Mona Nahm: Bringing Personal Perspective to Affordable Housing

Mona Nahm’s path to a Living Future was long and winding, and built on personal experiences. 

She was in Thailand when the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami struck. The first Thai-English translator to reach a disaster site, she witnessed firsthand the fear people felt in the aftermath, as they realized everything they owned had been swept away. For Nahm, this fear stirred her own memories of being homeless for almost a year as a teenager.

It was during the next few months, as she volunteered for recovery organizations, that Nahm first considered a career change. The film industry had brought her to Thailand, but now the importance of housing re-emerged inside her. As she drew parallels between disaster relief and affordable housing, her new path started to come into focus. Like her experience with temporary housing, disaster relief seemed focused on the short term without consideration for sustainability. Tents, for example, were commonly discarded after use. However, it still took her over ten years to commit to the career change. 

Nahm had fallen into the film industry when she was a teen living without a home in Los Angeles. Working in a Thai restaurant, a wealthy patron told her, “if you come to Thailand, I’ll make you a star.” She saw a way out of poverty. 

Alas, acting was not Nahm’s forte, so she shifted work to movie set design. In retrospect, she again saw a wasteful industry discarding resources at the end of each production. Awareness about sustainability was low.

Once she entered a Master’s of Fine Arts program in interior design, her passion for sustainability came into focus. While her initial motivation was to reduce waste, a holdover from her time on film sets and with disaster relief, her interest grew toward healthy materials as she learned about volatile organic compounds and other common hazardous chemicals. 

While working with YA Studio, Nahm first encountered the International Living Future Institute. “I saw the flower growing out of the dirt as a reflection of myself,” she noted. “I am someone who grew with the resources around me.” 

A project Nahm worked on was accepted into the Institute’s Affordable Housing Pilot Program, where she had an opportunity to connect with like-minded professionals. “ILFI is creating a little family,” she said, noting “I would not have this community without the affordable housing pilot program.” 

Today Nahm is a designer with YA Studio, where she designs diverse and inclusive spaces to directly benefit communities and respond to our current economic and environmental pressures. 

“Every time I am on a project I think, what can we do to contribute to that project?” Sustainability is not something I will stop caring about.” 

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