Posts in summer 2025
Visual Thinker: Beth Diana Smith

Beth Diana Smith ’15 (AAS), CEO and principal of Beth Diana Smith Interior Design, came to NYSID after a decade-long career in corporate finance. Part of a Victorian home renovation in Montclair, NJ, this ASID award-winning kitchen by Smith balances beauty and function with custom storage, layered design, and workspace tailored for a dedicated baker.

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Reimagining What Affordable Housing Can Be

Mona Nahm ’20 (MFA1) didn’t set out to become a designer of affordable housing. Nonetheless, she finds herself at the vanguard of a movement to alleviate the housing crisis one beautiful, healthy, and sustainable building at a time. She spearheaded Y.A. Studio’s commitment to follow the Living Building Challenge’s Core Green Building Certification standards for 4200 Geary, a new 98-unit senior affordable housing project in San Francisco’s Richmond District, serving a population that includes formerly unhoused seniors.

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Online Degrees Make Design Dreams Possible

An overview of distance learning at NYSID with student perspectives from Dorothy Hill, an AAS distance-learning student who was studying from Amsterdam, Netherlands; Nicole Hand ’25, a BFA distance-learning student who was studying from Denver, Colorado; and BFA distance-learning student Haruko Utsuki (BFA) , who is based in Toronto, Canada, and took a semester abroad in Florence, Italy.

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Why I Give: Stephen Chrisman of Ferguson & Shamamian Architects

Stephen Chrisman is a partner at Ferguson & Shamamian Architects, a firm renowned for traditional and classical architecture, founded by Mark Ferguson and Oscar Shamamian in 1988. Working closely with Principal Andrew Oyen, Chrisman helped establish the Ferguson & Shamamian Travel Award for Cultural Discovery at NYSID, an annual contest that challenges students to propose a course of study in a foreign country for the chance to win a $5,000 travel-study stipend, followed by a paid internship at Ferguson & Shamamian Architects.

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