Archinect - News

Mississippi State University studio teaches the value of collaboration between its architecture and building construction science students

2022-05-20T13:27:00-04:00

Earlier this week, we explored the relationship between architecture and construction science disciplines through the lens of a Building Scientist position at Payette. While the two fields are commonly intertwined within professional practice settings, they are also being implemented in a collaborative design studio taught at Mississippi State University (MSU). Students from the school's architecture and building construction science departments worked together in a unique studio called the PCI Foundation Studio.

After receiving a special grant from the PCI Foundation in 2020 to incorporate "precast concrete into the classroom," MSU Architecture's Associate Professor Alexis Gregory allocated the $100,000 grant to be utilized within architecture courses at the school. This funding was used to develop the Spring 2021 PCI Foundation Studio.

Under Gregory's direction, sixteen teams of students from both departments worked together to develop a collaborative design-build project benefitt...

Watershed moments: Derek Hoeferlin on managing 21st-century waterways

2021-06-14T14:38:00-04:00

From headwaters near Salem, Missouri, the Meramec River snakes 218 free-flowing miles, through 14 counties and scores of towns, skirting St. Louis before emptying into the mighty Mississippi.

Derek Hoeferlin grew up outside St. Louis, on a wooded hill close to the Meramec. As he commuted to school along Interstate 44, he’d cross the river and its sprawling floodplain twice or more each day.

“It’s always mesmerized me,” Hoeferlin recalls. “Something about its meandering made me daydream. Rivers don’t give a damn about north or south, east or west — or interstates for that matter. Water flows where water wants to flow.”

Today Hoeferlin is a licensed architect and chair of both landscape architecture and urban design programs in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. In many ways, rivers have become his life’s work. But the daydreams are tempered by a growing sense of urgency.

“Too often, architects are responding to emergencies,” he adds. “It’s triage work. But we need to be m...

MSU hosts exhibition of Mississippi’s African American Churches

2019-09-14T18:00:00-04:00

Located in McNeel Gallery at Giles Hall, the exhibition introduces and examines the historical, socio-cultural, religious and architectural influence people and events had on the design and construction of early African American church buildings constructed between 1800 and the 1920s.

According to MSU, the exhibition is part of a broader effort to highlight African American church houses throughout the South.

MSU’s College of Architecture, Art and Design appoints Angi Bourgeois as new dean

2018-06-22T14:24:00-04:00

A highly respected faculty member and administrator in Mississippi State’s Department of Art has been named the new dean of the university’s College of Architecture, Art and Design [...]. Effective July 1, Professor Angi Elsea Bourgeois will lead CAAD after serving nearly two years as the head of its Department of Art, home to the Magnolia State’s largest undergraduate studio art program. She succeeds the college’s founding dean Jim West [...].

"An MSU faculty member since 2002, Bourgeois has taught a variety of art history courses and climbed the academic ranks with a promotion to professor coinciding with her appointment as art department head," reads MSU's announcement. "She was re-elected to a two-year term in January as secretary for the Italian Art Society, an international scholarly organization that she joined in 2004."

Duvall Decker Architects combine greater agency and public outreach to benefit Mississippi (and the profession at large)

2017-02-21T18:12:00-05:00

Since they founded Duvall Decker nearly 20 years ago, the Deckers, as they’re known, have focused mostly on neglected corners in and around Jackson, Mississippi’s capital. To pay the bills, the two have redefined for themselves the ambit of a small architectural practice. They have become developers and even branched into building maintenance: a soup-to-nuts strategy that has allowed them more than just financial breathing room.

Helping impoverished Mississippi communities? Check. Making money while creating a business model that empowers you with the decision-making powers of developers? Check. Being notable and effective enough to earn your own profile in The New York Times by Michael Kimmelman? Done, done, and done for Duvall Decker Architects, which also was named one of 2017's Emerging Voices by the Architectural League of New York. What's especially enheartening about this profile is how by virtue of increasing the quality of their own professional lives, the architects have also vastly increased the well-being of their community.

The architect who wants New Orleans learn a lesson or two from Amsterdam

2015-09-03T14:54:00-04:00

David Waggonner is an urban and environmental architect. Since Hurricane Katrina decimated his city, he’s been focusing on urban stormwater management, mapping out designs for New Orleans that would mimic the way Dutch cities like Amsterdam and Rotterdam deal with water. In the Netherlands, people “invite water into the city,” meaning water is visible everywhere. [...] “In New Orleans, we’ve hidden and squandered the asset.”

Related on Archinect and our sister site Bustler:

The Hurricane Katrina Cottages: where are they now?

2015-08-13T14:49:00-04:00

‘"It’s hard to think about ways to drain the swamp when alligators are biting your ass.’”

Immediately after a natural disaster, most residents want to get things back to normal, even if that "normal" wasn't particularly ideal. The story of the Katrina Cottages, a series of 400 to 800 square foot residences that would provide temporary relief housing in Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina and also act as "seed" housing for safer, long-term neighborhoods, is a nuanced and occasionally frustrating look into the political dimensions of recovery.

For more on disaster and recovery efforts:

Get Lectured: Mississippi State University, Spring '15

2015-02-26T13:05:00-05:00

Archinect's Architecture School Lecture Guide for Winter-Spring 2015

Archinect's Get Lectured is back in session! Get Lectured is an ongoing series where we feature a school's lecture series—and their snazzy posters—for the current term. Check back frequently to keep track of any upcoming lectures you don't want to miss.

For the next featured poster, Mississippi State University's College of Architecture, Art + Design (CAAD) has a few School of Architecture Spring '15 events starting tomorrow.

Want to share your school's lecture series? Send us your school's lecture series poster and details to connect@archinect.com.

Unless noted, all lectures take place at Harrison Auditorium, School of Architecture, Giles Hall Dates and times are subject to change.

Feb 27
1 pm
Steve Badanes / Jersey Devil Design/Build - University of Washington, WA

Mar 5
Atmos Energy Workshop
CEU energy-related public lecture and workshop
S | ARC 5th Year Jackson Center Jackson, MS

Mar 20-21
Dan + Gemma Camp / Cotton District
W...

Minneapolis’ Water Works Competition Shortlists West 8, SCAPE, Gustafson Guthrie Nicol

2013-06-13T18:03:00-04:00

The Minneapolis Parks Foundation has announced a shortlist of three award-winning design teams for the schematic design project Water Works: A Next Generation Park on Minneapolis’ Central Riverfront. The teams are Gustafson Guthrie Nicol with VJAA and Interboro (Seattle/Minneapolis/New York); SCAPE with Rogers Marvel (New York); and Team West 8 (Rotterdam/New York).

d3 Housing Tomorrow 2012 Exhibition Opened at MSU School of Architecture

2012-03-28T14:27:00-04:00

Earlier this March, d3 officially announced the winners of the international Housing Tomorrow architectural design competition, and Bustler published the top submissions. This past Monday now, the d3 Housing Tomorrow exhibition also opened at the Mississippi State University School of Architecture featuring the winning entries and selected projects from the 2012 competition. The exhibition will run through April 20 at the school's Giles Hall Gallery.