Atelier Summer 2020

atelier Summer 2020

New York School of Interior Design

RETURN TO OPTIMISM NYSID Alumni at Stonehill Taylor Keep on Designing

WELCOME

atelier SUMMER 2020 VOL. 2 / NO. 2 PRESIDENT David Sprouls CHIEF OF STAFF David Owens-Hill EDITORIAL AND ART DIRECTOR Christopher Spinelli CONTRIBUTING WRITER Jennifer Dorr PHOTOGRAPHY Matthew Carasella Matthew Septimus PRINTING JMT Communications Jeff Tucker, President ADDITIONAL NYSID STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS SUPPORT Hannah Batren Laura Catlan Phyllis Greer Leslie Robinson

New York School of Interior Design 170 East 70 Street New York, NY 10021

This is an unusual issue of Atelier because the majority of it was written before the COVID-19 pandemic, and part of it was executed during the lockdown of New York City. We have no way of knowing how this crisis will alter the way people live and work in the long term, but we do know we are at an inflection point, and that interior designers are going to have to reimagine the way they look at spaces as a result of what we have all been through. As educators, it’s our responsibility to lead that charge and, as always, NYSID’s curriculum will challenge students to envision how people can live better and more safely in our changing world, from hospitals to workplaces to homes.

In this issue, you’ll see the huge breadth of possibilities within the interior design profession. Our cover story, “Return to Optimism,” delves into the world of hospitality design through the lens of alumni at Stonehill Taylor. The hospitality industry has been deeply affected, and it’s our hope that there will be a flowering of safe public gatherings after the worst of the crisis is over, and that the restaurants, bars, and hotels will open to people overjoyed to be out again.

In the story “Cause Design Can Change You,” we look at the fantastic designs MFA-1 students created over the past two summers in the service learning studio, creating interiors that help victims of domestic violence overcome trauma and heal. The stories in this issue touch on our students’ and graduates’ designs of hospitals, residences, offices, counseling centers, hotels, and more.

The College has seen enormous growth in our online learning programs; and we’re lucky, for many reasons, to have had a strong digital-learning infrastructure in place. This allowed NYSID to be nimble as the threat of the COVID-19 mounted in NYC, and to provide a plan for the safety of our students, faculty, and employees, and the continuation of learning. I am proud of the numerous staff across nearly every administrative department, as well as our faculty, for working tirelessly over Spring Break to train others and for implementing our contingency plan in the face of COVID-19. The closing of the buildings helped many students and faculty who might have avoided distance learning to embrace it.

Before New York City was impacted by the coronavirus, we hosted the most successful annual gala in NYSID’s history, raising nearly $580,000 for NYSID’s scholarship fund. More than 350 members of the interior design community turned out to celebrate honorees Brian J. McCarthy, Gale Singer, Andy Singer, and Elizabeth Lawrence. The funds will help deserving students realize their dreams and ensure the most diverse and talented pool of students continues to flow into the interior design industry. We’re grateful to gala co-chairs and trustees Alexa Hampton, David Kleinberg, Dennis Miller, Susan Nagle, Betsy Ruprecht, and Maria Spears, and for the support of our design community. Thank you!

As always, we want to hear about interesting innovations, initiatives, and adaptations at your companies. Please reach out to the editorial team at atelier@nysid.edu.

Atelier is published twice a year by the Office of External Relations for the alumni and friends of the New York School of Interior Design. It is printed on recycled paper with vegetable inks.

For more information or to submit story ideas or comments, email atelier@nysid.edu.

nysid.edu/atelier

DAVID SPROULS, PRESIDENT

CONTENTS FEATURES

4

12

Return to Optimism

Cause Design Can Change You

Alumni at Stonehill Taylor keep on designing

Students give back through service learning

18

24

Be Open to the Unexpected

Different Generations, Same Drive

HOK’s Erika Reuter on advancement

Age diversity makes BFA program stronger

DEPARTMENTS 2 VISUAL THINKER 20 CELEBRATIONS 28 PORTFOLIO

34 38 39 40

LAYOUT GIVING LEADERSHIP IN MEMORIAM

ON THE COVER FROM LEFT: TORY KNOPH ’11 (BFA), TENG YANG ’14 (MPS-H), AGATA ZAJKOWSKI ’16 (MFA-1), ARA KIM ’19 (MFA-1), NAOKO YAMAZAKI ’10 (BFA) / ’11 (MPS-S) / ’12 (MPS-L) / ’14 (MFA-2), AND MAYUKO SHIBATA ’11 (BFA) IN THE STONEHILL TAYLOR CONFERENCE ROOM ON MARCH 12, 2020.

MATTHEW SEPTIMUS.

VISUAL THINKER / Design Deconstructed Phillip Thomas ’05 (BFA) worked for Ingrao Inc. for six years after graduation. In 2011, he struck out on his own and founded Phillip Thomas Inc. This Manhattan pied-à-terre was one of the first projects he designed as the principal of his eponymous firm, and it’s a triumph born of problem solving, curation, and a close, collaborative relationship with his clients.

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These shelves, bespoke creations adapted from a line by the artist Gabriella Kiss and the furniture maker Chris Lehrecke, transform an unsightly column into a soaring, sculptural form that evokes a tree.

2

This painting is by the renowned Mexican Artist Rufino Tamayo. The son of a Chilean mother and American father, Thomas loves mixing cultural influences in his designs.

3

Thomas sourced this one-of-a-kind Maison Leleu desk (1940), with its rich, green lacquer, from Maison Gerard.

The clients loved it so much that Thomas arranged the entire floor plan around it.

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These stools, created in the late 1940s by Edward Wormley for Dunbar and sourced from the New York Design Center, have undulating curves that complement the sight lines and sinuosity of the room. Their legs splay, “almost like tusks,” says Thomas. The stools make a circular seating area possible without obscuring the views.

5

The wavy, glistening form of the Husdon River inspired Thomas’ use of this multilevel carpet by Edward Fields.

ERIC PIASECKI

In 2012, Phillip Thomas received a call from clients who were standing in a raw space in Manhattan that was perched high over the Hudson River. The clients told him, “If you love it, we’ll get it.” This couple lives abroad, and they were looking for a small apartment to transform into an escape where they could nest and be together, away from the pressures of their intense jobs. Thomas rushed to see the space and was overwhelmed by views all the way down the Westside Highway and out to the sparkling river. There was a huge structural column in the center of the room that could not be removed, and Thomas knew he could not hide it without obscuring the view and chopping up the space, so he decided to celebrate the column. He encouraged his clients to buy the apartment and worked closely with them to design a joyful, social, eclectic space filled with objects from different eras and nations. His clients loved the design so much they hired him for several more projects. Says Thomas, “If you want to make your clients happy, listen to them talk about how they want to live.”

MICHELLE WILLIAMS

Nest Over the Hudson

RETURN TO OPTIMISM 4 | ATELIER MAGAZINE

DEPARTMENT

NYSID Alumni at Stonehill Taylor Keep on Designing

FROM LEFT: ARA KIM ’19 (MFA-1), TENG YANG ’14 (MPS-H), AGATA ZAJKOWSKI ’16 (MFA-1), TORY KNOPH ’11 (BFA), MAYUKO SHIBATA ’11 (BFA), AND NAOKO YAMAZAKI ’10 (BFA) / ’11 (MPS-S) / ’12 (MPS-L) / ’14 (MFA-2) IN THE STONEHILL TAYLOR CONFERENCE ROOM ON MARCH 12, 2020.

MATTHEW SEPTIMUS.

NEW YORK SCHOOL OF INTERIOR DESIGN

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n the brink of the COVID-19 outbreak in New York City, we sat down with three alumni at Stonehill Taylor—Ara Kim ’19 (MFA-1), interior designer; Tory Knoph ’11 (BFA), senior interior designer and the interiors outreach coordinator; and Mayuko Shibata ’11 (BFA), senior interior designer—to discuss their careers and recent projects. During the lockdown, we spoke with the firm’s interiors principal, Sara Duffy, about how the company is adapting and looking toward the future of hospitality design in this uncertain time.

When we visited the elegantly utilitarian offices of Stonehill Taylor to interview three of the five NYSID alumni working for the firm, we were greeted warmly, but shook no one’s hand. That’s because it was the second week of March 2020; tension and uncertainty hung in the air after the emergence of COVID-19 in New York. Still, the alumni we interviewed, Ara Kim, Tory Knoph, and Mayuko Shibata, seemed to take pleasure in discussing their work on exciting hotel projects around the globe. One thing was clear: These interior designers love what they do.

Within days of the interviews and photo shoot for this article, Stonehill Taylor shut down its physical offices in response to the pandemic. All project teams continued their work remotely thanks to the project management and collaborative tools that Stonehill Taylor put in place. In spite of the disruption, the company looks to the future. “The travel industry and its many facets—including hospitality architecture and design—are destined to rebound and play an important role in jump-starting the economy and in reconnecting people,” says Sara Duffy, Stonehill Taylor’s

LOBBY, SAINT KATE ARTS HOTEL, MILWAUKEE, WI. DAVID MITCHELL.

interiors principal. “The recovery that the world faces is not simply an economic one; it’s also a renewal of the human spirit and a return to hope, joy, and optimism. The hospitality industry has always been associated with these values. On the other side of this crisis, people will return to travel and seek adventure and comfort in the hotel experience.”

Ara Kim ’19 (MFA-1), Tory Knoph ’11 (BFA), Mayuko Shibata ’11 (BFA), Naoko Yamazaki ’10 (BFA)/’11 (MPS-S)/’12 (MPS-L)/ ’14 (MFA-2), and Teng Yang ’14 (MPS-H) are five alumni who currently work in the interiors department at Stonehill Taylor. Several other NYSID graduates have worked at the firm in recent years. The NYC-based firm employs just over 70 people, yet works on approximately 65 interior design and architecture projects every year. The interior design studios create one-of-a-kind destinations not only in new construction but often through the adaptive reuse of historic and/or landmarked buildings. Says Duffy, “Stonehill Taylor is always in search of talent with the right mix of a great attitude, exemplary design skills, and strong knowledge of the needed software. In our work, we must become true storytellers.”

