The University of Notre Dame desired to expand the use of one of its most iconic structures on campus, the football stadium, by adding three buildings to the west, east and south sides of the stadium that would facilitate the integration of academics, student life and athletics with the single largest building initiative in the history of the University of Notre Dame known as Campus Crossroads. Lawson-Fisher Associates, mapped nearly all visible and subsurface features within the University of Notre Dame’s 50-acre Campus Crossroads project area using multiple survey data collection methods aimed to optimize the required accuracies, produce the requested deliverables and to create a dataset worthy of incorporation into a GIS platform for use with facilities management.

Methodology used to collect the site information was selected specifically to ensure accuracy without sacrificing efficiency. Subsurface Utility Engineering (SUE) support was provided by our project partner, Cardno-TBE. Lawson-Fisher Associates utilized survey grade GPS to establish a control network over the entire project site that was used by the design-build team lead by Barton-Malow during development of the Campus Crossroads project.

Having this level of data available for new construction, reconstruction, and future planning has the potential to dramatically increase efficiency of the management of University facilities. This same data readily transfers into other 3D modeling software and CAD environments for use by other professional disciplines. In addition, the Campus Crossroads survey data has served as the model data set for conversion of consultant-provided data into the University’s expanding GIS system. As part of a realized benefit from this project, Lawson-Fisher Associates has since expanded the Campus Crossroads control network into a campus-wide network that provides a stable and enduring basis for all future design, mapping, and GIS projects at the University of Notre Dame.