ENVIRONMENTAL

I realized very early on, in my design career, that I was responsible for finding solutions that were pleasing, as well as functional, for the public at large.  I also realized how hard it was to make the private sector happy in their own surroundings with their own things. Utopia didn’t seem like the answer despite its draw of putting problems in order. I seriously thought that a degree in psychotherapy, not to mention finances, would be helpful! In stead I focused my efforts on the heart of the client’s project by creating a very individual, non-materialistic solution, to their needs. For obvious reasons, design never became a traditional business for me as much as it became a way of making sure the heart of the home was comfortably supporting those who lived in it. With that accomplished, they would be in a better place to help guide their communities towards beneficial civic and environmental decisions.

DISPLAY

I love this venue as a microscopic expression of Environmental Design. It’s like walking in the woods and seeing a virtual miniature landscape in the root base of a large tree! You see, its not only about visually merchandising to promote sales but a way of making visual commentary about what’s going on around us culturally. Have you ever noticed how similar display themes in the 5th Avenue stores are being expresses in current Museum shows, Theater, Restaurants, Books, Music, the world and so on…?

PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN was my answer to making a living doing something beneficial as well as creatively satisfying. Here was a learning environment that honored my previously honed conceptual foundation as a means to an end. A place where I could play, while simultaneously cataloguing  many more new ideas, observations and experiences. My world expanded spatially as well as visually. I learned that once the precepts of “DESIGN” were learned, they could be applied to anything. I found that “ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN” not only neatly packaged all the products that we use on a day to day basis but included private and public structures and spaces, graphics, communications, merchandising, and fashion. All of which I am intuitively interested in.

My Thesis Paper was on the topic of developing NYC rooftops as another layer of the city . The intention was to provide more “GREEN“ space for people to work and live in and assist in the health of the city's air quality long before today’s term “GREEN” was coined.

PARSONS THE NEW SCHOOL OF DESIGN, BFA ENV. DESIGN

1976-1979