Special to 1808Delaware
Woolpert has been contracted by Preservation Parks of Delaware County to provide architecture, engineering and geospatial design services to convert Delaware County’s Bicentennial Barn into a four-season event center. The 230-acre McCammon Creek Park site is less than 20 miles north of Columbus. The roughly 85 acres surrounding the barn will support park district events, banquets, weddings, meetings and reunions.
The Bicentennial Barn was one of 88 barns, one for each county, featured as part of the 200th anniversary of Ohio’s statehood in 2003. The two-story, 4,800-square-foot structure was built in 1910 and is visible from Interstate 71. The barn will be moved within the park and refurbished to become the park’s centerpiece.
“We’ll do a scan of the barn, zip a drone around it to get a good look, and come up with a design that works well for the event center and that showcases the historical significance of the barn,” Woolpert Architect and Program Director James Dobrozsi said. “The surrounding park will have a farm-themed playground, a park shelter, a restroom facility and walking trails that will loop around the pond and the perimeter, pulling it all together. It’s a beautiful valley out here, and it will make a gorgeous event site.”
Woolpert will provide programming and master planning for the event center, incorporating parking lot and roadway improvements, utility design and routing, survey and site grading, stormwater management and landscape architecture. For the renovation of the barn, the firm has enlisted the services of Rudy Christian, one of the world’s leading timber frame experts. Christian will ensure the barn remains historically accurate while gaining the modern amenities essential to the event center, like restrooms, a kitchen, an elevator and an HVAC system.
Woolpert Geodetic Surveyor and Phase Manager Jason Kail will conduct the 3D laser scan of the inside and outside of the barn to generate a point cloud representing its precise physical structure before it is moved. He will merge that information with data collected via unmanned aircraft system to create a digital twin of the barn.
“With the digital twin, the barn can be deconstructed and then reconstructed at its new location to preserve its historical integrity,” Kail said. “At Woolpert, we take the latest technology laser scanning a step further by merging multiple AEG technologies to accurately document, preserve and enhance a wide range of structures.”
Once moved, the barn will have an outdoor patio and reception area, which will complement the beauty of the park. Woolpert Senior Landscape Architect Bruce Rankin said the barn will be positioned to take full advantage of the assets of the site, which are considerable.
“There are opportunities that allow for continuous discovery and creative exploration as you move around the park. There are gently rolling fields with a valley off to one side, a pond hidden behind a grove of trees on the other, and a hierarchy of pedestrian and bike trails throughout,” Rankin said. “All this will revolve around the barn. With a barn like this, you can walk in and it will be talking to you, sharing its history. It’s a visceral experience. We are here to provide the resources to help the barn and the landscape tell its story, and it is a beautiful story to tell.”
Woolpert is the premier architecture, engineering, geospatial (AEG) and strategic consulting firm, with a vision to become one of the best companies in the world. We innovate within and across markets to effectively serve public, private and government clients worldwide. Woolpert is an ENR Top 150 Global Design Firm, recently earned its fifth-straight Great Place to Work certification and actively nurtures a culture of growth, inclusion, diversity and respect. Founded in 1911 in Dayton, Ohio, Woolpert has been America’s fastest-growing AEG firm since 2015. The firm has over 1,100 employees and 42 offices in three countries. For more, visit woolpert.com.
Photo: Creative Commons License
