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SCAD students go ’round
the Mulberry Grove
On a cold, wet day in January, Curtis McKenzie, an architecture professor at SCAD, stood with his Architecture Design Studio V students on a high bluff situated seven miles upriver from Savannah on the historic Mulberry Grove Plantation, the proposed future site of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s new offices. In seven teams of two, students from McKenzie’s studio are competing for a first-place scholarship worth $1,600 and a second-place scholarship worth $400, both of which are sponsored by the Mulberry Grove Foundation and the Lummus Corporation of Savannah. “Mark Yeager of the Mulberry Grove Foundation approached the architecture department with a proposal to involve our students in a studio project for the Mulberry Grove site,” said McKenzie. “After meeting with Mr. Yeager, I found that the project fits well with ARCH 405, which ‘addresses moderately complex architectural problems in large non-urban or natural sites,’ according to the course description.” Although the site is owned by the Georgia Ports Authority, a proposed land swap between the ports and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is in the works. According to Hope Moorer, the program manager of navigation improvement projects at the Georgia Ports Authority, negotiations began in the 1990s. “They have land we’re interested in; we have land they’re interested in,” she said. A portion of the property being considered in negotiations is the bluff on Drakies Plantation, which is one of three tracts that make up the 2,200-acre Mulberry Grove Plantation and to which McKenzie and his class traveled Jan. 27. According to the project narrative, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service intends to cooperate with Mulberry Grove Foundation, a nonprofit organization, to operate a historic site and visitors’ center on a portion of the property. The center would be open to the public and is expected to appeal to a national audience. Enter McKenzie and his students. “The Mulberry Grove Foundation is offering the scholarship stipend to selected SCAD architecture students based on the merit of their studio presentations,” said Yeager. “The nature of the design project is an academic exploration of architectural ideas regarding site and building design.” Because the site is a combination of upland and wetland environments and because care must be given in designing facilities such as walks, viewing platforms and nature trails, students will be required to outline a three-part design solution recognizing site strategy, publicity/privacy issues and invention. “This project will benefit the students by allowing them to work on a real project with real design issues,” said McKenzie. “They also have the opportunity to visit the site, as it is local. The competition itself motivates the students to produce quality design work, as they represent the college with a project of such public interest.” |
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