In December 2022, the University of Southern Mississippi Marine Education Center (MEC) captured first place in the inaugural season of “America ByDesign: Architecture,” a magazine-style television series produced by CBS that shines a spotlight on American architectural innovation, ingenuity and design excellence to a broad audience. The MEC emerged from 10 finalists to secure the coveted title by a unanimous vote from the judges.
Now, you can vote for it to receive the People’s Choice Award.
You can also watch the season finale of the show (episode 6), which crowned the MEC the winner of the season!
Why was it built?
The MEC is home to longstanding Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium-supported programs like Sea Camp. The 25-foot storm surge of Hurricane Katrina did not cause cancellation of Sea Camp because it took place in August 2005 after camps had ended. However, it did destroy the facility – the 35,000-square-foot J.L. Scott Marine Education Center and Aquarium, located since the 1970s on Point Cadet in Biloxi.
In 2006, Sea Camp operated out of a 3,500-square-foot house and several temporary buildings at the Gulf Coast Research Lab in Ocean Springs. For the next 13 years, lacking the public aquarium and well-appointed lab classrooms of the original facility, educators devoted more of their time to learning outdoors. Students seined on beaches, dip netted in marshes, trawled from vessels and paddled in kayaks to observe how coastal ecosystems work using the tools of scientists.
How did it come to be?
While educators were continuing MEC operations, Chris Snyder, director from 2009-2020, got to work envisioning a new facility. A lifelong resident of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and a long-term educator at the MEC, he had experienced the destruction of Hurricane Katrina firsthand. In his mind, it was paramount to model resilience to changing environmental conditions by working to the extent possible in harmony with the natural habitat, limiting impact and making efficient use of natural resources.
He assembled a large group to inform and fulfill the creation of the new Marine Education Center, including all MEC staff members, local environmental scientists and community engagement facilitators. This group worked together for several years, generating a wish list for the new facility.
Snyder worked within USM to engage a design dream team, led by Lake|Flato (Texas) and including Unabridged Architecture (Mississippi) and Studio Outside (Texas). All of them had strong records of commitment to environmental sustainability, community resilience and beautiful design. Stark Contracting (Mississippi) broke ground in 2015, and the new MEC opened for business in 2018.
What was achieved?
The new facility welcomes thousands of visitors annually. Classrooms tucked in the woods with walls of windows bring the outdoors inside to coordinate experiences outdoors with classroom activities.
While outside, participants board the Miss Peetsy B for an estuarine educational research cruise, paddle on Davis Bayou to observe salt marshes, walk trails in the forested bayhead or play games on the upland courtyard. The indoor public exhibit is smaller than the J. L. Scott Aquarium. Nevertheless, it opens visitors to a world of ocean exploration via the Science on a Sphere globe, introduces ocean ecosystems via the suspended sargassum mat, and links the site to the local context of the Mississippi Coastal Watershed.
Vote now!
The facility is nationally recognized for its forward thinking environmental design that created a welcoming space for place-based learning (check out the video from the COTE Award linked below for more information). But what do you think? Vote now for the ByDesign Lumion People’s Choice Award.
Come see us!
The MEC is located at USM’s Gulf Coast Research Laboratory in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. It is on the Cedar Point Site, on Park Road. Call for more information: 228-818-8095.
More information:
Video describing the MEC upon receipt of the Top Ten Award from the Committee on the Environment (COTE).