This new Florida Gulf Coast University academic building is utilized by the College of Arts & Sciences, and serves the Bower School of Music and the Visual & Performing Arts Programs. The two-story signature facility has become a destination site for the greater Ft. Myers/Naples arts & music community, overlooking a scenic lake and wetlands in a developing arts corridor on the main campus.

A Grand Lobby welcomes students and visitors with a commemorative wall of honor designed and engraved by Sanibel artisan Luc Century, who created the technique used for engraving the names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. A 200-seat Recital Hall boasts a soaring ceiling, buffeted by honey-stained, wood-paneled walls that have been angled to create peaks and valleys. They resemble giant pieces of origami, with the angles designed to cradle sound and gently reverberate it back to the listener. Practice rooms and studios "float" with space between the floors and walls, so the sound doesn't bleed. Having performance and practice spaces that are "acoustically perfect" was the ultimate goal. The optimal acoustical perfect building solution became a sophisticated fun house, with oddly-shaped rooms, most without parallel walls or ceilings, that break up and absorb sound.

The project presented a number of challenges for this building type given the high humidity environment, site challenges of a high water table, and the high profile building mass in a low scale existing campus fabric. A Master Plan was developed for the "Arts District" solving future building placements and including a large concert hall. The new facility also includes 10 faculty studios for individual instruction, 10 student practice rooms for independent instrumental/vocal study, classrooms, technology laboratories for students, and a music library.

Designed as a green building and seeking LEED "Gold" Certification, details counted in the design as faculty, students and the community sing its praise.