NEW YORK SCHOOL OF INTERIOR DESIGN

EVERY PROJECT IS A NARRATIVE Tory Knoph ’11 (BFA) began at Stonehill Taylor as an intern in 2010 and started full time when she graduated in 2011. Now a senior designer, she’s been at the firm for the duration of her career. What she’s learned along the way is this: “There should always be storytelling behind hospitality design.

We start our projects with a concept or a story based on the history of the area. That concept guides us, and we work with our PR and branding people to weave the story through the design, from the largest to the smallest detail. If there is a design dilemma, we revert to our original concept and find our solutions there.”

One of Knoph’s favorite recent projects is the Saint Kate Arts Hotel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, because the concept behind the hotel is so singular. The client was the Marcus family, collectors and philanthropists who are heavily involved in the arts scene of Milwaukee. Says Knoph, “The hotel is named after Saint Catherine, the patron saint of the arts. The clients came to us with the concept of a boutique hotel for the arts and the performing arts, and our job was to interpret that and bring it to life.” The hotel was designed as a livable art museum and performance center. Says Knoph, “We kept the millwork of the historic building, but painted

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it white. We added concrete floors. We made the background uniform so the art would pop.” Indeed, the concept for the entire lobby was created around Big Piney, a bronze “ghost horse” by the well-known sculptor Deborah Butterfield.

Working with Linda Marcus and the hotel’s curator, Maureen Ragalie, Knoph’s team used art from local artists and artisans in the guest rooms, and pieces from internationally known artists in the public spaces.

Though the hotel offers only 219 rooms, the scale of the Saint Kate project was significant because of the public spaces. Knoph’s team designed four galleries and a black box theater called the Arc Theatre within the hotel, as well as pop-up performance spaces for live theater throughout the building. They designed five immersive artist suites (in collaboration with various local artists, each of whom represents multiple mediums and styles). Her team also added four new food and beverage spaces and revamped the all-day restaurant, Aria. The idea was to connect the arts hotel space and restaurants to the Marcus Performing Arts Center across the street, and the many arts institutions in the neighborhood, including the Milwaukee Ballet and the Museum of Wisconsin Art. Says Knoph, “Our task was creating a connecting point for downtown performing arts and gallery spaces.” A project of this kind can be an engine in the economic revitalization of a city.

In her role, Knoph is guided by her studio director, yet functions as the lead on specific projects, managing the day-to-day details of the design process and communication with the client. As the company’s official interiors outreach coordinator, she travels to conferences to interface with potential clients and unearth new vendors. As Knoph looks back at her career at Stonehill Taylor, she especially values her early years as an intern. She says, “My advice to emerging designers is to get an internship or multiple internships.

Working as an intern in the materials library at Stonehill Taylor, I learned so much by folding fabrics, putting things away, really understanding the difference between a quartz and a marble. Help out doing the menial things and you will learn, even before you have mastered Revit or AutoCAD.”

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“There should always be storytelling behind hospitality design.”

TORY KNOPH

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FEATURES

and working reality. Also, people at Stonehill Taylor will always help you if you have a question.” She was hired full time upon her graduation in 2019.

One of the things Kim values most about her education is that NYSID required her to experience every sector of interior design. She says, “I got a solid foundation in residential, healthcare, workplace, and hospitality, so when it came time to find a direction, I was able to make an educated decision.

Hospitality design is conceptually focused, and custom furniture pieces are important to what we do. By the time I graduated, I knew hospitality design suited me.”

Kim and her team are currently working on the renovation of the iconic and historically registered Hamilton Hotel in Washington, DC. The hotel takes its name from Alexander Hamilton’s daughter, Eliza Hamilton Holly, who was a friend of the hotel’s original owner. The story of Ms. Hamilton Holly is woven into the interior design, as are Beaux-Arts details that refer to the heyday of the Hamilton Hotel during the 1920s and 1930s, when it was the place to make deals for DC’s political elite. One of the greatest challenges of this project was to adapt an adjacent Masonic temple, the Almas Temple, into a ballroom and public event space for the hotel.

The clients wanted to use the space for everything from government summits to weddings, so Kim’s team had to create an extremely flexible space. “We created a plan that will give the clients optimal control over the environment.”

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CELEBRATE THE SPIRIT OF TRAVEL When Ara Kim ’19 (MFA-1) landed an internship at Stonehill Taylor during her second year at NYSID, she didn’t know what to expect. She couldn’t predict whether she’d have all the skills to hit the ground running at the buzzing architecture and interior design firm. As it turns out, she landed in the middle of a dream project. She worked with the team that designed and executed all of the interiors of the TWA Hotel at JFK International Airport, a former terminal and landmarked structure designed in 1962 by the architect Eero Saarinen. She learned about the spectacularly sinuous building—it has no right angles—in her design history class at NYSID. Kim took on many of the duties typical to interns, including organizing the company’s materials library. Still, she got to work on the design of the fitness center at the TWA Hotel, carrying over the mid-century motif that celebrated the glory days of air travel into details like tambour wood paneling and the deep red of the TWA logo. “I thought to myself, ‘Who gets to do this their first time out, as an intern?’” says Kim, “I knew then that I wanted to work at Stonehill Taylor.” Kim interned at Stonehill Taylor for three semesters. It was her first and only internship. She says, “I didn’t struggle in my internship because there were a lot of similarities between school work

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THREE WAYS THE PANDEMIC MIGHT CHANGE HOSPITALITY DESIGN Sara Duffy, interiors principal at Stonehill Taylor, shares her thoughts on how the pandemic might change our culture and impact the thinking behind hospitality design.

Celebrations of Connectedness Design-world responses will seek to foster connection between people—amid a new awareness of physical distancing—and usher in a return to old-fashioned values and practices, such as the art of letter writing. The latter may be incorporated into a design feature, such as a decorative wall of hand-written notes encouraging guests to communicate with each other.

Different Ideas About What’s Healthy An emphasis on health and wellness—perhaps that’s the construction of a spa or a thoughtful regard for light and air circulation—will take center stage.

Appreciation for Nature

THE SUNKEN LOUNGE, TWA HOTEL, JAMAICA, NY. DAVID MITCHELL.

There will be a welcomed return to nature, sometimes literal in the sense of locale, or more representative in the sense of greenery, open spaces, and inspired art. Furthermore, there will be a heightened observance of sustainability practices as we better appreciate our surroundings.

“The travel industry and its many facets—including hospitality architecture and design—are destined to rebound and play an important role in jumpstarting the economy and in reconnecting people.”

SARA DUFFY

THE HOWARD HUGHES PRESIDENTIAL SUITE WITH RUNWAY VIEW, TWA HOTEL, JAMAICA, NY. DAVID MITCHELL.

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GRAND STAIRCASE, RAFFLES BOSTON BACK BAY HOTEL & RESIDENCES, BOSTON, MA.

CREATE THEATRICAL MOMENTS Mayuko Shibata ’11 (BFA), senior interior designer at Stonehill Taylor, started at the company eleven months ago, after taking a brief break to stay at home during the first months of her daughter’s life. After she graduated from the BFA program in 2011, Shibata worked at Meyer Davis and Yabu Pushelberg.

With a background in both hospitality and residential interior design, her residential sensibility has informed her design of hospitality spaces. Her re-entry into her design career at Stonehill Taylor has been both intense and intensely fulfilling, as she is one of the lead designers working on the Raffles Boston Back Bay Hotel & Residences. The 33-story property includes 147 hotel rooms and suites, 146 residences, six food and beverage venues, a state-of-the-art spa with a fitness club and 20-meter indoor pool, expansive meeting and event spaces, and a two-story sky lobby perched high above Copley Square.

Raffles is one of the most famous luxury hotels in Singapore, so for this outpost, the first in the U.S., her team aims to deliver over-the-top luxury with rich, textural materials, while adding a uniquely Bostonian twist.

Though the exterior of the building is a modern “glass box skyscraper,” the interiors will combine a modern aesthetic

with references to Boston Back Bay history, specifically the life of Paul Revere. Few know Revere was a metalsmith and entrepreneur who forged rolled-copper sheathing for naval vessels. Shibata says, “That’s why there are copper details throughout the project, as well as a mural that reflects the history of the neighborhood.”

Shibata says clients in hospitality consistently want “Instagrammable moments.” She believes this request gets to the heart of what hotel design should do—create theatrical moments in the space that users instantly associate with the hotel brand and want to share. NYSID Associate Dean Barbara Lowenthal calls this tradition, “a welcomeness to voyeurism in hotel design.” For Raffles, Shibata’s team is designing a dramatic element that creates a sense of place—an enormous staircase with a glass wall and metal frame she hopes will be a form of visual branding for the property.

Shibata reflects, “Hospitality is definitely an interesting sector of design because it’s so conceptual and creative. It’s demanding, for sure, but it’s worth it. At the end of the day, you get to see people enjoying the space you created.”

NEW YORK SCHOOL OF INTERIOR DESIGN

WE ARE ALL CONNECTED NYSID’s Office of Academic Affairs and its Board of Trustees are in close contact with many hospitality design leaders as the industry responds to the pandemic. Our curriculum changes the industry and is changed by it. Hospitality design has always been about globalism and the celebration of cultures. Leaders in the field believe it will be even more centered on these values in the future. “Hospitality design post-pandemic will be more personal, with a deeper emphasis on providing a relaxed, secure, and comfortable series of spaces,” predicts NYSID Trustee Susan Nagle, a hospitality interior designer with decades of experience designing restaurants and hotels. “Also, hospitality designers will be more embracing of the environment, with natural materials being featured prominently, thereby creating an intimate sense of space while conveying the true spirit of hospitality: We are all connected.” n

BRANDED HOTEL CURRICULUM

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“Hospitality design post-pandemic will be more personal, with a deeper emphasis on providing a relaxed, secure, and comfortable series of spaces.”

