Jackson Architect, MSU Alumna Being Honored by Alma Mater

Anne Decker

Decker

STARKVILLE, Miss. (Press Release) — –Anne Marie Decker is Mississippi State’s School of Architecture 2015 Eminent Architect of Practice.

Decker, a 1994 summa cum laude graduate of the university and an American Institute of Architects member, will be working with the fifth-year studio faculty at the school’s downtown Jackson’s Stuart C. Irby Jr. Studios. She will be helping seniors produce required capstone comprehensive projects for their final semester.

The School of Architecture is the state’s only educational program leading to licensure in the profession. Its Eminent Architect of Practice visiting faculty position was created in 2011 to bring in distinguished contemporary practitioners and help teach and mentor soon-to-graduate majors.

This year’s honoree is a principal with partner Roy Decker in Duvall Decker Architects P.A. of Jackson. In 2004, she was named an Alumni Fellow of MSU’s College of Architecture, Art and Design, a lifetime designation. In 2009, she and Roy Decker, also an AIA member, jointly held the Paul Rudolf Visiting Professorship at Auburn University’s School of Architecture.

Previous selections for the Eminent Architect honor include Larry Scarpa of Los Angeles, California, and Todd Walker of Memphis, Tennessee, both of whom hold the distinguished rank of AIA Fellows. Walker also is an MSU architecture alumnus.

“This semester-long faculty appointment is reserved for nationally recognized, award-winning architects to become an integral part of the studio teaching experience at MSU and most importantly, to interact, energize and critique student projects,” said Michael Berk.

“We are incredibly honored that Anne Marie has agreed to serve with us in this prestigious teaching position,” added the school’s director and holder of the F.L. Crane Professorship.

Decker is a member and former president of the Mississippi Chapter of the American Institute of Architects’ board of directors. In addition to Mississippi, she is registered in Alabama, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Louisiana and Tennessee.

She frequently makes presentations at institutions and conferences around the country on the Jackson firm’s creations.

Winner of state, regional and national awards for design excellence, Duvall Decker specializes in public buildings, state institutions, school and university buildings, affordable housing and planning.

Most recently, its design for the Jobie L. Martin Classroom Building at Hinds Community College was honored with a 2013 AIA Committee on Architecture for Education Excellence Award. Also, its Oak Ridge House received a 2013 AIA Gulf State Region Honor Award and the Bennie G. Thompson Academic & Civil Rights Research Center received a 2013 AIA Gulf State Region Honor Citation and a 2011 Design with Brick President’s Award.

The firm’s work frequently is featured in the Journal of Architectural Education, Design Bureau and Oxford American magazines, as well as in such exhibits as AIA’s “Design for the Decades,” and in “Houses for All Regions,” a book published by AIA’s Custom Residential Architects Network.

Information on the School of Architecture is found at www.caad.msstate.edu/sarc/home.php.

For more on Mississippi’s flagship research university, see www.msstate.edu.

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