Duvall Decker

Houses for All Regions: CRAN Residential Collection, American Institute of Architects (AIA).
Mulgrave, Victoria AUS: IMAGES Group Pty, 2014. N. pag. Print.

Mississippi Business Journal, March 22
Women & Minorities in Business. Excerpt: “My partner and I share a belief that the built environment is both a reflection of and a speculation on our culture...What I love most is turning ideas into real materials and details.”

ARCHITECTURE: THE PEOPLE, PLACES AND IDEAS DRIVING CONTEMPORARY DESIGN
A special edition of Design Bureau Magazine, Alarm Press, LLC
Excerpt: “The Center entangles students, faculty, art, visitors, and campus leaders in cross-disciplinary educational environments ... a network of entangling spaces, not a hierarchial arrangement of functions.”

Mississippi, Design Book
Damir Sinovcic
March
Excerpt: “The Oak Ridge House in Jackson, Mississippi, is a reflection of the firm’s design philosophy.”

PORTICO Jackson, December
Excerpt: “Among many other things, we were looking to redefine neighborhood planning as ground-up results-oriented ... it was about finding a new way of thinking about inner-city planning and re-development.”

MARCH, March/April
Excerpt: “And no matter what the project, we are attempting to make buildings and spaces that inspire inquiry. We try to slow people down so that they pick up on the entire environment of that building.”

Mississippi Business Journal, March 27
Excerpt: “Jackson architects Anne Marie Duvall and Roy Decker say there’s no reason Mississippi architecture can’t be in the national conversation, right alongside the state’s bountiful published works, musical talent and athletic achievements.”

boom Jackson, Summer 2010
Excerpt: “The duplexes, designed by Jackson-based Duvall Decker Architects, balance the amenities of quality, single-family housing, like carports and versatile interior spaces, with community-building features like communal yards. Every unit’s carport will feature solar panels thAt will reduce utility bills by up to 28 percent, thanks to smart meter technology donated by Entergy Mississippi.”

Mississippi Magazine Vol. 27, No. 5, May/June
Excerpt: “Roy Decker, AIA and Anne Marie Decker, AIA of Duvall Decker Architects, P.A. spoke about ‘Planning and Designing Green’. They stated that buildings, developments, and cities must find ecological balance. The Deckers presented three of their projects which strive to achieve this goal. On St. Andrew’s North Campus, they are working...to show how natural wetlands habitats can clean, store, and replenish natural aquifers while serving the educational mission of the school. In their project for Hinds Community College, they told how academic buildings and larger structures utilize passive and relatively inexpensive strategies to cut electrical and air conditioning costs by up to 40 percent.”

AIA Online, Industry News, May 29
Excerpt: “Jurors remarked that they were impressed by the project’s ‘humility and the designer’s ability to do a great deal with very little. The shifted plan was a simple and elegant solution.’ Anne Marie Decker, AIA, and Roy Decker, AIA, principals of Duvall Decker Architects, say that many educational buildings provide spaces for learning, but few actually participate in education....The classroom floor plan staggers, resulting in offsets that create widened pauses between pairs of classroom entries. The offsets bring natural light into the building, animating each classroom and the hallway, allowing teachers to monitor two classrooms. Solid glass block at classroom entries preserves the fire protection of the hallways while bringing natural light inside. Floating acoustical tile ceilings absorb sound. Colors are painted on two of four walls in each classroom, differentiating each classroom. The colors are muted to form quiet backdrops for learning displays and student work.”

Excerpt: “By designing the structures that make up a community, architects are able to affect the quality of people’s everyday lives. They can make school spaces collaborative and convention centers attractive; they can build long-lasting structures that won’t crumble into landfill.”Jackson is fortunate to claim four award-winning architects who use their talents for the public good. As community members themselves, they share in the fruits of their labor. “‘There’s a saying,’ says Roy. ‘With each little building, you change the experience of a whole city. So the question is, are you changing with the greater good in mind?’”

Oxford American Issue 60, Spring 2008
Excerpt: “Whether a faithful rendition or a propped-up, Styrofoam facsimile, these new homes follow culture rather than to lead it. But home is a cultural conversation that evolves between architects and owners to make safe, comfortable settlements in the landscape, indications of identity and place in the community. When this conversation looks both forward and backward in time, it is a healthy challenge that teaches us to mature as individuals, neighbors, and citizens.”

Journal of Architectural Education September
Excerpt: “In a media/information-saturated world, the conditioned desire for novelty threatens to overwhelm meaningful experience. In this environment of instant communication and ravenous consumption, durable form is often undervalued. Yet, valuing and cultivating the conditions of local circumstances and knowledge in each community in which one builds are essential to the continuous construction necessary for authentic cultural growth. In our work in and around Jackson, Mississippi, we are quick to recognize a lacuna, culturally and architecturally. Our practice has, for the past decade, focused on responding to this unproductive gap. We believe that architects have a unique opportunity, an imperative, to make form local in part as a craft approach to the practice of architecture...We minimize the modifying effect of layered, less durable finish materials in favor of exposing a building’s infrastructure. Finding circumstances where economy and quality intersect is part of our research in practice.”