SUSAN NAGLE

RENDERED PERSPECTIVE OF THE MODEL X SUITE IN THE TESLATEL MOTOR LODGE, A TESLA INSPIRED HOTEL BY SHANE CURNUTT ’21 (BFA).

NYSID recently added a branded hotel project to the BFA Contract Design II studio, and it’s become popular with students. Barbara Weinreich, NYSID’s director of undergraduate programs and an expert in retail design who designed flagship stores for Ralph Lauren, is the creator of this project. “It’s a trend for existing brands to create hotels. We see this with the new West Elm and Equinox hotels, for example,” Weinreich says. “The idea is for students to analyze an existing brand that does not have a hotel already attached to it, such as Tesla, Godiva, or Alexander McQueen, and come up with a brand story that either reinforces or reinvigorates the brand. The students need to apply this brand story to all kinds of experiences within the hotel, from a lobby to a guest room, to a retail space.”

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FEATURES

CAUSE DESIGN CAN There Has Never Been a Better Time to Give Back

M

FA-1 students Mika Jiaravanont ’20 and Joanne Park ’20 spent the past two summers participating in community service projects for Safe Horizon, an organization that provides shelter, counseling, and other services to victims of violence. Here’s a deep dive into their experiences and an overview of the two sections being conducted remotely this summer.

PROBLEM SOLVING FOR REAL CLIENTS Joanne Park felt challenged by the task at hand as she and her team left a client meeting at their new project site last summer. Perhaps victims of violence, and the social workers who take care of them, need the calming and organizing power of design more than anyone because they deal with so much daily stress and sadness. However, the Safe Horizon community program office that the NYSID team was charged with redesigning—like so many of the spaces where social justice happens—was dark, disorganized, overstuffed, and run down. Nobody had thought out how the space could help people live and work better until the service learning studio team entered the picture.

The students from NYSID—Yangfangfei Gao, Mallie Gusset, Karina Infante, Mika Jiaravanont, Nico Liu, and Joanne Park—were responsible for redesigning a space that was both

a workplace for social workers and staff and a counseling center for adult and child survivors of violence and their families. Park’s team, one half of the group, worked on the plan for the counseling rooms, the adult and child waiting rooms/reception areas, and a conference room for staff, while the other team, which included Jiaravanont, worked on staff offices and the break room.

The building faced the ocean, and the NYSID group knew it would be best to move the counseling rooms to give Safe Horizon clients a view of the sea because research shows that natural beauty and light help people with trauma feel more at ease. Safe Horizon had several end-user requirements.

Parents needed to have a view of their children in the kids’ waiting room from every counseling room, the children’s and adults’ waiting areas had to be distinct from one another, and the staff conference room needed to convert into a counseling

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CHANGE YOU room for a large family in a pinch. Also, the waiting areas had to be welcoming with an effective wayfinding system, so that clients would feel agency rather than insecurity when they arrived. There was more to this project than picking furniture and finishes—it required demolition and a total rethink of the space’s circulation.

At first, the NYSID team was stumped by so many useparameters from Safe Horizon and the tight budget. The students brainstormed, and every member of the team contributed ideas, but it was challenging to bring them all together. “We could not move forward until we came up with a floor plan and solved the circulation issues,” remembers Park.

“I was sitting at the Staten Island Ferry Station with Terry, and then I began to scribble. With hundreds of people around us, on a public seat, waiting for a boat, Terry and I pulled all of the team’s ideas and client’s feedback together to solve the circulation problem. We put the conference room in the center of the building.” This bolt of inspiration completely changed Park’s confidence as a designer.

A SERVICE LEARNING OVERVIEW NYSID requires all MFA-1 students to participate in summer experiential learning. The options include the service learning studio, an internship with an accompanying online course, a graphics course, independent study, or study travel.

This year the College expanded the service learning offerings to fill the gap created by a lack of travel and internship

possibilities in the wake of COVID-19. But, service learning has always been a great option, especially for students between their first and second years.

“The service learning studio empowers students by allowing them to interact with end-users,” says architect Terry Kleinberg, the principal of her eponymous firm and NYSID’s service learning studio instructor. “Our students are not working on an isolated part of the process assigned to them by a superior; they are running the whole design process. They have to get into the minutia of how people use spaces and engage in real problem solving, which is difficult and meaningful work.” The first week of this eight-week course is focused entirely on research. NYSID librarians give a presentation on research methods, and at the end of the week, each student presents the results of their work. Topics may include trauma-informed design, stress management for staff, and statistical research on the population they are serving.

The following week, the whole NYSID group goes to the site and visits the clients. At Safe Horizon, for example, they observed how victims of violence and staff members behave in the space, and interviewed all of the stakeholders, from administrators to social workers to maintenance workers.

They could not interview victims of violence because of Safe Horizon’s privacy protocols.

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RENDERED SECTION PERSPECTIVE OF SAFE HORIZON’S STATEN ISLAND COMMUNITY PROGRAM OFFICE (STAFF AREA).

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“At the Queens Child Advocacy Center, a donor saw the plans and renderings our students created and wrote a check for $20,000 on the spot so that the counseling rooms could be built.”

TERRY KLEINBERG

In the following weeks, the teams alternate in-class pinups of their design work with presentations to the client, so there are several opportunities to go back to the studio and incorporate client feedback. Every year, NYSID faculty member Eric Cohen, senior associate principal at Ethelind Coblin Architect, serves as a mentor by attending the in-class pin-ups and providing critiques. The students work with real budgetary constraints and a list of approved vendors. In week eight, there’s a final presentation at which the NYSID team hands over a complete and usable set of drawings, renderings, and specifications of all materials and products. “They work very hard and rise to the occasion. The clients are always bowled over,” says Kleinberg.

The service learning program began in 2015, and during its first two years, students designed renovations for New York City police stations. For the past three years, NYSID students ABOVE: BEFORE AND AFTER PHOTOGRAPHS OF A COUNSELING ROOM AT THE SAFE HORIZON QUEENS CHILD ADVOCACY CENTER. BELOW: RENDERED PERSPECTIVE OF COUNSELING ROOM BY THE 2017 NYSID SERVICE LEARNING TEAM.

NEW YORK SCHOOL OF INTERIOR DESIGN

have donated their considerable talents to Safe Horizon: In 2017, they designed a child advocacy center in Queens; the following summer, a domestic violence shelter in Harlem; and this past summer, the non-profit’s office and counseling center on Staten Island. Kleinberg notes, “At the Queens Child Advocacy Center, a donor saw the plans and renderings our students created and wrote a check for $20,000 on the spot so that the counseling rooms could be built.”

THE POWER OF COLLABORATION AND SELF-DIRECTION Park remembers choosing between an internship and service learning at the end of her first year in the MFA-1 program. She says, “As a first-year student, I felt like I didn’t have enough experience under my belt or the technical skills to fly solo in a job.” When she entered the service learning program, she found it radically different from her schoolwork. She says, “In school, we work individually most of the time, but real design work is collaborative. It was fun and challenging to work as a team. We had to divide up the work, and assign ourselves deadlines, make use of each other’s strengths. This was a huge growth experience for me.”

Jiaravanont agrees that collaboration was one of the best aspects of the service learning experience, and she especially values that Shaun Fillion, the director of NYSID’s

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Masters of Professional Studies in Lighting Design (MPS-L), arranged for MPS-L students to consult on the projects both summers. “Being able to work with the lighting students was very helpful,” Jiaravanont says. “One thing the Safe Horizon staff expressed is that their spaces were dark, that they needed light, both artificial and natural, to get them through taxing days. Lighting is important for people dealing with trauma. Both summers, I learned about lighting with warmer temperatures, using indirect lighting to cast a more ambient glow, using direct lighting only on art pieces and work stations, and applying lighting as a strategy for wayfinding.”

The team is grateful to the 2019 summer volunteers from the MPS-L program, Brigid Hardiman and Jessica Doyle.

Park and Jiaravanont planned to do only one summer of service learning, but they both chose to do another because they didn’t want to miss a second opportunity to work with Terry. “I wanted to work with Terry again.” Jiaravanont explains, “She has such deep knowledge and passion for this work.” Park adds, “She’s the perfect instructor for this course. She guides you with questions, and lets you find your own solutions.”

Park juggled an internship at Morris Adjmi Architects with the service learning studio during the second summer of the MFA-1 program, and though she admits the experience

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THE 2019 NYSID SERVICE LEARNING TEAM (L TO R): KARINA INFANTE, MIKA JIARAVANONT, TERRY KLEINBERG, NICO LIU, MALLIE GUSSET, JOANNE PARK, AND YANGFANGFEI GAO.

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WAITING ROOM LOOKING INTO RECEPTION OFFICE

RECEPTION OFFICE LOOKING INTO WAITING ROOM

WAITING ROOM

PUBLIC CORRIDOR

COUNSELING ROOM 1

COUNSELING ROOM 2

STAFF BREAK ROOM

STAFF OFFICE

RENDERED PERSPECTIVES FROM THE 2019 SERVICE LEARNING PROJECT, THE SAFE HORIZON STATEN ISLAND COMMUNITY PROGRAM OFFICE.

NEW YORK SCHOOL OF INTERIOR DESIGN

was tough, she’s glad she did it. She says, “The second year of the service learning studio, I was in a mentorship role.

I didn’t think I had that in me, but I do, and I’m grateful to have discovered it. I had to multitask and time manage, so I found myself messaging my classmates every day, assigning them tasks and deadlines. My ability to do this was a revelation. I thought: Maybe I can become a project manager one day.” Park stresses that though their status as the second-year veterans put both her and Jiaravanont in the position of mentoring peers last summer, every student in the service learning program was an equal member of the team.

