■  The Audubon Tea Room is the revival of an iconic and historic building built in Audubon Park in the 1930s and destroyed by fire in the late 1970s. The original was part of a complex of buildings across from the Audubon Zoo that included a carousel and a bandstand: only the bandstand remains. Landscape architects Cashio Cochran LLC selected Mathes Brierre Architects to design this famous city landmark building as part of Cashio Cochran's landscape master plan for the Audubon Zoo.

■  This new headquarters for Deutsches Haus, a New Orleans–based German historical and cultural society with roots in the 19th century, adapts vernacular German architecture and landscape to our time and place. It includes multiple assembly spaces, a commercial kitchen, two bars, and a beer garden. The facility is versatile enough to host special events while simultaneously providing its members a private gathering place.

■  Mathes Brierre Architects was hired to fully renovate the former Yankee Trader Hotel’s two outdated buildings on Fort Lauderdale Beach, Florida. The new Westin hotel’s public spaces and guest rooms were redesigned in collaboration with Forrest Perkins of Dallas. Along with the renovation, the South Building received an addition of a new resort spa and a 68,000-SF banquet facility. As Architect of Record, Mathes Brierre successfully met the project’s major challenge: to complete the hotel makeover in time for the NFL Super Bowl XLIV in January 2010.

■  This renovation to a former Quality Inn Hotel on Causeway Boulevard brings the building into line with the new brand standards of Holiday Inn. Exterior renovations include all-new windows, a new iconic canopy, a large skylight over the lobby, and a new color scheme. Interior renovations include the renovation and redesign of 205 guestrooms, new restaurant and lobby décor, and 7,000 square feet of banquet space on the second floor.

■  The iconic 13-story Tower Hotel was built in 1971 across the Mississippi River from Downtown New Orleans. It was repurchased in 2008, unoccupied and uninhabitable due to damage from Hurricane Katrina. Mathes Brierre Architects provided the architectural, interior design, and landscape services to fully renovate the tower into a sleek, contemporary 181-room Holiday Inn hotel and full-service restaurant with panoramic views of the New Orleans skyline and state-of-the-art amenities for guests.

■  Freeport-McMoRan, the copper and gold import company, hired Textron, a local shipbuilder, to design a speedboat to be based near Freeport’s Indonesia location. Tides there shift so frequently that riverbeds can disappear and reappear within hours, requiring the boat to transport international clientele on land as well as on water – making it a hovercraft. The challenge was to design a high-end nautical interior with all furnishings fixed in place to withstand traveling speeds of up to 70 mph. When it was built, the brand-new hovercraft also boasted a state-of-the-art A/V system to facilitate sales meetings during transport – an innovation for its time.

■  The Julia Cruise Terminal Improvement combines two existing cruise terminals to accommodate larger cruise ships with a single terminal. The project consists of renovations to approximately 80,000 square feet of existing space as well as a 7,000-SF addition. The new Julia Street Cruise Terminal includes waiting areas, ticketing, baggage, and customs declaration areas, along with new toilets and a vertical circulation core with two elevators and two escalators.

■  Flooding after Hurricane Katrina gave the LSU Dental School an opportunity to renovate the first floor of its Administration Building and create a hub space for Dental School students. This new snack bar features a food service area on one side and a coffee shop on the other, and it allows students to enjoy a variety of seating environments including casual dining areas, lounge spaces, small meeting areas, and a cyber bar.

■  After the club sustained extensive damage from Hurricane Katrina, MBA was hired to design a new addition and restore the original building to its historic grandeur. The project involved the construction of a new 13,500 SF addition, housing a 4,500 SF ballroom, pre-function space, a new banquet kitchen, and support spaces. The new building’s architecture and interiors are consistent with the original context. Additionally, the historic building was completely remodeled, including all four dining rooms, the main kitchen, men’s and ladies’ lounges and locker rooms, and the administrative area.

■  A new event hall and an expansion of the existing dining room are the first-ever renovations to this famous New Orleans restaurant which opened in 1938. The space adjacent to the restaurant, originally a tobacco warehouse with open shafts and hand-operated elevators, has become ‘Mother’s Next Door’ – a venue for private parties and events for up to 290 people. The exposed brick and plaster trim were preserved for continuity with the existing restaurant.

■  The American Sector is located within The National World War II Museum and provides restaurant and bar seating for 142. A restored masonry wall ties the restaurant’s interior to its historic context. This wall is a relic of the city’s Warehouse District and runs the entire length of the Bar and the Bar Plaza, stitching the exterior and interior spaces together. A curved stainless steel metal mesh ceiling flows seamlessly above the restaurant. The mesh panels rise and fall, giving the space an undulating energy.

■  The Solomon Victory Theater Pavilion integrates three existing historic structures and completes most of the new construction planned for the campus's east side. Comprised mostly of large-scale precast concrete panels, the Magazine Street facade gives an impression of shields which protect the interior spaces. In contrast, the Barksdale Parade Ground facade is more open and lightweight, with extensive glazing and corrugated metal panels. Through its 120-foot immersive screen, the 250-seat 4-D theater tells the overall story of WWII. The American Sector Restaurant knits the project to city fabric through a unique setting.

■  This project consists of a 710-acre peninsula on the island of Anguilla to be developed as a golf course community with amenities on the scale of a ‘new town,’ including a 140-key 5-star Mandarin Oriental Hotel, 75 luxury villa estate homes, 450 patio homes, 140 town homes, beach clubs, restaurants, retail, and an 18-hole golf course designed by Jack Nicklaus. The scope of the planning includes site infrastructure of roads, remote parking, landscaping, wastewater treatment, power plant, wind generators, and utility distribution.

■  This new gourmet eatery is a tenant build-out space in the lobby of the Place St. Charles office tower, also a Mathes Brierre project. New pendant lights and a new dropped ceiling over the service counter take advantage of the existing space’s glass conservatory and height. The material palette employs points of vibrant color and light amid complementary muted surfaces. The result is an inviting and contemporary café which fits the lobby of a high-end commercial building in Downtown New Orleans.