Duvall Decker first completed a full assessment of the district’s existing structures to develop a district-wide strategic educational and facility plan. The plan recommended a mixture of renovations and new structures. Because school districts in Mississippi have limited funding, the architect designed a strategy to maximize those limited resources for facility improvements across the district. Over the course of several years, the architect and owner completed many strategic projects, including the new Mendenhall Elementary Classroom Building and Media Center and the renovation of the high school gymnasium, which included the addition of new health classrooms, public lobby, and facilities for patrons of games and events.
The educational spaces are economical, durable, and efficient and offer more than the expected minimum classroom standards. The innovative and engaging forms and spaces fit well into the small-town setting but are also a departure from the normal order of things, reflecting the district’s hopes and expectations for its students. Designed to be a third teacher, the educational spaces are a partner with the community and teachers in the educational experience.
Awards
2009 AIA Gulf States Region Honor Citation
2007 AIA Mississippi Honor Award
2006 AIA Mississippi Merit Award
Publications
AIA Industry News, 2009
Duvall Decker was selected to lead this project through the Walton Family Foundation’s Northwest Arkansas Design Excellence Program. The 120,000 square foot, $35.5M municipal complex for the City of Springdale in northwest Arkansas will house a state-of-the-art police facility and a state district court, and includes renovation of the city administration building. The new building will consolidate various municipal departments under one roof. Construction is due to begin in June of 2019.
Our team includes public safety and court consultants from Dewberry Architects and local partner Hight Jackson Associates.
Dumas Hall has served as the university library, science building, and as a general classroom building. It is located along the eastern side of the center campus green, between the historic president’s house and chapel, and a porch-fronted row of two-story brick residence halls to the west.
The program called for the demolition of Dumas Hall and a replacement building on the same site to serve as the home for the Business School. However, after a careful program-plan effort and forensic evaluation of the existing building, it was determined that, while most of the buildings systems and enclosure had failed, the concrete frame structure was stable and valuable. By saving the structure and rebuilding on and around it, the project saved a significant amount of funds as well as four months of construction duration. This single decision allowed for the design of a durable, energy efficient new classroom building within the funds available. The envelope and attic provides a vented architectural umbrella to reduce external heat gain and a fully baffled pressure-equalized brick veneer rainscreen exterior wall system.
The new building now serves both the undergraduate business program and other academic classes and meetings. The new cantilevered-porch conference room has become the most desired meeting space on campus.
Awards
2015 AIA Mississippi Citation Award
2014 AIA Mississippi People’s Choice Award
2014 Design with Brick Merit Award
The James O. Eastland Federal Courthouse was designed by the prominent Jackson firm Hull & Malvaney and was constructed in 1933. The building originally included the U.S. Post Office, Federal offices, and the U.S. District Court. The building is an important historic structure, recognized for its significance as an example of Moderne/Art Deco style architecture. The building is also noteworthy as the setting of many historic civil rights trials in Mississippi through the 1950s and 1960s. The building was added to the NPS National Register of Historic Structures in 1976.
Located on Capitol Street in the Central Business District, the building is one of the most important contributing historic structures in the Smith Park Architectural Historic District in downtown Jackson. The district includes the historic Governor’s Mansion, St. Andrew’s Episcopal Cathedral, the old Mississippi State Capitol, the Museum of Mississippi History, the Civil Rights Museum, the War Memorial, and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
As part of a redevelopment of the historic structure, Duvall Decker was engaged to complete the historic restoration of the structure and to qualify the project with the National Park Service and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History for historic tax credits. The redevelopment included restoration of the limestone facade, exterior envelope, the historic post office lobby, the upper corridors and open stairs, and the restoration of the fourth-floor center district courtroom with its WPA mural. All of the restoration and rehabilitation work meets or exceeds the National Park Service Secretary’s Standards for Rehabilitation. The program for the rehabilitation and development of the facility included a mixed-use of housing, restaurant, lounge, coffee shop, and small commercial spaces. The modernization included the full integration of new mechanical, electrical, security, and life safety systems. The fire egress system required additional stairs and exit ways. All modernization, safety and security systems will be seamlessly integrated into the building’s historic architectural fabric. With minimal interventions, the re-purposed building will retain its original historic integrity.
