Our objective was to locate an appropriate site for a new 45,000 square foot sciences building. Siting a new building of this size is tremendously problematic because it affects such a large number of people. The building’s location will directly affect its users and the location's surrounding buildings. Proximity to adequate parking facilities, buildings of relational usage, and to the rest of the UNA campus is key.

We began by editing the provided layers for the UNA data to better represent the UNA campus as it is today. The streets layer was deleted first because it was comprised of one continuous attribute. Single streets could not be selected and edited in this layer making it useless for this project. Morrison and Wesleyan avenues were selected out and deleted from the UNA streets layer, and the new pedestrian walkways and fountains were added in their place. A new feature was added to the buildings layer in place of the parking lot where the parking deck now stands, and its access roads were altered accordingly. Finally, the display of our coverage of the UNA campus was altered in an effort to represent the campus more accurately and provide separation between attributes, such as buildings. This made it easy to distinguish building usage and separate the layers in our coverage.

The next task at hand for us was developing criterion that would eliminate unsatisfactory sites. We felt that this new Sciences building must be located near the heart of campus. The UNA campus is becoming more and more pedestrian oriented, and to have an entire Sciences building located off campus, or on a part of campus, which is less accessible and out of the way, would be a mistake. For this reason it was quickly decided that the addition of a layer of all land owned by UNA would serve no purpose. The first most obvious site to me was the existing Sciences building, Floyd hall. This facility was old and its laboratories were out of date. Replacement of this building would be optimal because it would be a major improvement on the UNA campus landscape. Additional UNA land and campus space would not be wasted which is at a prime because outward expansion for UNA is extremely limited. This idea fell by the waste side because Floyd Hall cannot be torn down due to the asbestos problem with the building. In addition, a building of this size could not be built in one summer, and relocation of these students would be very difficult due to the specialized nature of their learning facilities. A second proposed site was the steam plant. The location of this site met all possible location related criteria. It is at the very center of the campus and would be highly accessible to all. The first problem we ran into for this site was its small size and its proximity to the bridge. Both of these problems could have been overcome but then we learned that relocation of the steam plant would be close to impossible and at the very least expensive. Our third prospective site was the Math building. This site seemed to me to be farther away from the center of campus than was desired, but it met much of the criteria that other proposed sites did not. Location on an existing UNA building site is a positive thing because it results in beatification of the campus and, at the same time, wastes no extra university land. Relocation of any buildings facilities which are being replaced is unavoidable. We felt that the mathematics and computer science facilities would be relatively easier to relocate due to the lack of specialized needs. We decided to renovate Floyd and include arts classrooms and offices. Integration of both classrooms and the related offices could occur in this new building and the arts Building. This third possibility met much more of the criterion than any other, and consequently made it our formal proposal.

Our updated map of the campus was then edited to represent the changes our team had decided to recommend in siting a new sciences building. The access roads surrounding Wesleyan Hall, the Math building, and Wesleyan Hall Annex were deleted from the UNA roads layer. The parking lot between Stevens Hall and the Math building was deleted. A new feature was added to the buildings layer, and its footprint was drawn around the existing Math building to ensure retention of the adequate square footage needed. The new polygon's shape was then changed to accent the landscape and surrounding buildings by relocation of its vertices. This new building was then selected and a new layer created from this selection. The layer was given a name (new sciences building) and its color was changed to red to attract the focus of potential users.

This project required more analysis and less querying of the GIS. In this case the GIS was used as an interpretation tool, to help us visualize the possibilities of this project and not to directly answer our questions. This project helped me and my team to understand the different levels on which a GIS could be utilized and that it is a tool for its users which is flexible and can be shaped to conform to our needs.