Mississippi ASHRAE Webpage

This months highlighted project is the U.S. Federal Courthouse building being constructed in Jackson, MS between Court Street and South Street. The U.S. Federal Courthouse is a $120 million, 360,000 sq. ft., facility that houses 12 courtrooms for bankruptcy, district, magistrate and special proceedings.

The courthouse was drawn by the architectural firm H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture LLC, the structual was modeled by Walter P Moore, and the mechanical and plumbing was designed by Cooke, Douglass, Farr, and Lemons LTD. Clashes between all trades were coordinated using NavisWorks software and the meetings were via WebEx thoughout the design of the project. This allowed all trades to work from their offices throughout the design. The WebEx meetings were conducted by Samir Emdanat with Ghafari Associates. The electrical engineer on the project is Watkins and O'Gwynn and the local architect on the project is Dale and Associates.

Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology was used extensively on this project as part of the GSA’s pilot program for use of BIM, which required the full participation of the design team and general contractor. All major disciplines used BIM and participated in a coordination process for design review and clash detection. This collaboration process have indicated significant advantages in design coordination and in estimating material quantities.

The project has been awarded to Yates Construction and the early start package is currently under construction. The construction documents, in hard metric, are due November 2007 and construction is to be completed in 2010.