Cooperwood Senior Living is an 80-unit, 76,000 square foot memory-care and assisted-living community sited on the southern portion of a 16-acre site. The first-phase senior living facility anchors a coherent site masterplan which incorporates walkable commercial and retail spaces. The symbiotic planning promotes healthcare, dining, and shopping provisions for the assisted living residents and to the local community.
The project’s owner/developer provided the initial ambition for a high-quality, sustainable project by selecting a team formed around shared values and compassion for the need of housing an aging population in Flowood, Mississippi. This compassion is embodied in the architectural expression as an equally familiar and engaged relationship with resident and landscape. The building embraces – and partially bridges – a small creek that runs through the site. This posture provides resident rooms secluded landscaped views and offers vegetative filtration plantings for the stream. The bridge-building between the residential wings provides outdoor patio, dining/café, theater, and wellness spaces for both active and passive activities. The memory care portion provides a continuous circulation route allowing the residents to always make their way home, as well as an internal landscaped courtyard for outdoor adventures within a secure environment. Construction is anticipated to begin in June of 2019.
The James H. White Library was sited and built at the center of campus and was designed to be the academic and social locus in this expansive flat landscape in the Mississippi Delta. Over the years, the 75,754 square foot building had fallen into disrepair and out of sync with the needs of a modern library. Very few students or faculty could be found in the library at any time. Even with a limited budget, the building required a full re-envisioning as a modern library to once again fulfil its mission as the academic and social center of campus.
The design strategy was clear – turn the building inside out by moving the stacks to the shadowed interior of the building and opening the perimeter to reading rooms and classrooms. The corners of the building were removed and new two-story glazed corners create light-filled reading and collaboration spaces, inviting patrons to both inside and out.
Since completion, the library is often filled with students, faculty, and staff at all hours of the day and night.
Awards
AIA Mississippi Merit Award
Rowan Hall, built in 1928, was the first building constructed on the campus and served as the University’s administration building. The renovation included a full restoration of this historic building and included interior and exterior finishes, windows, enclosure systems, and mechanical and electrical systems. The faithful restoration met or exceeded all the requirements for historic preservation described in the National Park Service Secretary’s Standards for Rehabilitation. A separate structure was added to the rear of the building to house the new elevator and exit stair required for use of the second floor. The new revived building houses the campus health center.
As the first academic building built on campus since 1959, this project had many requirements to fill numerous academic needs. The diverse program of the new building includes multi-disciplinary meeting and teaching spaces, a conference suite, and a 150-seat lecture hall. The building also accommodates Tougaloo’s impressive art collection with archival, curatorial, storage, and display spaces. This new building is sited on the historic campus green. As such, it had the added responsibility to fulfill Tougaloo’s mission “where history meets the future”: the resulting building both fits in and stand out. Of the many requirements was the educational mission to honor the civil rights teachers and veterans, and continuing the College’s tradition of cultivating civil rights activists and leaders. The interior design is an integral part of the project, including all loose and system furnishings, art storage shelving, and accessories for the building.
The building is heavily used for academic and special programs and has become one of the most popular meeting places on campus. As evidence of the project’s success, the College’s president recently remarked that besides being a great academic asset on campus, the building also embodies the Tougaloo mission by “respecting its history and looking to the future with hope,” as it helps teach new students about civil rights, freedom, equity and the importance of being a servant leader.
Awards
2013 AIA Gulf State Region Honor Citation
2011 AIA Mississippi Honor Award
2011 Brick Industry Southeast Design With Brick President’s Award
Publications
The New York Times, 2017
Design Bureau, ARCHITECTURE: People, Places, and Ideas Driving Contemporary Design, 2012
Jackson Free Press
Phase I, II and III
A multi-phase project to provide new healthy housing opportunities as part of an overall neighborhood revitalization. Funds for the project were made available through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The first phase added 22 new 1,300 square foot, one- and two-story economical duplex housing units. They are energy-efficient, incorporating both active and passive energy generation and conservation strategies. They are durable and livable, requiring minimal maintenance, and the design utilizes an open loft-like planning strategy to accommodate many different types of families. The duplexes are split and shifted relative to each other, creating both private rear yards and shared front yards, each watched over by three units’ front porches.