“Everyone brings a different talent, and the thinking comes from all of us,” says Park.

The autonomy built into service learning gives the students a chance to apply the technical skills they have learned in their academic work. The 2019 group wanted their client to get a sense of how users would move through the space, so they used Enscape, a program Park and Jiaravanont learned in their second year, to create a virtual walkthrough of their design plans. Like all other aspects of the final presentation, this initiative came from the students, and it thrilled the clients. “It was very satisfying, in the end, to know I was helping better the lives of people who really needed my help,” says Park. Adds Jiaravanont, “I hope to take what I’ve learned about how to serve people and the community into any design job that I have in the future.”

SUMMER 2020 With many internship programs canceled or on hold because of the pandemic, NYSID added a second section of the service learning studio so that more students would get a chance to do real world design. One team is designing a domestic violence shelter for Safe Horizons, a task that will bring new challenges as the need to create social distance for the residents of shelters grows. The other is working with the SUNY College of Optometry and redesigning a 15,000 SF floor of their University Eye Center in Manhattan—a facility where they treat people with vision impairments and traumatic brain injuries. One challenge is re-envisioning a waiting area shared by noisy children and people with traumatic brain injuries, who cannot tolerate noise or bright light. The doctors, administration, and staff are excited to share research on the needs of the vision impaired with students. Designing a hospital environment is particularly relevant now, in the era of COVID-19. Both sections of the course are being conducted at a distance, using tools such as Zoom for client meetings.

Safe Horizons and the SUNY College of Optometry provided students with virtual tours of the spaces, as well as floor plans. For as long as necessary, students will design from a distance, just like established designers are doing during the lockdown period. n

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TRAUMA-INFORMED DESIGN For people who have experienced trauma, overstimulating environments can trigger confusion, fear, traumatic memories, and the impulse to flee. Many people who work with victims of violence are dealing with stress and secondary trauma, so the research on trauma and design is relevant to their workplace as well. Here are four principles of trauma-informed design that NYSID students integrated into their Safe Horizon designs: 01 Elements of Nature Research shows that bringing the natural world into the built environment has a calming effect on people with trauma. Hence, capitalizing on natural lighting, opening views to the outdoors, and using natural elements like botanicals and wood are integral parts of trauma-informed design.

02 Sense of Agency People with trauma need to feel they have a choice, that they are not trapped, when they walk into a reception area, so waiting areas should provide options, places to socialize, or retreat. Wayfinding is also crucial because it gives the user a sense of control.

03 Sense of Order With order comes calm, and with calm comes the opportunity to heal. Spaces for victims of violence must have an intrinsic sense of order, along with storage areas that make it easy to tidy up.

04 Soothing Colors The NYSID team researched which colors create calm and deployed soothing colors from nature in their design, adding a bit of pop with the strategic use of the bold orange of Safe Horizon’s logo in the reception area.

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BE OPEN TO THE UNEXPECTED PATH

FEATURES

HOK Principal Erika Reuter on Project Managing the Design of WPP’s Massive Workplace

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rika Reuter ’06 (BFA)/’13 (MFA-2) never expected to be a Registered Architect or a project manager. Now she’s both. Her drive and openness to new challenges have moved her interior design career forward.

Erika Reuter, principal at HOK, was one of two project managers who orchestrated the design and construction of the recently completed 700,000 SF WPP/Group M offices at 3 World Trade Center in New York City. The vertical campus for the world’s largest advertising and public relations media company includes branded offices for WPP/Group M’s leaders and seven of its agencies—Essence, MediaCom, Mindshare, Wavemaker, Xaxis, [M]Platform, Openmind—as well as Kantar, WPP’s data information firm. It’s a triumph of workplace design that has already garnered awards, including the IFMA New York City Chapter Award for

Excellence in Design + Construction. Reuter began her higher education as a BFA student at NYSID and went on to complete the MFA-2 program at the College. She started at HOK as a junior designer in 2008, advanced to senior designer, and then made her first foray into project management in 2015, at the outset of the WPP/Group M project. She’s NCIDQ and LEED AP certified, and became a Registered Architect (RA) as well.

She’s the mother of an infant and a thesis advisor for NYSID’s MFA-2 program. Reuter is incredibly busy, yet always open to the next challenge. We chat about her choices here.

NEW YORK SCHOOL OF INTERIOR DESIGN

Why did you choose to become a Registered Architect?

I found myself in my office, sitting next to people who went to architecture school who were doing the exact same work as I was. Nonetheless, as interior designers, we must have our work rubber stamped by an architect in order to get it built. I wanted my skills validated because interior designers bring the same skills to interiors, plus a working knowledge of the decorative arts. I found out I was eligible for the exam, the Architect Registration Examination (ARE), sat for it, and passed. It was important to me that I have this independence.

Will you tell us about the concept behind HOK’s awardwinning design of the WPP/Group M workplace that was completed in 2019?

The overall concept, and the challenge we had to overcome, was that we had to design eight different operating companies under one corporate umbrella. Each entity had a different aesthetic and culture, and all of these companies were previously independent, with distinct brands. The RFP (request for proposal) from WPP indicated that they wanted to have a separate designer for each operating company. WPP/ Group M also required its own, overarching branded spaces and visual identity. They needed a flexible, changeable space because they are always acquiring new companies. We were charged with creating a master plan that would accommodate the needs of the parent company and celebrate the uniqueness of each operating company. This project required both a master design plan phase and a design phase for each operating company. In the master planning phase, we set strong guidelines and rules for all spaces that would exist in each operating company.

Each operating company design included three kinds of spaces: fixed spaces like copy rooms which were to be used only by employees; “bespoke” spaces that were client-facing like reception areas; and middle-ground “kit of parts” areas like conference rooms that contained pre-selected elements but still allowed the designers some level of choice. We were also tasked with designing two floors of amenities to be shared by the employees of all of the companies. These floors, which included a grab-and-go restaurant, a minidoctor’s office, a career center, corporate training rooms, and an IT help bar, had a distinct design team because they were intended to be un-branded, or rather, brand-neutral, spaces.

Will you tell us about your role in the WPP/Group M project?

My role as project manager was to make sure we were staffed, on budget, and on schedule. I had to strategize our project delivery and handle day-to-day contact with the client and all consultants. There was another level to this project: I was the enforcer as far as rules we had set out in master planning.

I was the consistent link between the clients, the designers for the operating companies, the parent company designers, the amenities team, and the three committees that guided the whole process. In order to move any aspect of the design

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forward, we had to present plans to and get approval from a steering committee, a committee of executives from all of the operating companies, and a technical committee, so it was a huge amount of planning, coordination, and communication.

Why did you choose to go into project management?

Typically, as a junior staff member at a big firm you touch everything, every part of the design and construction process, but as you get more senior, you have to specialize in the technical or design side of our industry. I was lucky at HOK in that even as I advanced, I got to do everything, but I knew that could not last forever. When the opportunity came up to project manage the WPP/Group M project, I saw it as a way to keep my hands in design and technical without having to choose one over the other. What I enjoy about project management is that it thrusts you into a mentorship role. I’ve always gravitated toward teaching (and as you know, I’ve taught at NYSID). There is something fulfilling about guiding others through situations that are new to them. Teaching teaches you about yourself.

What’s your best piece of advice for an emerging designer?

Be open to everything. Volunteer to do things outside of your comfort zone. Everybody goes to school for design, but you have to master the technical and less glamorous parts of the process to be a better designer and make sure your design is executed the way you intended. You will find growth in the challenges that make you uncomfortable.

How is the COVID-19 pandemic changing workplace design?

All our clients are asking what we are hearing and recommending as new office design solutions in response to the virus. We acknowledge there will be changes in office culture, design, and policy, but what that looks like will be different for every client. My good friend is an ER doctor and it’s been interesting to have ongoing conversations about the pandemic and the possible effects it might have on worldwide culture and design. n

“You will find growth in the challenges that make you uncomfortable.”

ERIKA REUTER

CELEBRATIONS / 2020 Commencement For the first time in its 104-year history, NYSID held its commencement ceremony virtually, as graduates, isolating because of the coronavirus pandemic, participated from home.

Before the live broadcast of NYSID’s 2020 Commencement Ceremony on June 11, personal videos and messages flashed on the screen from students’ loved-ones, educators, and industry leaders. This is just one detail the NYSID staff built into the ceremony to create an atmosphere of celebration and love. The commencement experience consisted of a live stream of the ceremony interspersed with pre-recorded elements, a Zoom viewing party that enabled graduates to see each other and instructors, and a virtual gallery of student thesis projects. Keynote speakers Ellie Cullman, Tammy Chou, and Tony Chi shared wisdom, and the theme of the day became innovation in the face of adversity. At the time, the physical campuses had been closed for 84 days.

President David Sprouls addressed the graduates with the words, “The last few months have posed unbelievable challenges, and you overcame them with flying colors.” Ellen Kravet, the chairman of NYSID’s Board of Trustees,

“Our cohesion as a cohort, and not our physical distance, is what makes this graduating class truly unique.”

TIFFANY ZHOU ’20 (MFA) added, “If there was ever a time that the design industry needed you, it’s now. . . .We will look to you to lead the way.”

President Sprouls conferred honorary doctorates upon Ellie Cullman, co-founder and president of Cullman & Kravis Associates, and Tammy Chou and Tony Chi, cofounders of tonychi studio. Predicting the way interior designers would have to respond to the pandemic, Ms. Cullman said, “I, like many others before me, have said that form and function are the twin pillars of interior design. . . .I would like to add one more component, flexibility, our new mantra. . . .The standards for today’s new designs have not been written yet.

