■  The Arizona State University Music School joins an ensemble of three monumental public buildings; the Gammage Center by Frank Lloyd Wright, The Fine Arts Center by Antoine Predock, and the Music Building by the Taliesin Fellowship. The Music Building Expansion incorporates a recital hall, a rehearsal hall, departments for jazz, percussion, electronic music, choral, organ, and music education, and a 30,000 square foot music library. The project also includes faculty studios, graduate teaching assistant offices, practice rooms, and the auxiliary, technical and administration spaces. Mathes Brierre Architects, formerly The DWL Architects and Planners in Phoenix.

■  The existing gallery was renovated into a vital regional arts center by improving exhibition space and upgrading the infrastructure for increased capabilities. The ground floor gallery space was retained as an open space but made more versatile with the fabrication of broad, sweeping walls, most of which cover the exposed masonry structure. Due to the height of the warehouse cavern, a second level was inserted in between the gallery and the upper level to house the administrative suite. These offices, conference room, and reception area all overlook the gallery below. The renovated third floor includes a classroom and a multi-purpose auditorium that hosts lectures, live performances, and films.

 In response to the hurricanes of 2005, Musicians’ Village was conceived by Harry Connick, Jr. and Branford Marsalis as a residential community to promote the return of musicians to the City of New Orleans. The New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity has been instrumental in bringing this vision to reality. The Ellis Marsalis Center for Music will house performance spaces along with teaching/practice studio spaces used for music education and development in the community and will serve as the centerpiece of The Musicians’ Village.

■  The Music School incorporates a 900 seat Concert Hall, a 200-seat organ/ recital hall and an art gallery. The Organ/Recital Hall is a multi-functional space with seating that is moveable and can be rearranged. Recitals take place upon a stage at one side, while organ performances are viewed from the opposite end. This space also features a viewing balcony, allowing a raised position for the pipe organ, enhancing the quality of the organ's sound. The curvilinear lobby connects all the primary building spaces including the courtyard. This central space is an important design element and symbolic to the Mennonite faith, respecting the founders of Goshen College.

 Loyola University hired The Mathes Group to design a building to serve the needs of the College of Music and the Department of Communications. The Communications/Music/Theater Complex is designed to aesthetically harmonize with the existing adjacent Tudor Gothic University buildings while addressing the presence of the surrounding residential neighborhood. The Complex includes a 600-seat Recital Hall which has an 80-piece orchestra pit and a "Black Box" Experimental Theatre designed to accommodate a 100-person audience.

■  Mathes Brierre Architects was selected by Voorsanger Architects to be their partner on this project, which consists of Master Planning design and preparation of Construction Documents for the first two phases of an $86,000,000 expansion of the National World War II Museum. The first two phases consist of a multi-sensory Theater, a USO experience, a restaurant and bar, the restoration of three historic buildings along Magazine Street into administrative space, and the Campaigns Pavilion, the first of the major exhibit pavilions.

■  The National World War II Museum chose to convert an existing pre-engineered warehouse building within the complex into a new facility to house the extensive restoration of an historic WWII Motor Torpedo Boat, PT-305, built at the Higgins Industrial Plant in New Orleans. It was also decided that the boat would be visible to museum visitors during the entire restoration and would be showcased there upon its completion. The Restoration Pavilion had to be designed to allow for the boat to be removed and transported off site multiple times. A large glass facade with 25' high removable unitized curtain wall panels was created to allow for the movement of the 75' long boat and for visitors to view the progress of the restoration.

■  The New Orleans Center for Creative Arts was established in 1973 as a “training center” for students in theater, music, dance, communications, and the visual arts. From 1973 until 1999, it was housed in the old LaSalle School in uptown New Orleans and produced world famous performers like Wynton Marsalis and Harry Connick, Jr. The new NOCCA weaves all classrooms, studios, and performance facilities into a campus environment evoking the spontaneity and creativity of the students and incorporating several existing historically significant cotton warehouse buildings and new buildings for the specialized spaced required for the activities that take place therein.

■  The Building consists of 64 faculty studios, 80 practice rooms, a band rehearsal hall, a choral rehearsal hall, opera rehearsal hall and an ensemble hall as well as a small recital hall, library, classrooms and administrative offices. The design borrows art deco detailing from other buildings on campus, though the detailing has been simplified to modern brick construction. Monumental murals by world-renowned abstract artist, Frank Stella, adorn the Opera Lobby ceiling, the rear wall of the mezzanine and the oval shaped catwalk of the Opera Hall itself.

■  Damage from Hurricane Katrina provided an opportunity for Ursuline Academy to update their outdated, 1960s auditorium. The 818-seat space was designed to allow persons in wheelchairs the ability to view performances from several points of the Auditorium and to interact with others onstage without assistance. In addition, considerable thought was given to the means to overcome the existing acoustical problems, to produce a space that would be suitable for performances well beyond a typical high school setting.