The Midtown Master Plan, also completed by Duvall Decker, called for an increase in housing density. Phase two of the project included the development of a new housing typology for Midtown, a courtyard design where all units open to a common secure court. This project includes six two-bedroom walk-up units organized around a common court that promotes social interaction and cooperation. Residents watch out for each other, and the court has become a small neighborhood.
Phase three included the renovation of a 5,500 square foot commercial space, once housing a run-down liquor store, into a community meeting space, UMMC health clinic, and neighborhood barber shop.
Awards
2016 American Architecture Prize – Bronze Award
2013 AIA Mississippi Merit Award
Publications
The New York Times, 2017
AIA I Look Up Film Challenge, 2017
PORTICO Jackson, 2012
Jackson Free Press Eyes on the Street, 2011
boom Jackson, 2010
A three-bedroom single family home with open living/dining space and detached screen porch and pool. The L-shape house plan consists of a public wing designed like a courtyard sitting between the street and the private rear yard, and a more private bedroom wing along the south side of the property. An inner green rear yard is an extension of the living space connected by a full wall of curtainwall. The design comfortably accommodates daily living patterns and is durable and ecologically mature. Direct and indirect light color and characterize interior spaces throughout the day. The sun is directly harnessed to produce energy and heated water. The material pallet builds space for experiences through expanded contrasts; between rough to smooth, hard and soft, cool and warm.
Awards
2016 National AIA Housing Award
2013 AIA Gulf States Region Honor Award
2012 AIA Mississippi Honor Award
Publications
dwell, 2016
ARCHITECT Magazine, 2016
Huffington Post, 2016
Houses for All Regions, 2014
50 US Architects: Residential Planning, 2012
PORTICO Jackson, 2012
Like many American inner-city neighborhoods, the Midtown neighborhood in Jackson, Mississippi has suffered blight, deterioration and population decline in the last 50 years. In 2009, there were many abandoned and dilapidated homes and a high percentage of vacant land. Much of the older housing stock was in poor condition. The infrastructure was (and much still is) old, undersized, and deteriorated. The level of criminal activity was high, largely unreported, and unacceptable. Property values were low and stagnant. Banks were generally reluctant to lend to individuals or businesses in the neighborhood. Despite strides that were made prior to the Midtown Master Plan project by Habitat for Humanity and other stakeholders, the neighborhood was not growing nor was it self-sustaining. The social contract and the private market were failing.
The Midtown Master Plan is the result of a year-long community-based master planning process which engaged neighborhood residents, business owners, non-profit organizations, and institutional partners. This process included numerous community-wide meetings, resident surveys, and individual partner interviews in order to gather input and feedback on the community’s needs and vision for its growth.
The resulting plan is a comprehensive neighborhood revitalization strategy that includes housing, economic, health, security, and sustainability initiatives. The planning work is part community organizing (initiatives) and part strategic development (interventions), designed to build a road map for revival. The plan recognizes that in depressed inner-city neighborhoods, the most important asset is its people. The second most important asset is its land. The planning work strives to help organize the people of the community to work together to positively affect land value as a strategy to raise capital for everyone. Further, partnerships with anchor institutions are developed for support and investment. The plan, adopted by the Board of Directors of Midtown Partners, Inc. in February of 2010, is enthusiastically embraced and championed by the community. Midtown Partners, Inc. dedicates staff and financial resources to spearhead the ongoing implementation of the Master Plan and ensure that it remains a living document that continues to foster engagement by residents, businesses, and other community stakeholders. Since the Master Plan was completed in 2010, over 60 new affordable residences have been built, and a new charter school and afterschool program have been established. Many partners have joined in the work including Millsaps College and the City of Jackson. New businesses have opened; financial and health services for residents have be established; education programs have been expanded; and new residents are beginning to secure mortgages and move into the neighborhood. The private marketplace is beginning to emerge, and a healthy community revival is in progress.
The Jackson Academic Technical campus is the fastest growing satellite of the Hinds Community College system. The new 18,800 square foot facility, sited to the southern edge of campus, includes biology and chemistry laboratories, six classrooms, faculty offices, and student study areas.
