The Cotton District these days is a vibrant and bustling section of Starkville, with restaurants, apartments, bars and other businesses.
It”s a far cry from the way it used to be, says Mayor Dan Camp, who began buying properties in the Cotton District in 1969. Camp described the old neighborhood as a “slum that nobody would walk into.”
Camp bought properties one by one over the past 40 years and these days owns about 75 percent of the Cotton District, he estimated Thursday.
His style of development has been called new urbanism — a technique that cuts down on suburban sprawl by redeveloping high-density, mixed-use districts and encouraging pedestrian traffic.
Earlier this week a group of high school students with the Design Discovery workshop at Mississippi State University set off through the Cotton District on foot with notepads and pencils to sketch the area and get a feel for the architecture. The students then built a to-scale model of the Cotton District out of cardboard.
For the next step, students will design their own buildings and construct them out of cardboard to fit in empty lots in the Cotton District model.
Workshop director Michael Berk said the students are studying the Cotton District because it is a prime example of new urbanism.
“One of the things we introduced to the students was that one of the problems we have in our cities is suburban sprawl,” Berk said. “It”s not a sustainable way to live and develop our cities. We offer the counterpoint of new urbanism. What Dan Camp has done over there in the Cotton District is nationally and internationally known.”
Camp said students often venture to the Cotton District to study the architecture. They”ve come from schools like the University of Notre Dame and the University of Arkansas, clad with notepads and cameras.
“I”m happy that we have something they can use,” Camp said. “I”m glad they can use it as a teaching vehicle.”
The workshop at Mississippi State began June 12 and ends Friday. Along with the Cotton District project, the 18 students at the workshop also had to make cardboard furniture.
Berk said he hopes the workshop helps some students decide if architecture is the right career path for them.
“From a parent”s standpoint, they want to know or make sure their sons or daughters are talented or interested in or want to be architects, so this particular workshop is really a pretty close similarity to what it would be like to be an architecture student as a freshman for one week,” Berk said. “It”s not dumbed down. They”re treated like college students.”
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