Perhaps you will write them.” Tammy Chou, who was a businesswoman and restauranteur before she and her partner, Tony Chi, founded their firm in 1984, advised graduates to, “Learn the business, learn the industry, and find out the importance of having a design community.” Tony Chi said, “Design is not packaging. It’s a way to elevate ourselves, to elevate humanity.” Six amazing student speakers shared their stories of resilience: BFA candidates Monica Seroiczkowski, Atique Rahman, and Bailey McGrath; and MFA candidates Mona Nahm, Gabrielle Hollander, and Tiffany Zhou. The full ceremony is available for viewing on nysid.edu/virtual-commencement.

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ELLEN KRAVET CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES

DAVID SPROULS PRESIDENT

MONICA SEROICZKOWSKI ’20 (BFA) STUDENT SPEAKER

MONA NAHM ’20 (MFA) STUDENT SPEAKER

ELLEN FISHER VP OF ACADEMIC AFFAIRS AND DEAN

ATIQUE RAHMAN ’20 (BFA) STUDENT SPEAKER

GABRIELLE HOLLANDER ’20 (MFA) STUDENT SPEAKER

ELLIE CULLMAN HONORARY DOCTORATE RECIPIENT

TAMMY CHOU HONORARY DOCTORATE RECIPIENT

TONY CHI HONORARY DOCTORATE RECIPIENT

BAILEY MCGRATH ’20 (BFA) STUDENT SPEAKER

TIFFANY ZHOU ’20 (MFA) STUDENT SPEAKER

Congratulations, Class of 2020!

CELEBRATIONS / 2020 Gala The 2020 Gala was the most successful in NYSID’s history. Your donations make deserving students’ dreams come true.

This year’s gala, held on March 3, 2020, raised more money than any event in NYSID’s history, securing nearly $580,000 for NYSID’s scholarship fund. More than 350 friends of NYSID and members of the interior design community turned out to honor Brian J. McCarthy, who was awarded the Albert Hadley Lifetime Achievement Award; Gale Singer and Andy Singer, who were awarded the Larry Kravet Design Industry Award; and Elizabeth Lawrence, who was awarded the Rising Star Award (sponsored by The Shade Store). David Sprouls, NYSID’s president, and Ellen Kravet, chairman of NYSID’s Board of Trustees, welcomed the who’s who of the Greater New York interior design community. Dennis Scully, host of the Business of Home podcast, emceed the evening. Much of the credit for the success of this event goes to gala co-chairs and trustees Alexa Hampton, David Kleinberg, Dennis Miller, Susan Nagle, Betsy Ruprecht, and Maria Spears.

Upon receiving her Rising Star Award, Elizabeth Lawrence, a former NYSID student, now a partner at Bunny Williams Inc., thanked her professional mentor Bunny Williams for guiding her career. She also said, “NYSID opened up a world to me, a career, a community, an industry. I’m now a lifelong student because I have found the thing I love.”

Perhaps the most affecting presentation of the night came from BFA student and scholarship recipient

“The funds our community donated at the gala will ensure the most diverse and talented pool of students continues to flow into our industry. Thank you!”

DAVID SPROULS Atique Rahman. He told the story of his immigration to the United States from Bangladesh with nothing but a $700 loan in his pocket, in order to fulfill his parents’ wishes that he obtain a computer engineering degree.

He recounted his loathing of his engineering classes and his feeling of being utterly lost until he stumbled on interior design and found his passion.

He was lucky enough to meet Scott Ornstein of Ornstein Rabiner, who encouraged him to look into NYSID.

He started with the Introduction to Interior Design course, got the Associates degree, and went for the BFA. Says Rahman, a stellar student, president of multiple NYSID student organizations, and recipient of NYSID’s LaVerne Neil Scholarship, “Because of this scholarship, I was able to avoid dropping classes and I will meet my goal of graduating with a BFA this year.

Thanks to the generosity of donors such as yourselves, I’m convinced I’m already living my American dream.”

MAKE A GIFT TODAY To support more scholarship students like Atique Rahman or discuss how you can make a difference to the future of interior design, please reach out to Director of Development Joy Cooper at joy.cooper@nysid.edu. You can also make a gift at nysid.edu/make-a-gift.

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DAVID SPROULS, ELLEN KRAVET, ELIZABETH LAWRENCE, ANDY SINGER, GALE SINGER, AND BRIAN MCCARTHY

DANNY SAGER, ELLIE CULLMAN, AND BRIAN MCCARTHY

DAVID SPROULS AND ATIQUE RAHMAN

ALEXA HAMPTON, ELLEN KRAVET, GALE SINGER, AND ANDY SINGER

BUNNY WILLIAMS, ZACH GIBBS, AND ELIZABETH LAWRENCE

Different Generations SAME DRIVE Monica Seroiczkowski and Cielo Cortes, two BFA students at different stages of life, discuss their journeys to NYSID, and what they’ve found at the College.

AGE DIVERSITY MAKES NYSID’S BFA PROGRAM STRONGER

W

hen we sat down with Monica Seroiczkowski and Cielo Cortes, they were ideating their theses, juggling jobs and school work, winning design contests, and going for their dreams. When the lockdown in response to COVID-19 changed reality as we know it, we decided to go forward with the histories of these two women, because their tenacity and creativity are exactly what the interior design industry will need as the world recovers from the pandemic.

JUGGLED SCHOOL AND WORK TO FORGE HER PATH Time management has been essential to Monica Seroiczkowski’s success at NYSID. Not only did she use her subway and bus commute as a study hall, she has also worked two jobs in order to make her education financially possible.

“It’s been totally worth it,” she says. She happens to have loved her jobs, as a NYSID library worker sorting materials in the school’s Mario Buatta Materials Atelier, and as an intern in the design department at NYU Langone Medical Center.

Seroiczkowski came to NYSID right out of high school.

She’s been a visual artist since she was a child, and she’s

no stranger to competition: She attended Manhattan’s LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, a coveted public high school for visual artists and performers informally known as the “Fame High School.” She always thought she would be a studio artist, but during her sophomore year at LaGuardia she took an architecture and interior design elective. Suddenly, she began to see a different path for herself. Seroiczkowski recalls, “I knew I needed an artistic career, but I could not see myself as a painter or sculptor because I wanted stability. Even more than that, designing interior spaces seemed like a very impactful career.

NEW YORK SCHOOL OF INTERIOR DESIGN

I began to understand that I could contribute to society in a big way by designing the places people live, learn, and heal in.”

A high school guidance counselor told her about NYSID. She came to an open house to check out the College. Coming from such a big high school, she was drawn to the smallness and the singular focus. “I thought a small community of students would be beneficial, and it has been,” she says. “I am not sure many other design schools have this culture of supportiveness and intimacy amongst the students.”

She adds, “I like the narrow pathway to interior design and here’s why: I’m ahead of people who started in liberal arts. This is four focused years of interior design. I got my first internship my second year here. That’s because it’s such a small community of people and someone helped me. At NYSID, we would rather help each other get our names out and celebrate each other’s styles. You develop a community of designers amongst your peers and also in the industry.”

Seroiczkowski, along with her project partner Bailey McGrath, was among the students who won the competition to participate in Nantucket by Design last summer with Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean Ellen Fisher. Says Seroiczkowski, “The really big advantage of NYSID is oneon-one time with professors. Even the dean has time for me!

When we went to Nantucket, I not only got to design a room (in Nantucket’s Oldest House, which was built in 1686 and believed to be the oldest residence on the island still on its original site) with her guidance, I also got to learn how to move around the social world of interior design and make real relationships. She motivated us all to take chances.”

ROOM IN NANTUCKET’S OLDEST HOUSE DESIGNED BY SEROICZKOWSKI AND BAILEY MCGRATH.

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SKETCH BY SEROICZKOWSKI FROM HER THESIS PROJECT.

The NYSID network has been beneficial to Seroiczkowski.

Her boss at NYU Langone Medical Center, Elsie St. Léger ’10 (BFA), is a NYSID alumna. Says Seroiczkowski, “Elsie is just amazing. When she found out I was close to graduating, she automatically treated me as part of her design family. I got into interior design because it’s meaningful and fulfilling work, and at NYU, I can see the patients experiencing the spaces I have designed.”

As COVID-19 ravaged parts of Asia and Europe, Seroiczkowski’s design team at NYU Langone spent February and much of March doing what she called “COVID-19 prep,” that is, adapting existing spaces to accommodate the onslaught of critically ill patients they knew would be coming. This meant preparing signage and layout for the flow of people in the emergency department, planning for barriers to separate patients in existing spaces, and more. She says, “The pace was crazy.” In late March, her team began to work remotely. Almost all projects except COVID-19 projects were stalled, but her boss, Elsie St. Léger, was working tirelessly on setting up the layouts for a tent that would be a transitional space for the COVID-19 response. Says Seroiczkowski, “The COVID-19 pandemic and this whole situation strengthened my love of hospital design. Even though I was not on the front line, I knew our design work was making doctors and nurses more efficient in a crisis.”

More now than ever, she has a sense of how important her chosen field can be. She says, “Once we get back in the office, physically, there are going to be questions, insights, and adjustments in response to this pandemic that will influence long-term design plans.” She hopes to transition to a full-time job at NYU Langone Medical Center.

Working in the NYSID library afforded Seroiczkowski the opportunity to interact with peers in the undergraduate and graduate programs on a regular basis, and she values the fact that many of her classmates are older than her, coming to interior design as a second career, often with previous

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FEATURES

degrees. She explains, “The students here have so many different perspectives and they have worked hard to get where they are today. Some even have business degrees. It’s a very nice reality check on how the world works and what you should be thankful for, on what’s a problem and what’s not.

There’s no space for immature drama at NYSID, and it makes for a great working environment.”

Seroiczkowski was disappointed that she had to do so much of her final semester at a distance, but she reports that her online studies with NYSID went well. “Everything is changing,” she says. “We have to change with it.”

In Bogota, her stepfather and two aunts were both architects, and she has loved architecture and design since she was a girl. However, she says that in Colombia, the profession of interior designer doesn’t exist, so she never thought of it as a possibility for herself. She says, “We have architects, and then we have decorators. I really think this has something to do with the fact that structures are built differently in Colombia: Interior walls are made of concrete, and there is rarely drywall, so people don’t renovate interiors to the extent that we do in America.”

