By Mark Ambrogi
It always nice for Noblesville High School teacher Joe Toms to visit with his former architecture students.
It’s especially nice to see Evan Smith, who has comes in to help with Toms’ class a few times during winter break since graduating in 2010.
“It’s his Christmas break and he’s bored,” said Toms, with a chuckle. “He’s giving back. He talks with kids about what he did in college and what he did when he was here in Noblesville.”
Toms said Smith is helping students from Tom’s civil engineering and architecture class make a design for a house for Habitat for Humanity as part of its Project Lead the Way program. One of the students’ floor plan will be picked and it will actually be built this summer, Toms said.
Smith is working on his one-year postgraduate degree at the Savannah (Ga.) College of Art & Design. He has his bachelor’s degree in architecture and a minor in furniture design.
“It’s kind of nice my school has a lot of international students so we have a long Winter break because of that,” Smith said. “It allows me to come in here while they are still in school and help out. I enjoy sitting down with them and sketching on their drawings and trying to help with them with their layouts.”
The 23-year-old Smith said it’s also good because when he come home he doesn’t have any other exposure to architecture.
“Being able to help with architecture is really my passion,” Smith said. “It gives me a lot of background on programs that they use and residential design.”
Smith said he didn’t know any way going to architecture when he was at Noblesville.
“So the only exposure I got was when I went on college visits,” Smith said. “I always wish I had somebody who told me what it was going to be like or stuff like that.”
Smith visited the same class he took from Toms as a senior.
“We worked on a train station for Noblesville as part of the Indy Connect project that is still going on I think,” Smith said. “Once we finished that, a group of us went to Indy and presented it to the urban designer of Indy and the metropolitan planning commissioner. It was a big project and it was really fun. That’s what I’ve always enjoyed about this class is it’s real world projects. To do that in high school, it’s crazy. If I had this house in my portfolio going into college, I would have got a ton more scholarship (money). Even in college, we don’t get to do real world projects unless you do internships and stuff.”
Smith said the Noblesville students also benefit from using a 3-D modeling software, which is an industry program.
Noblesville sophomore Josh Warning, a member of the class, made to sure to take advantage of Smith’s experience.
“It’s a ton of help because he’s able to do a lot with the program that I couldn’t do earlier,” Warning said. “It allowed me to make my house look better.”
Smith said this year donating his time to Class also helped him this break.
“I’m writing my thesis on redesigning secondary education so focusing on facility needs and stuff,” Smith said. “It gives me a lot of background research.”
Noblesville’s Project Lead the Way coordinator Andrew Wilkins was glad to have Smith’s visit.
“One of the things we love to have is more students like Evan who can come back and show off what they are doing at a higher level of school,” Wilkins said. “One of the best part of this course and these sets of courses is we set the students off to schools and they feel a direct connection back to our school. They can here’s where I was and here is what I’m now doing.”
