Jassen Callender, Director of the Jackson Community Design Center (JCDC), was recently promoted with tenure to Associate Professor. Professor Callender and Ms. Whitney Grant (research assistant at the JCDC) were invited delegates to the National Building Museum’s ‘Intelligent Cities’ Initiative held last summer 2011.

Associate Professor Greg Watson exhibited his paintings + drawings: “Speculative Propositions: Heightened Acuity” at the Acadiana Center for the Arts Symposium in Lafayette LA, where he also was a presentation panelist. Prof. Watson also received the MSU Student Association CAAD Teacher of the Year award for 2011.

Justin Taylor, Assistant Professor, received a ($5,000) grant from Audubon to design a series of free-standing “Bird-Watching Porches” and a master plan for the Audubon Strawberry Plains sanctuary in Holly Springs, Mississippi; an additional $30k was just awarded by National Audubon for construction. 

Assistant Professor Hans C. Herrmann, AIA received an honorable mention from the ACSA for his work with the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians. The project was recognized in 2011 as part of the Collaborative Practice Awards category. Professor Herrmann also received a Schillig Special Teaching Projects Grant ($1800) from the MSU Provost’s office for research in Energy Efficient Design.  In addition Prof. Herrmann has also recently completed two funded ($5,000) service-learning projects in collaboration with Gulf States Metal Buildings and the MSU Institute for Golf.

Miguel Lasala, Lecturer, and Anne-Sophie Demare, Architect, Paris, France, won the artistic prize ($10,000) for the their submission (Gather) in the international design competition entitled: Ideas on Edge in Parramatta, Australia.

Jenny Kenne Kivett, LEED AP, Lecturer, contributed a chapter (co-authored with Dan Rockhill) to the book Beyond Shelter: Architecture and Human Dignity (Metropolis Books) highlighting the design/build work of Studio 804 (University of Kansas) in their recovery efforts at Greensburg, Kansas. Another of Kivett’s collaborations w/ Studio 804, the Springfield Residence, received a 2011 EcoStructure Evergreen Award.  Kivett also received an MSU Artist Incentive Grant ($3,500) for the design and fabrication of a student lounge and furniture installation in the Sanderson Recreational Center on the MSU campus.

 

The Carl Small Town Center (CSTC), endowed by Fred Carl (CEO, Viking Range Corp), under the Direction of John Poros, Associate Professor, is pleased to announce the appointment of Leah Kemp as its new Assistant Director. 

The CSTC was awarded the 2011 Jim Segedy Award for Outstanding Student Project for a Small Town or Rural Area by the Small Town and Regional Planning Division of the American Planning Association (APA) at their annual meeting in Boston, MA. The project awarded, the Baptist Town Revitalization Plan, is a master plan for the Baptist Town community in Greenwood, MS, a historic African-American community in the city. The CSTC organized panel sessions on community design centers in rural areas and the challenges of rural community design for the Association for Community Design’s National Conference “Design in Action” in Philadelphia, PA.

A team of 5th year S|ARC students took second place in the peer-reviewed international-juried competition: Addressing the Urban Divide. The competition was part of the FORMcities International Urban Design Symposium help at the Mississippi State University, School of Architecture Jackson Center.