When Cortes started working in nightclubs in her late teens, she found that the money she made from tips could be significant and sustaining. Living in Miami, Chicago, and finally New York, she worked for multiple properties, including three belonging to Tao Group, one of the hospitality industry’s largest corporations. She put away money in the hopes of someday finishing her college degree and starting a business. She has a knack for visual organization, so she has often been the person her friends call on to help them arrange furniture or organize storage spaces.

When she moved to New York eight years ago, she resolved to get formal training in interior design and discovered NYSID. She started as a non-matriculated student, taking the Introduction to Interior Design course in the college’s Institute for Continuing and Professional Studies (ICPS).

She loved it so much that she took the full 12 credits allowed to non-matriculated students. She forced herself to prepare for and take the TOEFL (a test that terrified her) so that she could gain admission to NYSID. She got the Associate of Applied Science Degree (AAS) with honors first, and then entered the BFA program. She says, “I was not an engineer or a lawyer like some of the other [career changers] here, so

DETERMINED TO REALIZE HER DREAM As Cielo Cortes moved through the crowd at a popular New York nightlife venue, waitressing late into the night, she couldn’t help noticing how the recent renovation of Avenue by Rockwell Group had improved the circulation and functionality of the room. As revelers danced, partied, or sunk into the seating, she paid attention to the way the wooden, acoustic paneling softened and enhanced the sound.

As she interacted with customers, she noted the way different types of lighting created different moods in the expansive, luxurious, multilevel space. She tried to see this environment with the eyes of a designer. Throughout her four years at NYSID, Cielo spent her nights moonlighting at a nightclub to put herself through design school, and her days working as hard as she could to obtain her BFA. (The only time she did not have to juggle work and her night job was during the COVID-19 lockdown.)

Cortes attended two semesters of college in Colombia, her native country, but when she immigrated to the United States at age 18, she found the language barrier and the need to support herself all-consuming, so she didn’t finish college.

CORTES IN JAPAN, SPRING 2019.

RENDERED PERSPECTIVE OF ART STUDIO IN AN ANGER MANAGEMENT CENTER DESIGNED BY SEROICZKOWSKI IN THE ADVANCED BFA CLASS, CONTRACT DESIGN III.

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RENDERED PERSPECTIVES FROM CORTES’ AWARD WINNING PROJECT, “THE LINDT HOTEL.”

I had some insecurity at first, but once I started designing I forgot to be intimidated. I was obsessed.” The one and only course that gave her trouble was the lecture class Historical Styles. The speed and density of information in the course, combined with the fact that the lectures and readings were in very advanced English, made it difficult for her to absorb information. She came up with the strategy to take the online versions of NYSID lecture courses so that she could go at her own pace and replay the digital lectures until she could fully grasp the content. Studio classes were easier for her, because they were about doing, and she took them all in person.

In 2019, the faculty recommended Cortes and one of her projects, “The Lindt Hotel,” for the Gensler Brinkmann Scholarship. Cortes’ submission, the design of a branded hospitality space and retail outlet for the well-known chocolatier, composed of shapes based on historical chocolate molds, spoke for itself. Cortes won the prestigious scholarship! This means she not only won a large sum toward her NYSID education, she is also a candidate for a paid internship at Gensler’s offices. (The COVID-19 epidemic caused Gensler to cancel their summer internship program, but Cortes hopes to interview for a fall internship.)

Her first years in the undergraduate program, Cortes went only to work and class; she felt too busy to get to know other students and participate in other parts of school life. Then, her boyfriend pulled her aside and told Cortes she had to take advantage of NYSID’s social and professional contacts.

Cortes set up meetings and got to know her student advisor.

She decided to use her vacation time to do a study abroad trip in Japan, and on the trip, had the time to develop friendships with not only BFA students, but also MFA students—close relationships that continue to this day. She also spent time on the trip with NYSID faculty, sparking friendships with her instructors.

Cortes took a few classes at FIT over the years, and those classes gave her a deep appreciation for the intimacy of NYSID’s classes and the fact that she has such direct access to her professors here at the College. “I love that this school is so small and we are all focused on interior design,” she says.

She’s friendly with people older and younger than herself, including a group of “cute young girls” who came to NYSID right out of high school. She says jokingly, “I keep asking them when they will turn 21 so they can come see me at the nightclub.” In her second to last semester at NYSID, Cortes is finishing her thesis preparation, using a wide variety of programs and educational tools NYSID has deployed to make distance design learning possible during the lockdown of NYC. “When I think about a hospitality space, I can envision how the customers will experience it, but also how employees will experience it.” Cortes says, “Maybe the most important thing I learned from working in nightclubs is observing and handling people. I’ve been to the school of life!” n

PORTFOLIO / Class of 2020 Award Winners The Office of Academic Affairs awarded the students whose thesis projects are featured on these pages the Chairman’s Award for their overall performance at NYSID and, in one case, the Ana Blanc Verna Award for Excellence in Interior Design, an award given to a graduating BFA student who demonstrated unique creative vision.

A Year-Long Journey At NYSID, thesis and capstone projects are long journeys that challenge students to brainstorm, conduct research, and synthesize all they have learned. The journey ends with a presentation to a jury of faculty and industry professionals.

Our students work closely with faculty to create hypothetical designs that offer solutions to real-world problems.

“I had an ambitious program and without Barbara Lowenthal’s involvement, it could have easily spiraled out of control.

She encouraged me to ask questions to focus my design intentions.”

MONA NAHM ’20 (MFA–1)

INSPIRATION IMAGES AND RENDERED SECTION PERSPECTIVE OF “THE MAKER SCHOOL” BY CHAIRMAN’S AWARD WINNER MONA NAHM ’20 (MFA-1). SEE PAGE 31.

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RENDERED PERSPECTIVE OF FABRIC LAB IN “FLOWING FABRIC” BY CHAIRMAN’S AWARD WINNER FEI WANG ’20 (MFA-2).

SEE PAGE 30.

RENDERED PERSPECTIVE OF GUEST ROOM IN “ELYSIUM SUSTAINABLE HOTEL & BREWERY” BY CHAIRMAN’S AWARD WINNER MARISSA KRONENFELD ’20 (BFA). SEE PAGE 32.

RENDERED PERSPECTIVE OF SPA POOL DECK IN “CHAKRA HOLISTIC HEALING CENTER & CANNABIS CONSUMPTION LOUNGE” BY ANA BLANC VERNA AWARD WINNER BRITTANY SNYDER ’20 (BFA). SEE PAGE 33.

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Fei Wang Chairman’s Award, Master of Fine Arts (Post-professional)

This store, designed specifically for the Danish textiles brand Kvadrat, pushes the boundaries of the traditional textile showroom. Says Wang, “The store aims to educate the public, displaying the intricacies of the textile industry and the beauty behind the fabrics. Since contemporary art is an important element of the brand, the showroom displays fabrics in a dramatic way.” Wang had two invaluable mentors on this project, her thesis instructor Lissette Carrera and her personal mentor, retail and hospitality designer Sunwha Her. Wang is most proud of the multistory “fabric wave” that she designed. She says, “It is a unique way of displaying fabric, and visitors can interact with fabrics there. I also considered the lighting design for the fabric wave since it is hard to illuminate the curving surface. I want to thank my lighting professor David Wilburn, who inspired me.”

PORTFOLIO

Project: Flowing Fabric Instructor: Lissette Carrera

NEW YORK SCHOOL OF INTERIOR DESIGN

Mona Nahm Chairman’s Award, Master of Fine Arts (Professional)

Mona Nahm’s “The Maker School” brings together art, technology, and innovation to encourage students to explore their relationship to materials and the act of making. Nahm’s goal was to create a space that encourages users “to create meaningful things and to make them well.” She says, “The parti for the project was the idea of connecting through folding. Using the visual metaphor of folding, I attempted to weave together relationships between crafts, interactions between makers and the community, and the past and the present to envision future possibilities for making.” Nahm researched historical maker spaces, such as the Glasgow School of Art and Offices of Charles and Ray Eames to inform her design. She says, “I enjoyed the process of designing the roof, ceilings, and feature stairs because they illustrate the folding concept.” She says, “I had an ambitious program and without Barbara Lowenthal’s involvement, it could have easily spiraled out of control. She encouraged me to ask questions to focus my design intentions.”

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Project: The Maker School Instructor: Barbara Lowenthal

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Marissa Kronenfeld Chairman’s Award, Bachelor of Fine Arts

Marissa Kronenfeld intended this hospitality space to be a hub for locals who love craft beer, and an immersion into sustainability for hotel guests.

Using biophilic design principles, Kronenfeld created a green roof garden, an indoor farmer’s market that sells produce grown on the premises, and a brewery that reuses byproducts from the brewing process. She sourced reclaimed and environmentally friendly materials throughout. The fully self-sustainable space draws on the aesthetic of the Brooklyn neighborhood, so it feels both urban and natural. She says of her advisor, “Jack Travis really helped me grow as a student and maintain my individual perspective for the project.” Kronenfeld is especially proud of what she calls the “Parks,” balcony areas that jut out every few floors and overlook the entire space.

PORTFOLIO

Project: Elysium Sustainable Hotel & Brewery Instructor: Jack Travis

NEW YORK SCHOOL OF INTERIOR DESIGN

Brittany Snyder Ana Blanc Verna Award, Bachelor of Fine Arts

The organizing concept behind Brittany Snyder’s design is an ancient Hindu mandala called a Sri Yantra, which uses sacred geometry to attract positive healing energy into its center, while dispelling negative energies through its four sides. Says Snyder, “Barbara Weinreich helped me immensely throughout the process, specifically in regard to maintaining a clearly laid out diagram that remained cohesive with my concept for the Sri Yantra mandala.”

