Virginia Tech’s Land Development Design Initiative (LDDI) is a collaborative effort via the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering with industry practitioners. The program’s primary objectives include improving land development design education; increasing student awareness of land development design as a career path; and increasing interaction between practitioners and undergraduate civil engineering students.

Teresa Caccam and Laima Zikria (LDDI grad 2016) meeting with this Spring’s CEE 4274 student design team

Maser Consulting has been an active partner and Platinum Sponsor of the LDDI program since 2012. But more than supporting the program through corporate sponsorship, we also take an active role as both practitioner and mentor, working one-on-one with students. The only program of its kind nationwide, the course is a design initiative that provides students with real world project information and sets design program criteria and milestones to allow students the opportunity to fully experience the land development design processes.  The students are required to perform due diligence research for each segment of the project while their mentors advise them throughout the design process. The course culminates in a final presentation to a virtual client. This partnership creates a win-win environment as while it offers students invaluable real life experience, it also helps foster relationships that follow them through their careers.

Group of students presenting at the LDDI winter meeting in Lorton, VA

LDDI also offers its partners opportunities to contribute articles to their publication, LDDI Bridges, throughout the year touching on current land development design. In a most recent article contributed by S. Maurice Rached, PE, PTOE, Senior Principal and Director of Transportation Services for Maser Consulting, he discusses the concept of car-sharing as a viable solution that complements alternate modes of travel in urban communities (e.g. train, bus, taxi). Entitled Urban Redevelopment: Parking for Less, the article promotes the concept of car-sharing as an economically feasible solution that provides subscribers the convenience of both long- and short- travel options without having to own a car.

Introducing creative ideas like these into curriculum helps students take design to a higher level in addressing real world land development trends that support our communities. Maser Consulting is committed to professional development through education and is proud to be a partner of the LDDI program.