540 McCallie Renovation at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Overview
By bringing in our VDC (Virtual Design and Construction) team to laser scan the entire building, our team leading the 540 McCallie building renovation at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga was able to discover and verify that the existing structure of the building did not align with the dimensions in the drawings used to complete the mechanical design. This proactive use of technology and our experts’ experience saved approximately $300,000 in wasted materials, labor, and rework.
SUMMARY
The 540 McCallie Building on the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s campus was completed in 1949 and expanded on with an additional wing in 1974. By 2024, the university decided it was time to upgrade and renovate the academic building’s infrastructure, equipment, and overall aesthetic. The architectural drawings were created based on the building’s as-built documents, just like any renovation project. Our project leaders believe in the philosophy of trust, but verify. This is especially true when working with historical documents, which should be accurate, but we know from experience that sometimes additional work, change orders, or minor renovations aren’t always recorded as the years go on. That’s why our teams work closely with our dedicated VDC team – to trust the historical documents but verify the actual conditions with the use of laser scanning, which is accurate to a 32nd of an inch.
Our construction team began demolition to clear out the parts of the building that weren’t remaining and see the condition of the structure underneath. That’s when we discovered that what lies beneath told a much different story than the original documents, and as a result, so did the new architectural documents created by the design team. Our team found that the existing structure was off from what the documents said by 6 to 8 inches in some areas — when, because most of the walls would remain in place, the entire space that we had to work in was a maximum of 14 inches. A discrepancy that large would have resulted in ordering ductwork that would have been unusable and resulted in nearly $300,000 in wasted materials and labor.
“If you look at the drawings, they’re true blueprints scanned in. Everything leads you to believe that we should have had the space that the designers thought we had.” Wheeler Jones, Senior Project Manager
“That’s the main reason why we come out and do laser scans — because it’s this is a very common issue across renovations. This is not unique to the McCallie project by any means.” Kristin Hahnel, Senior VDC Manager
With the results from the laser scan in hand, our team set to field verifying every measurement by hand to ensure that the new documents were 100% accurate. We then delivered those new, accurate documents to the design team, who were able to redesign the ductwork for that phase of the building renovation.
To prevent any future delays or a repeat of the same issues we experienced during our first phase work on the West Wing addition, our team turned their attention to the next phase – the North Wing which is the original building built in 1948 — and scanned the entire building and checked it against field measurements ensuring accurate documents were delivered to the design team so they could begin redesigning before our team even started coordinating in that area.
