Art is like singing, some do it better than others, but everyone can and should be doing it for their soul." — Barbara Mason
Teens in the award-winning architectural design program at Shadow Ridge High School made a field trip to the original Rising Arts site at CityCenter at CityNorth to give the organization a boost in its startup process.
Scott Thomas (top right) leads his students in site planning for Rising Arts.Scott Thomas, who teaches architectural design at both Shadow Ridge and at Phoenix College, organized the activity as a community service project and to garner experience for his students.
After making the trek across the Valley from their west-side Dysart neighborhood to the east-side location of Rising Arts, they spent the morning measuring every feature of our building space and preparing to draft plans for the theater. The process was followed by more hours of work back on their campus to produce the necessary documents.
The endeavor was intended to help Rising Arts gain a new occupancy status in its former space to allow for larger audiences. The insurmountable problems with occupancy were eventually resolved with a move to the theater's larger, current location.
Shadow Ridge offers the only four-year program of study in architectural design drafting in the state as part of its Signature Architecture Program. (Through dual enrollment, the high schoolers earn college credit at the same time.) Scott's program at Shadow Ridge is also the 2011-2012 Arizona SkillsUSA State Championship Program in Architectural Design Drafting.
Rising Arts is thankful for truly community-minded supporters like Scott Thomas and for the skills and talents of his future architects!
Scott's program web site: https://schoolweb.dysart.org/TeacherSites/tsite.aspx?id=1544
Shadow Ridge High School web site: https://schoolweb.dysart.org/SchoolSites/index.aspx?sid=225