The building is designed to reduce energy consumption through both active and passive strategies. As external heat gains generally outweigh internal loads here, an integral architectural umbrella shadows the building. Convection facilitates the movement of sun-heated air up the southern, eastern, and western facades, through the attic and out to the north. The heat given off through the first layer of construction never penetrates the thermal envelope of the building, ensuring a temperate interior with substantially reduced cooling loads. The north façade acts as a light lens, with frosted and clear glass to maximize natural northern light refraction into the interior that illuminates the classrooms and minimizes the need for artificial light.
Since its completion, the building has become the most popular academic building on campus and reports the lowest consumption of energy of all classroom buildings in the Hinds Community College inventory. Operating day and night, this new facility helps meet the academic need for educational spaces and provides a functional and inspiring academic atmosphere to benefit the students and faculty for years to come.
Awards
2014 AIA Gulf States Region Honor Award
2013 AIA Community on Architecture in Education Design Excellence Award
2012 AIA Mississippi Honor Award
2012 AIA Mississippi Sambo Mockbee Award
Publications
American-Architects, 2013
Arch Daily, 2013
A new 2,500 square foot private residence on a 9.4-acre nature preserve in Chester County, Pennsylvania. The house sits at the top of the property looking south to the mountains beyond. It offers a high overlook in its tower observatory, an intimate walled court, and screened extension to the master bedroom. Each aspect of the house connects its residents to the unique qualities of the site, both distant and near. Construction is planned to be complete in June of 2019.
The 6,000 square foot renovation for the Indianola office of Mississippi Center for Justice serves the residents of the Mississippi Delta with legal counsel. These residents often face obstacles to legal services and representation and are often exploited. The economical project is ambitious in design with a goal to materialize the hopes of and respect for those in need of services by providing storefront access to attorneys and support with privacy and dignity.
The three-part design started with the shell, the abandoned furniture store cleaned out and repaired. The order of rooms in which legal service office operations take place, are built with inexpensive gypsum board partitions. The rooms are located to allow natural light to course into the inner plan. At the heart of the plan, a dynamically-shaped, clay-tile sheathed wall arcs and leans through the space, providing a landmark that not only unites all the rooms, but more importantly, establishes a tactile enveloping, dynamic anchor; a kind of inner horizon that is both secure and hopeful about the future.
The Venyu Technology Center is a new technology campus that consists of a 40,000 square foot renovation of the historic former McRae’s Department store to accommodate a new state-of-the-art commercial data center and the new construction of two buildings (48,000 square feet). The data center and office will provide the key infrastructure for the new headquarters for University of Mississippi Medical Center’s burgeoning Center for Telehealth. Duvall Decker, acting through its development entity, Eldon Development, led the development of the project and served as architect for the design of the facility.
Awards
AIA Mississippi Award Citation
Duvall Decker, through its development entity, Eldon Development, secured and developed an abandoned 1950s historic department store in downtown Shreveport for a new data center. Eldon researched and identified potential candidate locations, capable of accommodating a critical facility. Eldon then negotiated the purchase of the best location, sought and secured development incentives and historic tax credits on behalf of Venyu Solutions, a cloud data center provider. Duvall Decker, as the architect for the project, completed the historic restoration and design improvements for a new Tier III data center. The Venyu Data Center in Shreveport is the first Tier III in the state of Louisiana.
This two-building complex consists of an office building to house all agency service staff and a data center comprised of critical digital systems. The buildings are sisters, related but very different, each protecting the other. The light and airy 74,000 square foot office building is home to the agency’s administrative headquarters with offices for service staff and a full training suite for other state agencies. The data center is a hardened facility that provides in-state backup capacity, 24-7 emergency operations and redundancy for critical data, telecommunications, and network systems. Utilizing FEMA and GSA guidelines for critical facilities, the building and site are designed to resist F4 level tornados, hurricanes with 200 mph winds, and terrorist attacks to ensure no interruption to vital state data processing and voice systems.
