Principal Architect Feature: Nona Yehia
We want to share the people behind GYDE Architects. We ask our team a series of questions in the style of Vanity Fair’s The Proust Questionnaire. We are featuring GYDE’s Founding Principal, Nona Yehia. Nona is an entrepreneur whose projects include Vertical Harvest, North America’s first vertical hydroponic greenhouse. In 2020, CNN named her a Champion for Change, and in 2021, Vertical Harvest was included in Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas in both their Food and Social Justice categories.
What was the moment or thing that made you want to become an architect?
I knew from a very young age that design could be a medium for change. My brother had disabilities, and growing up, I became acutely aware of how spaces included—or excluded—him. That awareness became fascination. I started seeing the built environment as a kind of social scaffolding, shaping how we connect, gather, and care for one another. I think that’s when the seed was planted—that design could be a force for equity, beauty, and belonging.
How would you describe your first home/apartment/living situation in Jackson?
We moved from New York City to Jackson in 2003. It was a massive change. Our mover actually asked if we were in the witness protection program. We landed in a little rental on Coyote Loop—right next to a street called “Long Hard Winter Lane,” which felt a bit foreboding at the time.
But I loved that house. I loved that neighborhood. My son was two and a half, and he didn’t yet know how to orient himself to the mountains—he felt most comfortable on trails, which I think reminded him of sidewalks. The thing I noticed more than anything was the quiet. In the city, every day had a different noise character… a rhythm. Here, there was just this deep stillness. Except one night—I swear a cow was dying—but that turned out to be a one-off.
Now, more than two decades later, we’ve acclimated. I’ve grown used to the quiet. My son is most at home in the mountains. And looking back, that tiny house on Coyote Loop was our portal into a whole new way of life.
If you could go back in time, which younger version of yourself would you want to have a talk with, and what would you say?
I’d go back to the version of myself who had just moved to Jackson with a toddler, a dream, and no roadmap. I’d tell her: “You’re not lost. You’re just early. Trust that this place, this work, this wild idea of inclusion and architecture—they’re going to come together in ways you can’t imagine yet. And you won’t be alone. Just keep going.”
Can you share your three tips for a well-designed home?
Let the home participate in the landscape. It shouldn’t just sit on the land like a dropped box—it should belong to it, nestle into it, respond to its cues.
Design for flow. Think about the flow of light, of people, of air. A well-designed home breathes.
Keep spaces flexible and open. Life changes. Homes should have enough adaptability to move and evolve with the people who live in them.