BIM helps team complete work on a new Army brigade and battalion headquarters

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 FORT STEWART, GA. — STV and Mortenson Construction recently completed work on a design-build project for the new Fort Stewart Brigade and Battalion Headquarters at Fort Stewart, Ga., to support the 4th Infantry Combat Brigade Team. This marks the first time that a single facility was designed and constructed to house a brigade command structure and six battalion commands. The design-build team used Bentley building information modeling (BIM) software to create a 3D graphic model. This approach offered numerous advantages in cost savings and scheduling. BIM allowed contractors and designers to compile information quickly and share it easily among all parties.

STV and Mortenson Construction were selected by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the integrated design-build process. The STV/Mortenson team is providing services for a number of military installations throughout the United States. This design-build team is working on a variety of building types for the U.S. Department of Defense, including training barracks, administrative spaces, and munitions and explosives facilities.

The three-story, 138,000-square-foot facility includes administrative areas, operations areas, classrooms, and special use spaces for a secure compartmented information facility (SCIF), brigade operations center, and network operations center. The total cost of the project was $23.1 million.

"At Fort Stewart, early collaboration resulted in the best possible layout for the building while staying within the client's requirements and adhering to the overall project schedule," said James Vilbert, P.E., LEED AP, senior vice president at STV. "By using BIM in the design-build approach, we were able to quickly address any changes and complexities that arose while working at this site and present that information to the client. Even significant changes to the SCIF areas late in the construction phase were incorporated with minimal impact to the schedule due to excellent planning at the start of the project."

Early on, STV/Mortenson reviewed the bridging documents and proposed some modifications to the design which included the relocation of mechanical and electrical rooms to shorten utility runs, the elimination of a stair tower, and other changes that would maintain the functional relationship between command staff departments. As a result of the modifications, STV/Mortenson was able to develop a 2,500-square-foot multipurpose room above the building's main entrance.

A two-day charrette organized by STV/Mortenson brought the entire design-build team together at the start of the project. Participants included the Corps contract representative, the technical representative and user groups, the contractor's preconstruction and on-site project team, and the design project manager. This allowed all parties involved to discuss the scope of the project, the process, the design and construction schedules, and the challenges associated with the project.