David Bergman, director of NYSID’s MPSS, and faculty member Seema Lisa Pandya revamp studio projects for a new era of sustainability.

When NYSID launched its Masters of Professional Studies in Sustainable Interior Environments (MPSS) more than a decade ago, it was the only program of its kind. There’s still no other program like it. The MPSS has always centered on the core issues of sustainable design: the use of sustainable materials, biophilia, resilience to the climate crisis, energy efficiency, water use, interior air and environmental quality, land conservation, and the avoidance of waste of every kind. When author, architect, and sustainable design expert David Bergman (a LEED Accredited Professional and Certified Passive House Designer) took over the directorship of the MPSS program two years ago, he challenged himself to push the curriculum forward. Bergman says. “As designers, we can no longer afford to separate environmental and social issues as the climate emergency intensifies. We must train sustainable interior designers to be problem solvers and visionaries for the whole society. So at its 10-year mark, we’re reinvigorating the program with revamped project briefs.”

Bergman began the curricular changes with the first of two studios the MPSS students will encounter in the program, Sustainable Studio I: Residential. He enlisted the help of his colleague and co-teacher of the studio, Seema Lisa Pandya LEED AP BD+C, a multidisciplinary artist and experienced sustainability consultant. In the Fall of 2020, Bergman and Pandya introduced five revamped studio briefs to the studio. Says Pandya, “We wanted students to get beyond the notion of designing for the 1%. We challenged them to meet the needs of specific clients from diverse communities, and to do so in a holistic and modern way that gets beyond a decorative representation of culture.”

The Five Revamped Projects

Here’s a glimpse of each of the five updated studio briefs with images of original designs by MPSS students. Students in the program pair off and pick one of these projects to work on for the duration of the studio.

Reimagined Co-living Projects

Co-living is a relatively new approach to residential living in which individuals, couples or families have a small, efficient private space, and share facilities such as the kitchen, workshop, and dining space with a larger community. Says Bergman “The environmental part of co-living is that it makes more efficient use of resources such as water and heating. Its social aspect is fostering a sense of community, which so many Americans feel a lack of.”

Pandya revamped the rural co-housing project, set in Billings, Montana. The challenge was to utilize an existing plot of land to create 10-12 tiny houses and shared public spaces and gardens for specific clients/investors who wanted to launch a co-housing community. The theoretical founders of this co-housing community were a young, married Korean endocrinologist; her husband, an engineer; his mother; and their close friend, a single male who’s an avid outdoorsman. Students were challenged to address the specific requests of the client, such as the desire for an indoor/outdoor lifestyle, and the specific features of the climate and land, such as the placement of windows in buildings on a slope.

The urban co-housing project centers on an intentional community in a renovated building in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Bergman challenged students to design a community for like-minded people from different cultural backgrounds at different stages of life. Among the theoretical clients were the co-housing association, and some of the individual families, such as a retired couple and same-sex couple with an adopted seven-year old.

Reimagined Intergenerational Living Projects

“Intergenerational living was the norm in the US in previous generations, and it still is for much of the world,” says Bergman. Its environmental aspect is shared resources and less waste. It’s social aspect is the sharing of labor and tasks, the strengthening of family connections, and the engagement of the elderly. Says Bergman, “It solves certain problems that are prevalent in American society, such as a deficit of childcare. Grandparents can take care of the children while parents have careers.”

The first of the two intergenerational dwellings involves a Detached Accessory Dwelling Unit (DADU) and is based in Seattle. An “DADU” site is a cluster compound in which a small residential dwelling is located on the same lot as a stand-alone single-family home, and Seattle is actually encouraging DADUs to combat its overcrowding issues. “The idea is that grandparents can walk 50 feet through the backyard and be in the main residence of the young couple, but that the generations can opt for privacy when they wish,” says Bergman.

The second of the two Intergenerational living projects is a penthouse based in the Upper East Side of Manhattan and envisions a NYSID student living with an elderly person, taking on chores and providing companionship in exchange for living space. “It’s a vision for living with extended family and aging-in-place that does not involve actual family members,” says Bergman.

A Residency Retreat Center for Pueblo Youth

This project, created by Pandya, includes a site plan of a two-story house with a basement in a rural area near Lovington, New Mexico, adjacent to the Milnes and Prairie Preserve. The theoretical client is a real non-profit called the The Mountain Center, which runs an “Emergence Program” that instills self-confidence and leadership skills in Native American youth through training in traditional land management, permaculture, and conservation. The goals of this project are to create a residency retreat center that serves the needs of the youth who study there for a year, to reflect the mission and brand of the non-profit, and of course, to make this space optimally sustainable.

Students on the New Studio Projects

“I was really excited about all of the student work because it was clear they handled both the social and environmental aspects without compromising the beauty of the interiors,” says David Bergman. Instructor Seema Lisa Pandya was particularly impressed by the research and creativity that went into the Flatbush, Brooklyn co-housing design by students Lindsey Draves and Paulina Francisco, which they infused with a Carribean festival theme.

MPSS student Lindsey Draves says, “The specificity of the project requirements really brought the clients to life. . .We spent a lot of time researching the history of Flatbush to get a sense of the culture, as well as the development of the area to date, and we spent a lot of time looking into the demographics, from exact population size, to race, and socio-economic background, in order to fully understand the neighborhood we were designing in.”

Adds her project partner Paulina Francisco, “Our clients and our neighborhood were the biggest inspirations behind our design concept. We were able to have fun with our ‘festival’ theme because it fell right into place and made sense for all the specifics of the project: it allowed us to celebrate the culture of the neighborhood and address the needs of each client through vibrant yet cozy designs.”

The students mentioned the benefit of seeing their peers’ presentations of the five design challenges over the course of the semester. Says Paulina Francisco, “The project briefs for our class were so diverse in terms of context, client, and scale. Through everyone else’s projects, we were able to learn about different strategies and how to address these different kinds of design challenges.”