Spring 2022 Lecture: Duvall Decker

Our 2021-2022 lecture series continues Feb. 7 with an in-person lecture featuring Anne Marie Duvall Decker, FAIA, principal, Duvall Decker Architects, in Jackson, Mississippi.

Duvall Decker will present a lecture entitled Public Work: Foundations. The work of Duvall Decker Architects is hopeful speculation on the public value of each project no matter the type, outside of its lot lines. In more than 20 years of expanded practice, the firm has recorded what it calls its foundations. They are assumptions, principles, propositions, lessons, inspirations, and aspirations for both the how and the why of the firm’s practice. This lecture explores the work through these foundations.

From Duvall Decker: “Architecture can promote cultural growth by becoming alive in our experience, placing us between comfort and challenge, the known and the curious. Architecture is not simply a thing, but a transaction between us and our environment. In this way, architecture can expand our senses, capacity and understanding of who we are and who we want to be. Each new or renovated building changes its community. These interventions have consequences in the lives of all of the people who encounter them over all of the years they exist. Architects face the challenges of program, budget, and schedule in every project, but the most important challenge is to find the public value of each project, no matter the type, outside of its lot lines.”

Get to know Anne Marie Duvall Decker

Anne Marie Duvall Decker, FAIA, is a founding principal of Duvall Decker Architects. Duvall Decker is a recognized contributor to the advancement of the profession. She is currently a member of the Industry Advisory Group to the Bureau of Overseas Building Operations. Duvall Decker is often invited to share the firm’s work and her experience as a lecturer, critic, teacher, and design juror, most recently serving on the jury for the 2018 AIA Institute Honor Awards for Architecture and as a selection committee member for the Architectural League of New York’s American Roundtable initiative.

Duvall Decker also is a spring 2022 Visiting Professor of Practice in our School of Architecture. She will lead an Integrations studio focused on the redistribution of authority for the public good using the design of the library.

Duvall Decker Architects is an expanded design practice whose work includes architectural design, community planning, real estate development, and facility maintenance. The firm has been honored with many peer-reviewed design awards and has been selected for national design excellence projects such as the new Federal Courthouse in Greenville, Mississippi (a GSA Design Excellence project) and the new Springdale, Arkansas Municipal Complex (a Walton Family Foundation Design Excellence project).

The firm’s work and approach have been highlighted in publications such as The New York Times, dwell, ARCHITECT Magazine, Journal of Architectural Education, the Oxford American, and in exhibits such as “A South Forty” at the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale. In 2017, the Architectural League of New York selected Duvall Decker as one of its Emerging Voices, and in 2019, the firm was highlighted as a “Game Changer” by Metropolis.

The lecture is funded by the Robert B. Church Memorial Lecture Fund. It is free and open to the public, and visitors are asked to follow all current guidelines regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. We strongly encourage visitors and our college community to wear masks.

The health of our Volunteer family and the surrounding communities remains our top priority. Due to COVID-19, events in our college are subject to change. Please familiarize yourself with the current COVID-19 protocols on campus. For last-minute changes to this event, check this page as well as the college’s Facebook page.