The 1922 two-story, red brick schoolhouse served a neighborhood settled by former slaves after the Civil War and was the first Dallas secondary school for black students. It had become an overcrowded arts campus when Allied Works Architecture of Portland, Oregon, won a competition in 2001 to renovate the building and add new facilities. The U-shaped addition, stepping up to four-stories, wraps beside and behind the old school, forming an inner amphitheater and shielding the studios from the noise and distraction of the adjacent freeway. Clad in dark gray brick, the simple rectangular masses recall the restrained modernism of the Dallas Museum of Art (DS33) at the other end of Flora Street. The extrawide corridors and atria are meant as activity spaces, adding to the energy of the performing and training areas.