IAF scholarship helps former college dropout realize his dreams of becoming an architect

Chris Reinhart didn’t take the traditional route to architecture school. But Reinhart isn’t what you’d call a traditional kind of guy. He built his first home out of straw bales and salvaged materials.

When he graduated from Lafayette Jefferson High School, the academically gifted 18-year-old headed off to Indiana University and the world appeared to be his oyster. However, after five semesters, he “very ungracefully,” dropped out. He formed a rock band, Cadmium Orange and got a construction job.

Today, at age 40, Reinhart is days away from receiving his master’s degree in architecture, and he’s working part-time as a design associate at Cripe Architects, a job he said he landed, in part, because of the Indiana Architectural Foundation.

During the scholarship presentation, IAF asked each of the recipients to say a few words about their project. Reinhart talked about a hypothetical design for a future charter school in Bloomington. He doesn’t remember exactly what he said, but he remembers the call he got from Cripe asking him to come in and talk about a job.

Reinhart was “prepared, polished and engaging,” said Fred Green, Cripe’s president and COO and former IAF board member. Reinhart grabbed his attention as soon as he started speaking.

“I think I was in the middle of dessert when he began speaking, and I thought who is that? He presented himself in a very organized and thoughtful manner, and you could tell he was a little older than the rest of the students, a life-long learner who had been around the block and knew what he was talking about,” Green remembered. “I thought this is a guy who could really be an ambassador for our firm.”

Reinhart is grateful for IAF, which awarded him three scholarships and helped him make connections.

“It made it finally possible to go to school and not be so stressed out,” said Reinhart, a single dad who commutes from Bloomington to Muncie as he completes his masters. “I have enormous gratitude for IAF for two reasons, helping me make it through school and bringing together all these Indy firms and providing me the opportunity to make myself known to them. It’s very meaningful to have a great relationship with an employer I love.”

He’s also doing work he’s passionate about. Reinhart’s love of architecture began to build as he worked up through the ranks in construction. He became enamored with the thought of building his own house, so he took some workshops about earth and straw bale construction, bought a little land on a hillside in Bloomington and went to work on a cottage, which began his working lab.

That became the genesis for going back to college. After a 10-year hiatus, he enrolled in the design technology program at Ivy Tech. Things began to click. He became president of the Ivy Tech Ecology Club, and by the time he graduated from Ivy Tech in 2009, with a 4.0 GPA, won the Janine C Rae Humanitarian Award, was named the Outstanding Student in Design Technology, was named the Bryon Fellow and was a commencement speaker.

Next up was Ball State’s prestigious College of Architecture and Planning. Reinhart enrolled at the age of 32. Along with his bachelor’s degree he collected even more accolades. He won the prestigious Udall Scholar award in 2012, and was awarded Indiana Architecture Pinnacles of Excellence awards in both 2012 and 2013. In 2013, he received the CAP Best and Brightest Award, was named a Building Better Communities Fellow and won the Building Better Communities Leadership Award.

Reinhart has found his stride. When he completes his masters, he’s going to stay put in Bloomington and help Cripe develop the design market in Bloomington and will become Cripe’s director of sustainability  and research.

“I love the intersection of technology and architecture as it relates to human wellness,” he said. “I want to do more with evidence-based design, not just in medical office buildings, but also in retail and office settings. There are a lot of improvements that can be made.”

While he no longer lives in the straw-bale house, he’s planning an addition to bring it up to 1,200 or 1,300 square feet, and maybe move back in when his son, who is now 17, heads off to college.