Process of Change

As a reunited part of the Center for Design, the Process of Change: Laboratory for Innovation and Design (the Lab) houses a collection of evidence, mirroring how society reflects cultural, commercial, and technological advances, and has influenced the decision-making process of international corporate leaders.

The information was collected since the 1950s by this Institute’s namesake and grantor, Sara Little Turnbull. The Lab is organized into more than 375 categories concerned with design quality and purpose as they relate to human need: some familiar and others identified by our expanding horizons in space, time and energy. The material provides an interdisciplinary overview that will stimulate new perceptions of design and its relationship to organization, management strategies, research and development, manufacturing, marketing, logistics, communication, finance, law and ethics.

From a global cultural perspective, the Lab enables you to explore and discover universal self betterment, community responsibility, the family entity, changing work habits, and leisure time orientation, to name a few. The primacy of product-service characteristics is evident and addresses the topics of quality, function, price-value relationships, convenience, pleasure, cultural activity and freedom of choice.

The confluence of data in the Lab engages the imagination, the intuition and curiosity. The collection is meant to stimulate new perceptions. It is visual, it is interactive, and it stimulates critical discussion while exploring the “rhythm of change.”

Now located in Seattle, the Lab was formerly an operational facility within the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. It is a unique and valuable treasure that is available again to visitors by appointment and to those involved in scholarship programs.