Current Work: Duvall Decker: Foundations

The founding principals of the Mississippi architecture practice discuss their civic projects in the Southeastern United States.

Current Work is a lecture series featuring leading figures in the worlds of architecture, urbanism, design, and art.

Anne Marie Duvall Decker and Roy Decker founded their firm in 1998 in Jackson, Mississippi, a place they describe as “defined by both palpable need and engaging culture.” The firm has designed a range of projects at a variety of scales, many in the civic realm; all with an emphasis on social, economic, and environmental quality. The firm has been honored with numerous peer-reviewed design awards and has been selected for national design excellence projects including the new Federal Courthouse in Greenville, Mississippi (a GSA Design Excellence Project), and the Springdale Arkansas Municipal Complex (a Walton Family Foundation Design Excellence project). They were recognized with The Architectural League’s Emerging Voices award in 2017, as well as a 2024 Best of Practice award from The Architect’s Newspaper. The firm recently published Foundations, a survey of the “propositions and foundations,” in the firm’s own words, that they have collected, developed and tested over twenty-five years of practice.

Recent projects include:

• Cooperwood Senior Living Bridging a creek that runs through the project’s 16-acre site in Flowood, Mississippi, this 80-unit assisted and memory-care living community provides dining facilities, an outdoor patio, a theater, and wellness spaces for both active and passive activities. 
• Springdale Municipal Complex This new 122,481-square-foot municipal complex, which includes a partial renovation of a pre-existing city administration building, houses a council chamber, police training facility, and district court.
• Bennie G. Thompson Academic and Civil Rights Research Center The first academic building built on this HBCU campus since 1959, the center’s multifaceted program includes academic facilities; a conference suite; and archival, curatorial, storage, and display spaces for Tougaloo College’s African American and African art collection.

Anne Marie Duvall Decker “leads the studio in creating elusive forms and engaging spaces, no matter the type, size or budget of projects,” in the firm’s own words. She has served as a board member and president of AIA Mississippi, a trustee and chair of the AIA Trust, and as an Industry Advisory Group Peer for the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Overseas Building Operations from 2021–2023. Duvall Decker was recognized with the 2023 Mississippi State University College of Architecture, Art, & Design Alumna of the Year award, and the same year was a recipient of Architectural Record’s Women in Architecture Design Leadership Award.

For the past three decades, Roy Decker has led Duvall Decker to complete public projects of varying scales and types and to achieve significant design recognition. In the firm’s own words, he “expands the role of an architect in search of public good.” Combining the roles of educator, community leader, and practitioner, Decker is an active participant in civic, educational, and design discourse.

The event will be moderated by Mimi Hoang, co-founder of architecture studio nARCHITECTS with Eric Bunge. Currently an adjunct associate professor at Columbia University GSAPP, Hoang previously taught at Yale and Harvard Universities. 
 

Duvall Decker Architects l Springdale Municipal Complex, Springdale, Arkansas, 2024, Timothy Hursley