Awards
2014 AIA Mississippi Merit Award
2014 Design with Brick President’s Award
Duvall Decker first completed a full assessment of the district’s existing structures to develop a district-wide strategic educational and facility plan. The plan recommended a mixture of renovations and new structures. Because school districts in Mississippi have limited funding, the architect designed a strategy to maximize those limited resources for facility improvements across the district. Over the course of several years, the architect and owner completed many strategic projects, including the new Mendenhall Elementary Classroom Building and Media Center and the renovation of the high school gymnasium, which included the addition of new health classrooms, public lobby, and facilities for patrons of games and events.
The educational spaces are economical, durable, and efficient and offer more than the expected minimum classroom standards. The innovative and engaging forms and spaces fit well into the small-town setting but are also a departure from the normal order of things, reflecting the district’s hopes and expectations for its students. Designed to be a third teacher, the educational spaces are a partner with the community and teachers in the educational experience.
Awards
2009 AIA Gulf States Region Honor Citation
2007 AIA Mississippi Honor Award
2006 AIA Mississippi Merit Award
Publications
AIA Industry News, 2009
Like many inner-city neighborhoods around the country, the West Jackson community has suffered from an abundance of multi-dimensional problems including blight, deterioration and population decline in the last 60 years. Despite the work to organize and revitalize the neighborhood by the City with a new westward parkway and some community development efforts by Jackson State, with some community development efforts, and other work by churches and non-profits, the neighborhoods were not growing nor were they self-sustaining. In many pockets of the area, the social contract and the private market were failing.
The West Jackson Guidebook is the result of a year-long community-based master planning process which engaged neighborhood residents, business owners, non-profit organizations, and institutional partners. This process included numerous community-wide meetings, resident surveys, and individual partner interviews in order to gather input and feedback on the community’s needs and vision for its growth.
The resulting Guidebook is a comprehensive neighborhood revitalization strategy that includes housing, infrastructure planning, economic development, health, security, and sustainability initiatives. The planning work is part community organizing (initiatives) and part strategic development (interventions), designed to build a road map for revival. The plan recognizes that in depressed inner-city neighborhoods, the most important asset is its people. The second most important asset is its land. The planning work strives to help organize the people of the community to work together to positively affect land value as a strategy to raise capital for everyone. Further, partnerships with anchor institutions are developed for support and investment. The planning work has been successful and effective because it is comprehensive and strategic. It includes both service and project recommendations, proposes a timed implementation plan, employs economic discipline, and builds consensus among all stakeholders. The strategy intertwines ground-up research with top-down analysis, and as such, is an effective community educational tool that transforms the neighborhood conversation from immediate problem solving to long-term growth. The process builds consensus around the viable steps that should be taken to allow the residents and stakeholders to solve the community’s immediate concerns while they work together to achieve healthy growth.
This project creates a space for education, community programming, and events. A joint project of Coahoma County, Coahoma County Community College, and Delta State University, the complex is a culmination of the needs of the three entities, providing a 150-seat conference center, classrooms, distance learning facility, resource center, demonstration kitchen, and administrative offices. The existing gym was transformed into a new conference center, and a new 12,700 square foot classroom building was added to the complex. Sited around the historic Cutrer Mansion, the ensemble overlooks the bluff from the city to the river bottom lands, framing the historic mansion and linking the complex to the city grid. The project celebrates the community’s diversity and the region’s landscape, culture, blues heritage, as well as its full and complex social history.
Awards
2011 AIA Mississippi Merit Award
2011 Design with Brick Honor Award
Renovation of a one-story commercial building into an architect’s office and studio, keeping slightly reminiscent of its 1950s ancestry, while stepping into the current emerging arts district environment. The transformation began with removal of the roof and interior walls. Within the existing exterior walls and foundation, a new steel frame provided the support for the higher roof and created an open plan, while large wall openings were cut to allow for natural light, entry doors, and views. Insulation and a new skin of slate and standing seam metal layered over the existing masonry walls created a more watertight, insulated enclosure while preserving existing materials. The configuration of the light monitors shields the spaces below from direct sun while providing indirect light and color that changes with time of day, time of year, and weather conditions. Duvall Decker acting through its development entity, Eldon Development, led the development and financing of the project and served as architect for the design of the facility.
