University of Virginia South Lawn Project Charlottesville, Virginia

The University of Virginia South Lawn project (classrooms, offices, common spaces, landscape) required BIM to track and communicate the status of critical components and systems, and to monitor change orders. Time-sensitive information was embedded in the 4D model. Instead of working with 500 conventional shop drawings for steel, precast and roof trusses, the team simply reviewed the BIM drawing. They could see where each piece was in the approval process and could resequence work affected by change orders. Areas in question were "clipped" to RFIs; they were readable over the Internet, even by team members lacking BIM software.

The University of Virginia’s South Lawn Arts and Sciences project is the most ambitious undertaking on the University’s Central Grounds in over a century. The challenge was to accommodate the contemporary program requirements of the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences while respecting the Jeffersonian architecture of the nearby Academic Village. The University of Virginia was founded by Thomas Jefferson. In addition to being America’s third President, he was also an accomplished early American architect and inventor. Today, the university educates many of the country’s architects.

Barton Malow utilized Tekla Structures BIM (Building Information Modeling) software during this project because of its ability to integrate and analyze building and construction information. Tekla Structures was previously used in 2006 to speed up and streamline the expansion of the Lynchburg General Hospital in Virginia, US.