ASID Honors Outstanding Achievements in Interior Design

ASID Honors Outstanding Achievements In Interior Design

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

By: Furniture World Magazine

The American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) recently announced its 2006 Class of Fellows during Celebration: The ASID Design Awards, held in conjunction with INTERIORS 07: The ASID Conference on Design, March 15-18, 2007, in San Francisco, Calif.

Four exemplary professional members were honored with fellowships: Jan Bast, FASID; Tama Duffy Day, FASID; Barbara S. Marini, FASID; and Sharon S. Staley, FASID. Fellowship represents the highest honor the Society bestows on an exceptional volunteer or design visionary for his or her contributions to the advancement of ASID or the interior design profession.

Jan Bast, FASID : Bast is an outstanding leader with many years of dedicated service to ASID and to the profession. Her award-winning interiors have repeatedly graced the pages of San Diego’s home and design magazines. A professional member of ASID since 1985, Bast has held every volunteer office in the San Diego Chapter. Among her many contributions to the profession, Bast became Program Director at the Design Institute of San Diego in 2000 and a FIDER site visitor in 2001. Bast was also a recipient of NCIDQ’s Louis Tregre award for outstanding service and now serves as the organization’s president. A strong believer in the power of interior design to have a positive impact on people’s lives, she has contributed many hours of pro bono work to the San Diego Rescue Mission, Catholic Charities, and the Interfaith Shelter Network, among other organizations.

Tama Duffy Day, FASID: Tama Duffy Day, FASID: Duffy Day is nationally recognized for her award-winning interior designs in the area of health care, and is the only designer to have received three Health Environment Awards from the Center for Health Design. She was one of the youngest designers to be promoted to the position of vice president with Ellerbe Beckett and later was voted onto the board of directors for Perkins+Will. She currently is a principal in the Washington, D.C., office of Perkins+Will, where she heads up its Mid-Atlantic healthcare and wellness practice. Duffy Day has been a longtime dedicated ASID volunteer, having served as the treasurer of her ASID student chapter; and a member-at-large of the ASID Board of Directors, among other positions. Most recently, she served two terms on the board of trustees for the ASID Foundation. Duffy Day also has been an interior design educator for over a decade, at New York University and currently with the Corcoran College of Art + Design in Washington, D.C.

Barbara S. Marini, FASID: As a teacher, administrator, researcher, mentor and volunteer, Marini has been highly instrumental in improving the quality and content of interior design education. Marini began her teaching career in 1993 at Eastern Michigan University, and today she is interior design program chair at the International Academy of Design and Technology in Detroit. Her commitment to excellence and her innovative approaches to teaching have resulted in national enhancements to interior design education through adoption by CIDA (formerly, FIDER) of higher accredotation standards, particularly in the areas of codes, sustainability and right to practice. Her dedication to her students earned her the ASID Faculty of the Year Award in 2006. In addition, she received the ASID/Joel Polsky Academic Acheivement Award in 2000 for her master’s thesis, which examined career preparation and development between two-year and four-year interior design graduates. She also received the Member of the Year and Chapter Medalist award from the ASID Michigan Chapter. Formerly a member and chair of the ASID Student Advisory Council, among many other positions, Marini is well- known for her active involvement with ASID student members. She currently serves as a member-at-large of the ASID Board of Directors.

Sharon S. Staley, FASID: For more than 30 years, Staley has not only provided constant and dedicated service to her ASID chapter, but she also has donated countless volunteer hours to numerous organizations in Houston, where she lives and practices interior design. Staley’s volunteerism includes Habitat for Humanity, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Ronald McDonald House, Covenant House, DIFFA and the Houston Evacuee Center for those seeking shelter in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. She has helped demonstrate the many ways in which design (and designers) can improve the quality of life for people with different needs and backgrounds. In addition to her chapter service, which includes 14 terms on the board and a term as president, Staley has been very active on behalf of the profession in a number of other arenas. She has served as an advisor at the University of Houston and at Texas Tech University, as a proctor with NCIDQ, and as a board member and in other positions with the Texas Association of Interior Designers. Staley has received numerous Presidential Citations and was selected as a Chapter Medalist by the Texas Gulf Coast Chapter.

Other award winners honored at INTERIORS 07:

2006 ASID Design Awards

- Designer of Distinction, Penny Bonda, FASID, LEED AP

- Design for Humanity, The Robin Hood Foundation

- Educator of Distinction, Janine Benyus

- Patron’s Prize, The U. S. Green Building Council

- Product Prize (corporate), Maharam, Industry Partner of ASID

- Product Prize (individual), Vladimir Kagan

- Product Prize (individual), Vladimir Kagan

- Special Citation, John Hutton

ASID Foundation’s 2006 Polsky Awards

- 2006 Joel Polsky Prize, DAK Kopec, PH.D., CHES, IDEC

- 2006 Joel Polsky Academic Achievement Award, Susan Quick, ASID

ASID Industry Partner Merit Award

- Ruth Jacobsen, Industry Partner Representative for Jacobsen & Balla

- William H. Hare, Jr., Industry Partner Representative for KDR Showrooms

- Thomas J. Schwenk, Industry Partner Representative for Seminars by Design

ASID 2007 Student Design Award Competition

- Holly Murdock, Student Member ASID

National Residential Interior Design Contest

Sponsored by Southern Accents magazine and ASID

- Grand-prize winner, Susan Schuyler Smith, ASID

- Finalist, Monica McCoy

- Finalist, Jim Winer

2006 ASID Chapter Community Service Award

- ASID New England Chapter

For more information about special events at INTERIORS 07, March 15-18, 2007, please visit

About ASID: ASID is a community of people (designers, industry representatives, educators and students) committed to interior design. Through education, knowledge sharing, advocacy, community building and outreach, the Society strives to advance the interior design profession and, in the process, to demonstrate and celebrate the power of design to positively change people’s lives. Its more than 38,000 members engage in a variety of professional programs and activities through a network of 48 chapters throughout the United States and Canada. To learn more about ASID, visit