EGG has been working with the EcoVillage Charlottesville for several years, and have recently begun planning a new project to incorporate modern sustainable design into the construction and operation of the community. The general contractor for this project, Tom Hickman, is very enthusiastic about working with student project teams and approached EGG with the idea to build a pedestrian bridge across Meadow Creek. The bridge would connect walking paths from the City of Charlottesville to paths through the EcoVillage, and then will meet up with walking trails maintained by Albemarle County. The goal of the project would be to improve the pedestrian accessibility of the community while also allowing visitors to walk through the area and learn more about sustainable living.

EGG will be partnering with the Environmental Systems and the Environment (ESE) department at UVA to use this project as part of the CE 4991: Civil Engineering Design and Practice course. Based on the description in SIS, CE 4991 is based primarily on “providing practical civil engineering design experience” in order to “broaden a student's exposure to professional practice issues”. There is no better way to meet these goals than to work on a REAL project for a REAL client in order to produce a REAL civil engineering solution.

​

This project will not only use the structural analysis techniques taught to students over several courses, but will force students to interact with a client, manage a budget, and engineer a realistic design that is not just based on theoretical conditions.