News Students participate in recovery planning for Moss Point, MS
Led by Adjunct Associate Professor Grover Mouton, Architecture students have recently helped to create a recovery plan for the City of Moss Point, Mississippi. Mouton’s spring seminar, Design Urbanism, is a popular course focusing on urban design issues in communities across the Gulf Coast.
Students engage in real-time projects undertaken by Professor Mouton’s Regional Urban Design Center, housed within the School of Architecture, often providing outreach design services to small communities that do not have the resources to create long-term, comprehensive plans for recovery and growth.
When Moss Point Mayor Xavier Bishop attended a Tulane-hosted session of the Mayors’ Institute on City Design (MICD), funded by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), Mouton recognized the city’s assets and their continuing recovery needs. Utilizing the talents of his staff and students, he recently directed an effort to redesign the Moss Point waterfront, where federal funding will build a new City Hall, Fire Station, and Waterfront Park.
Seminar students developed recommendations and presented them to Mayor Bishop in a design review held at Tulane last month. The TRUDC then hosted a follow-up design charrette in Moss Point from March 2-4, again funded by the NEA, and invited a number of students and faculty to participate. Architecture professors Marilyn Feldmeier and Ginette Bone, along with Mouton’s seminar students Sim Ward, Royce Gracey, and Kevin Muni, and TRUDC Associates Nick Jenisch and Robert Bracken were each participants in the design process and presentation. Members of Mississippi State’s Gulf Coast Community Design Studio (GCCDS), including Tulane alumnus Seth Welty (’08) and Director David Perkes, were partners in the effort.
This assembled group, along with several design experts from across the nation, was brought to Moss Point to focus on the revitalization and rebuilding of their waterfront and new civic district. Creating a recommendation in less than 48 hours, the resulting master plan design was presented publicly at the conclusion of the session.
Receiving positive press and accolades from Mayor Bishop, the plan was presented to the Moss Point Board of Aldermen on March 17, and adopted with overwhelming support. The plan will be implemented to inform the recovery process as it continues to progress, ensuring civic redevelopment, community pride, and future opportunities for residential and commercial development. Expanded waterfront festivals and activities are facilitated by the plan as part of the concept to return the waterfront to the public. More importantly, the plan supplants existing schemes for the district that would have limited the remarkable potential that lies within Moss Point’s rebuilt downtown and waterfront district.
Mouton, his staff and students will continue to work collaboratively with Mayor Bishop, MICD, and the GCCDS in order to ensure timely implementation of the plan for Moss Point.
03.26.09
