“Allegories of Virtue and Vice, an architectural design studio by Senior Lecturer Stuart Romm, will produce a proposal for a new, ecologically sound gambling casino to be built in the hurricane-ravaged city of Biloxi, Mississippi. The studio is important on a number of levels, not the least of which is its thoughtful collaboration between landscape architecture students in the University of Georgia’s College of Environment and Design, with architecture students from Georgia Tech’s College of Architecture. According to Prof. Romm, the two programs complement each other very well, because degrees in architecture are not offered at U.Ga., while degrees in landscape architecture are not available at Georgia Tech. The two sets of faculty and students are offered a rare chance to learn about each other’s skill sets and knowledge.

The projects they are working on are important to the Gulf Coast region as well. Virtually swept away by hurricane Katrina in 2005, the shorefront region of Biloxi has sought to rebuild in a way that both revives the commercial economy of the region and protects the environment. Toward that end, the State has proposed to build a casino, with the profits to be diverted to coastal reclamation. Prof. Douglas Pardue of U.Ga. stated that it is likely that the emerging plans will propose “artificial islands that function at the level of city nodes, shepherd the marsh and larger environmental processes, provide protection from future disasters, and provide constructive social activities, weaving all this into a collection of gambling, spa, and other economically productive functions.”