Graduate School of Business, which is still under construction; an arts district along Palm Drive, which just saw the groundbreaking of the Bing Concert Hall; changes to graduate residences like Munger; additions to the Law School in the form of faculty clinics; and additions to the School of Medicine, with the construction of the Lorry I. Lokey Stem Cell Research Building.

“We are in the middle of a third Stone Age,” Hennessy said. “Building is the biggest challenge we face at the moment.”     The breadth of the construction projects — which Hennessy said rivals the extensive construction at Stanford’s founding, termed “the first Stone Age” by Jordan — is an attempt to keep the University on the cutting-edge of research facilities and interdepartmental collaboration.

Jim Harris ’64, an electrical engineering professor who was on campus in the 1960s when Stanford was then undergoing a round of construction projects, said the new building plans seemed much more thought-out than the campus additions in the past.

“The building then seemed to be haphazard, but this plan focuses on integration,” Harris said.

“Stanford has a strong campus core,” Harris continued. “Like only a few other campuses, it is rather isolated, so there is space to integrate.”

John Rickford, a linguistics professor, appreciated Hennessy’s address for laying out a comprehensive look of Stanford’s building plans.

“There was always a general sense of building on campus, but you don’t know the larger blueprint,” Rickford said.

Rickford said he liked the overriding philosophy of the expansion model, which is science- and engineering- focused, but also centered on the arts.

“It’s amazing that we’re continuing to build at a time when things are so bad,” he said. “It’s inspiring.”

Hennessy closed his remarks in the Jen-Hsun Huang Engineering Center by re-emphasizing the role that the new buildings would play in Stanford’s future. But he said that ultimately, the facilities came back to the people.

“Our facilities only support that work of excellence of the University,” he said.

“It’s the staff and students and faculties that use the facilities to create excellence,” he added.