Snyder was fastidious in her use of natural materials, including stone slabs and vegetation known for their healing energy and biophilic properties.

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Project: Chakra Holistic Healing Center & Cannabis Consumption Lounge Instructor: Barbara Weinreich

LAYOUT / New and Notable at NYSID At NYSID, 2020 started with wonderful public events, ambitious curricular innovation, and accolades for faculty and students. When the world changed, NYSID adapted.

NYSID’s Response to COVID-19 Students were on Spring Break the week the CDC recommended social distancing as a way to flatten the curve of the COVID-19 pandemic to save lives. This, and the fact that the College already had a robust online learning infrastructure in place (especially for its popular MPS in Sustainable Interior Environments) became blessings as the Office of Academic Affairs, technology staff, and faculty pivoted to bring most courses online so students could take them from a distance. NYSID buildings closed to the public the week of March 16. All faculty completed a training in online design education. Distance learning for all graduate and undergraduate students began on March 23. “Let me express my extraordinary gratitude to our faculty and staff who have sprung into action, moving numerous on-site courses to an online format and preparing for remote work,” said NYSID President David Sprouls in a letter to the community on March 18, “I know this isn’t easy, but I can see how hard each of you is working to make this change a success for our students. . . For our students, this is an extraordinarily challenging time academically, socially, and emotionally. . .In some ways, we’re all in the same boat: Things are unsettled and confusing for us all. We ask for your patience while we work through the details, and ask you to be as nimble as we are trying to be so that we may continue to deliver the best classroom experience of any interior design program in the country.”

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BOARD NEWS New Trustee Brad Schneller

Take a Class with Susan Nagle

Brad Schneller, the president of Schneller Inc., a custom upholstery and drapery workroom based in New York City since 1881, was appointed to NYSID’s Board of Trustees in November 2019. “My family’s 140-year connection to the New York design community and NYSID’s almost equally long tradition endows us both with opportunities and challenges,” said Schneller. “In this time of seismic change in the design industry, I’m excited to join a leadership team that’s committed to helping students understand both where we’ve come from and where we’re headed.”

Award-winning restaurant and hotel designer Susan Nagle, a College trustee, taught the undergraduate Residential Design I studio last spring and will teach it again this fall. Nagle is an alumna of NYSID’s BFA program who learned much from her NYSID mentor and instructor Anne Korman, so she values the opportunity to teach a new generation of designers.

NEW YORK SCHOOL OF INTERIOR DESIGN

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FACULTY & CURRICULUM

Faculty Development Day: Seeing Green On January 25, the Office of Academic Affairs hosted a faculty development day on sustainability in interior design education.

Faculty member Seema Pandya presented an overview of primary areas of sustainability that pertain to interior design. Michelle Jacobson ’18 (MPS-S) of ML Jacobson Design gave an overview of her sustainable design practice. Faculty members David Burdett and Stefanie Werner, principals in DAS Studio, explained the principles of a “passive house,” and how these might be applied to apartment interiors and freestanding buildings, using two of their projects as examples. The day was organized by Barbara Weinreich, director of undergraduate programs, and David Bergman, director of the MPS in Sustainable Interior Environments.

Says Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean Ellen Fisher, “We are making it a focus of 2020 to put sustainability at the center of all our graduate and undergraduate teaching at NYSID. People and communities need structures that conserve energy and natural resources, that are resilient, and that promote human health and wellness, which is why sustainability must be integral to the practice of interior design.”

Jack Travis Wins the IIDA Educator Diversity Award On March 7, at the Interior Design Educators Council (IDEC) Annual Conferance, the IIDA awarded NYSID instructor Jack Travis, FAIA, this year’s IIDA Educator Diversity Award.

Travis is a South Bronx-based author, architect, and interior designer who has been involved in over 100 projects for clients such as Giorgio Armani, Spike Lee, and Wesley Snipes. “Jack is both a prolific designer with a wide scope of projects in his portfolio and an inspiring educator committed to investigating Black culture and heritage in tandem with architectural history,” said IIDA executive vice president and CEO Cheryl S. Durst, who is also a trustee of NYSID.

New Course: Introduction to Environmental Graphic Design Last fall, NYSID introduced a new elective, Introduction to Environmental Graphic Design, taught by instructor Franciso de León, an architect, graphic designer, and founder of FADesign.

Environmental Graphic Design (EGD) is a field that combines architecture, interior design, lighting, and graphic design in order to create signage and graphics that communicate brand and identity, connect people to place, disseminate information, and/ or help with wayfinding. Students in the inaugural class created signage and graphics for NYSID, some of which may ultimately be used on campus. Says De León, “We studied how important it is to create a signage package that integrates the brand with good design. By looking at three case studies to determine if the signage was good, bad, or just plain ugly, we learned about the different types of signage and what makes for good design. Each student created a signage package for the school that included placemaking, wayfinding, and interpretive signage.” The course will be offered again in Fall 2020, and De León is considering Grand Central Terminal as the focus of the class project.

YW of New York Brings High Schoolers to NYSID On February 20, a diverse group of young women from public high schools around NYC visited the New York School of Interior Design to learn about the profession from Barbara Weinreich, NYSID’s director of undergraduate programs, Brett Cione, NYSID’s director of admissions and recruitment, and Francisco de León, a NYSID instructor. The high school students came to NYSID through the YW of NYC’s “College Knowledge” winter break camp, one of the organization’s “Girls’ Initiatives,” designed to eliminate racism and empower girls by exposing them to information about academic and career opportunities. “The impetus for this workshop was the chance to expose students to interior design as a career,” said Weinreich. The students experienced a presentation on what interior design is and where it can take you, a tour of the school, and a hands-on collage and mood board workshop. De León says of the day, “The students asked great questions. I think they enjoyed learning about our profession and the many opportunities available to graduates of our school.”

36 | ATELIER MAGAZINE

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LAYOUT

STUDENT NEWS

NYSID Students Rise to the Iron Design Challenge On November 13, Director of Undergraduate Programs Barbara Weinreich accompanied a group of NYSID students, Evelin Tracz, Anna Laura Everhart, Lynn Chang, and Monica Seroiczkowski, to a retail design competition called the Iron Design Challenge, a benefit for PAVE, a nonprofit that works to end the silence around sexual violence. The event, sponsored by the Retail Design Institute, mixed students from different schools, paired them with a mentor, and challenged them to create a 750-SF pop-up for an Equinox product group. Tracz was on the team that won first place.

Cielo Cortes Wins Gensler Brinkmann Scholarship

Hanna Propst Wins ASID’s David Barrett Memorial Scholarship

Mona Nahm Wins the ASID Student Portfolio Competition

Cielo Cortes ’20 (BFA) bested applicants from design schools around the country to win the Gensler Brinkmann Scholarship for her project, “The Lindt Hotel.” Cortes’ submission was the design of a branded hotel and retail outlet for a well-known chocolatier, which she composed of shapes based on historical chocolate molds.

Hanna Propst ’21 (MFA-1) was the 2020 winner of the American Society of Interior Designers’ (ASID’s) prestigious David Barrett Memorial Scholarship for “an outstanding undergraduate or graduate student who demonstrates an interest and ability in utilizing classical design elements and traditional materials in their work.”

Mona Nahm ’20 (MFA-1) was one of three students to win the 2020 ASID Student Portfolio Competition. Winning portfolios were selected based on “conceptual thought, content of work submitted, and the student’s record of achievement.”

DIFFA Delayed, But Installation Is a Wonder NYSID has been sending teams of students to design and raise funds for DIFFA (Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS) for thirteen years. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this showcase of dining environments to raise funds for people living with AIDS was delayed for the first time in its history.

However, under the leadership of faculty member Ian Gordon, this year’s NYSID team—Ajayi Durodola (MFA-1), Sara Herrera-Garcia (BFA), Atique Rahman (BFA), and Jonathan Ting (MFA-1)—produced an installation that Associate Dean of Barbara Lowenthal considers “one of the best, ever.”

FROM LEFT: SARA HERRERA-GARCIA, JONATHAN TING, AJAYI DURODOLA, AND ATIQUE RAHMAN.

NEW YORK SCHOOL OF INTERIOR DESIGN

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SUMMER 2020 | 37

EVENTS

Sally Henderson Lecture on Green Design: Bill Browning

Mario Buatta Panel: Under the Influence of Colefax & Fowler

Biophillia refers to humankind’s affinity for natural ecosystems. On February 26, Bill Browning, AIA, LEED AP, MSRED MIT, gave a presentation on this subject called “Nature Inside, The Magic of Biophilic Interior Design,” based on case studies from the forthcoming Royal Institute of British Architects’ book of the same name.

On March 9, more than a hundred design aficionados came out to hear about the influence of Colefax & Fowler and the English Country House style on American design legend Mario Buatta. Colin Stair, founder of Stair Galleries, moderated a spirited discussion between Roger Jones, director of Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler; Emily Evans Eerdmans, design historian; Marian McEvoy, contributor to Elle Decor, House Beautiful, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and French Vogue; and Angus Wilkie, author and antiques dealer.

Making Connections: Harvey Probber Furniture On February 20, NYSID hosted the opening of “Making Connections: Harvey Probber Furniture, 1945 – 1985,” an exhibit that brought furniture, narrative and photographs together to tell the story of an important artisan and designer.

Exhibition curator Judith Gura and associate curator Evan Lobel intended this exhibition to paint a broader picture of a man whose influence on design, and on the furniture industry, has never been fully appreciated. This may be in part because he was better known as a prominent manufacturer, but there are other reasons: his furniture was made in relatively limited quantities, he was self-taught as a designer, and he was considerably younger than his

contemporaries and competitors. The exhibition was designed

by Darling Green and sponsored by the Harvey Probber Design Archive, M2L, Lobel Modern, and Chairish. The paint was generously donated by Farrow & Ball. The opening reception was sponsored by New York Design Center, Inc. Among the more than 200 attendees at the opening were members of the Harvey Probber family, including Harvey’s children, Jory and Jamian Probber, and Harvey’s grandson, Samuel Probber. NYSID is grateful to Lobel Modern for refurbishing and loaning vintage Probber pieces; and to M2L, the company that currently produces Probber furniture, for also providing furniture for the show.