Awards
2007 AIA Mississippi Merit Award
An interior design project for a prominent law office on the 3rd and 4th floor of a modern office building in downtown Jackson. The main public spaces include the lobby, reception/waiting area, and large conference room. Offices line the building perimeter. Support and storage functions surround the core. Views are given from the main hallways to the exterior in multiple places along the interior core and office circulation. These views are accomplished with breaks in the enclosed perimeter offices and layers of transparency aligning across multiple spaces. The design posits a warm modern interior in contrast to the cool typical spec office building experience. The project included selection of all furnishings, artwork, and accessories.
The Mississippi Library Commission is both a lending reference library and a service institution supporting libraries all over the state. The building houses all the divisions of the Library Commission including the library for the reading impaired, the Mississippi author first editions collection, the state’s reference library, and patent and trademark records. The design of the 60,000 square foot building is organized by multiple public gathering spaces, including the entry lobby, gallery, main public meeting room, the northern-lit main reading room, and an outdoor green. Each of these centers are linked by an indirect pause, and the circulation strategy invites exploration and browsing. The building stakes its place on the site with a shadow plinth, and its exterior skin weaves southern highlights and shadows into an ever-changing surface that seems alive, breathing in the phenomena of its environment. The interior design was completed as an integral part of the project including all loose and system furnishings, shelving, artwork, and accessories for the building.
The Mississippi Library Commission building has been singled out as one of the 50 best libraries in the country, but more importantly, it has become a favorite sanctuary and library for its patrons and other librarians in the state.
Awards
2010 AIA Design for Decades: Civic Buildings
2008 AIA Gulf State Region Honor Award
2007 American Architecture Awards
2006 AIA Mississippi Honor Award
2006 AIA Mississippi Sambo Mockbee Award
Publications
Manufacturing Architecture: An Architect’s Guide to Custom Processes, Materials, and Applications, 2018
Archinect News, 2018
Manufacturing Architecture: An Architect’s Guide to Custom Processes, Materials, and Applications, Scheduled 2017
ELLE DECOR online, 50 Best Libraries in the United States, 2016
Wallpaper* City Guide: New Orleans, 2012
ARCHITECT Magazine, 2010
Building care is the maintenance of quality and performance. Whether cleaning, trimming and pruning the grounds, cleaning the interior and exterior of buildings, operating building systems efficiently, or completing repairs or special projects, Duvall Decker through its facility management entity, Dunn Management, strives to provide clients with clean, healthy, and safe environments to allow them to focus on their mission.
Due to its unique staff of maintenance specialists, architects, engineers, and project managers, and assistance from a broad network of qualified subcontractors, Dunn Management excels in providing regular on-going building care, operation, and maintenance, but also is uniquely qualified to assist with building emergencies, planning future repairs and maintenance upgrades, renovations, and planning for new facilities.
Services are custom tuned to each client’s facility needs. The following menu is a list of services available.
Building Maintenance, Building System Operation and Maintenance, and Grounds:
HVAC: Routine Equipment Inspections, Servicing, and Management, Lubrication/Filter and Belt Changes, Energy Efficient Planning
Plumbing: Routine Inspection and Maintenance, Minor Repairs
Electrical: Lamp/Ballast Replacement and Repair, Generator and Emergency Power System, Testing and Service
Security: System Testing and 24-Hour Monitoring, CCTV Maintenance and Testing, Security Staff Management Coordination
Elevator: Routine Equipment Inspections, Annual State Inspection, Servicing, and Maintenance
Building: Janitorial Service, Waste Management, Preventative Maintenance, Special Cleaning/Event Services
Building Systems/Equipment Information Management: Warranties and Schedules, Finishes, As-Built Drawings
Special Projects:
Construction Management for Special Projects
In House Staff for Minor Repairs
Multi-Year Capital Improvements: Program Planning/Budgeting/Consulting
General Consulting for All Building and Grounds Needs
ENERGY EFFICIENCY AUDITS/PLANNING/OPERATIONS
New Facility Programming
Planning
Site Selection Evaluation Consulting
New Facility Budgeting
Interior Design/Renovation Consulting
Furniture/System Changes/Facility Moves
Operating Efficiency Evaluations
Building Forensics Evaluations
