Neo-Byzantine architecture permeates the bucolic, 100-year-old campus of Rice University. But a much newer structure there has made waves in architecture circles. Opened in 2008, the 6,000-square-foot Brochstein Pavilion designed by Thomas Phifer serves as a gathering place for students and faculty with natural lighting, couches and chairs, plasma TVs and floor-to-ceiling windows that look out on a large, trellis-covered plaza. Surrounded by the much older buildings of Rice, Brochstein is a study in melding the old with the new.