GIVING / Supporting Our Community Why I Give: David Kleinberg David Kleinberg, the founder and president of David Kleinberg Design Associates, is a leader in the residential interior design industry, both in terms of artistry and management. He was one of the first owners of a namesake interior design firm to make his principals limited equity partners. Since he did so, other firms have followed suit. Kleinberg is a member of NYSID’s Board of Trustees, and of the College’s Committee for Institutional Advancement. He supports Nantucket

by Design, Dialogues on Design, and the Albert Hadley Endowed Scholarship Fund. A graduate of Trinity College with a degree in urban studies, he got his start in interior design at Denning & Fourcade, and then worked for 16 years at the legendary firm Parish-Hadley. He struck out on his own in 1997. He was first named to Architectural Digest’s AD100 list in 2012 and has been a member of the Elle Decor A-List since 2011. He was introduced to NYSID when the College awarded him the Albert Hadley Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016. We sat down to talk to him about his passion for design education.

Why do you support the College?

My mother, who was a teacher, always did charitable work, so she was a model for me. Back in the day, when I had three disposable dollars, it became clear to me that I had to focus my giving on the issues that really matter to me. I lived through the AIDS epidemic, losing many colleagues and friends, so for 25 years one of my priorities had been AIDS organizations. I also feel very appreciative of this industry that has given me a full and meaningful life, so I wanted to find a way to invest in the future of design. I was introduced to NYSID when the College awarded me the Albert Hadley Lifetime Achievement Award. Hadley was my mentor and the person who most influenced my career. When I accepted, I said, “Thank you, and I’m honored, but I need to learn more about this school.” I met with David Sprouls. The minute I saw what they were doing, I knew this was something I wanted to be involved in. I especially value the fact that the NYSID curriculum recognizes that residential design has equal merit, that it’s just as important as contract design.

Joining this board was a good choice. It’s been rewarding to be on a board with like-minded, collegial people.

You hosted a party in your legendary NYC apartment for NYSID. Why? There are ways of giving to NYSID beyond direct monetary donation. The cocktail party you speak of was a way for me to introduce my colleagues who were not aware of the school to what’s going on there. You see, Albert Hadley and Sister Parish were great examples of how to be supportive of young people, so I do what I can to build community. I wanted to live up to their examples. I feel an obligation as a member of society because I wake up feeling very grateful every day.

Why do you support NYSID student participation in Nantucket by Design?

I’d been up to the Nantucket Historical Association to give a keynote speech. I’d seen what NYSID students had done in the Oldest House there. By supporting NYSID student work in Nantucket, I knew I could help them create a space, get recognition, engage with vendors, and have a first showhouse experience. I liked everything about that! As a designer, you have to stand in front of your work and own it, and that is an experience I wanted to give students.

Why is interior design still important in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic?

When you’re stuck at home socially isolating, it becomes apparent why interior design is so important. Normally, I am a quintessential urban creature, working all the time, out all the time. But home is enormously important to me. Even when I lived in a 200 SF studio back in the day, my space felt like such a visceral experience for me. In other crises, we gathered together publicly. In this instance, we have to isolate to withstand this, so it is probably more important than ever to find comfort in the environment in which you isolate. Your home environment needs to help you work and relax. Now more than ever, the design of the home must support and calm us.

“I feel very appreciative of this industry that has given me a full and meaningful life, so I wanted to find a way to invest in the future of design.”

LEADERSHIP / Moving the College Forward Board of Trustees

Advisory Board

Alumni Council

Ellen Kravet, Chairman

Stanley Abercrombie

Marie Aiello ’04 (AAS), President

David Sprouls, NYSID President

Christian P. Árkay-Leliever

Court Whisman ’05 (AAS), Vice-President

Chesie Breen Jill H. Dienst James P. Druckman Cheryl S. Durst Susan Zises Green Alexa Hampton David Kleinberg Anne Korman Dennis Miller Susan B. Nagle Betsey Ruprecht Brad Schneller David Scott Maria Spears Newell Turner Kelly M. Williams Eric Gering, Faculty Trustee Joanna L. Silver, Esq., General Counsel Elaine Wingate Conway, Trustee Emerita Inge Heckel, Trustee Emerita Patricia M. Sovern, Chairman Emeritus

Amory Armstrong Robin Klehr Avia Michael Bruno Clodagh Birch Coffey Kathleen M. Doyle David Anthony Easton Anne Eisenhower Mica Ertegun Ross J. Francis Mariette Himes Gomez Gerald A. Holbrook Thomas Jayne Wolfram Koeppe Jack Lenor Larsen Michael Manes Charlotte Moss Michele Oka Doner

Ruth Burt ’88 (AAS) Lawrence Chabra ’09 (BFA) Allison Russell Davis ’05 (BFA) Krista Gurevich ’16 (MFA-1) Michael Harold ’10 (BFA) Faith Hoops ’18 (BFA) Don Kossar ’95 (BFA) Maisie Lee ’00 (BFA) Lawrence Levy ’05 (BFA) Andrew McGukin ’10 (AAS) Valerie Mead ’00 (BFA) Charles Pavarini ’81 (BFA) George Peters ’08 (BFA) Ethel Rompilla ’84 (BFA) Linda Sclafani ’90 (BFA) Susan Thorn ’96 (AAS) Erin Wells ’04 (BFA)

Barbara Ostrom Sylvia Owen Charles Pavarini, III Robyn Pocker James Stewart Polshek Ann Pyne John Saladino Peter Sallick Lady Henrietta Spencer-Churchill Alexandra Stoddard Calvin Tsao Bunny Williams Vicente Wolf

THE 1916 SOCIETY NYSID alumni, faculty members, and friends find planned giving a fulfilling way to be part of the future of the College.

Bequests allow for the creation of scholarships and awards that will help students for generations to come, or to recognize NYSID instructors. Others are inspired to provide resources for study in the library or studio, or for study abroad. Legacy donors like this make up the 1916 Society, named for the year NYSID was founded.

CONTACT JOY COOPER, DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT, 212-452-4197 OR GIVING@NYSID.EDU.

IN MEMORIAM We’d like to take a moment to pay tribute to three friends of the College we lost recently. Their impact on NYSID and its students will endure for years to come.

ALEXANDER C. CORTESI Alexander C. Cortesi, who was known as “Sandy” by his friends, passed away at his home on April 5. Mr. Cortesi joined the Board of Trustees at the New York School of Interior Design in 1996, and served as Chairman from 2003 until 2010. In 2013, Mr. Cortesi was named trustee emeritus. Mr. Cortesi led NYSID’s Board of Trustees during a transformational period, during which NYSID began its three-year professional-level Master of Fine Arts program; launched its Institute for Continuing and Professional Studies; and in 2010, Mr. Cortesi’s final year as chairman, NYSID opened its midtown Graduate Center facility. He will be missed by the many members of the NYSID community who he impacted through his involvement.

JUDITH GURA On Sunday, April 12, longtime NYSID instructor, curator, and design historian Judith Gura passed away at her home. On February 20, NYSID had the honor of opening the last show she curated, “Making Connections: Harvey Probber Furniture 1945-1985.” Ms. Gura’s knowledge of design history made her an exceptional educator and curator. She started teaching at NYSID in 2001, and taught numerous courses including Historical Styles, Design History and Theory, and multiple studytours both in the US and abroad. She contributed deeply to exhibitions at NYSID, curating “What Modern Was” and “Rescued, Restored, Reimagined: New York’s Landmark Interiors” in addition to her final show. NYSID President David Sprouls, says, “Her legacy lives on through the work of the many practicing designers that she taught in her design history courses at the College. The greater community will continue to benefit from the numerous books and articles she wrote on the history of design. We have been lucky to count her as a teacher, colleague, and for many of us, a friend.”

MICHAEL SOVERN The College honors the memory of longtime friend and supporter Michael Sovern, the spouse of NYSID Chairman Emeritus Patricia Sovern. He passed away on January 20. In his obituary, the New York Times called him “an ebullient law professor who, as president of Columbia University. . .shored up the school’s finances and brought about divestment from companies doing business in South Africa.” A part of his legacy endures at NYSID in the form of the annual lecture he and his wife endowed, the Michael I. and Patricia M. Sovern Lecture on Design.

NYSID President David Sprouls says, “We are grateful for everything Michael did for this College, and higher education in general. He will be missed.”

The NYSID Student Emergency Fund supports our students by helping them tackle the unprecedented financial challenges that many are currently facing due to the global coronavirus pandemic.

The fund will be used to: •

Cover the cost of tuition deposits for students experiencing financial hardship ($350 for undergrads and $500 for grads)

•

Cover the cost of application fees for those facing financial difficulties ($60 undergrads and $100 grads)

•

Help defray the cost of tuition for those in need by supporting scholarships (every little bit helps)

•

Cover the cost of unanticipated expenses due to the loss of employment (could include supplies, books, software, among others)

•

Cover travel expenses for students returning to New York when the crisis is over

Please join us in supporting the future leaders of interior design by making a tax-deductible donation to NYSID‘s Student Emergency Fund.

nysid.edu/student-emergency-fund

170 East 70 Street New York, NY 10021

MONICA SEROICZKOWSKI ’20 (BFA) CREATED THIS HAND-DRAWN RENDERING IN AN ADVANCED DESIGN STUDIO, CONTRACT DESIGN II. IT DEPICTS THE LOBBY OF THE PROPOSED HEADQUARTERS OF PANTONE, A COMPANY THAT SPECIALIZES IN COLOR SELECTION AND MATCHING.