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Simon earned a Bachelor of Architecture at Penn State University, studied painting at Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts, and continued research with comparative literature and architecture design in Cornell University’s Master of Architecture program. His advanced graduate research was completed in 1990 from the Architectural Association in London, England, after four years with prominent architect Zaha Hadid. He continued to assist Hadid with occasional projects until 2010, and remained a close companion up to her untimely death in March 2016.

 

Simon has expressed his dedication to educating young architects as an adjunct professor for architecture design at Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science and Philadelphia University for over 17 years. He has been an architectural critic and teaching assistant for Zaha Hadid, as well as for a number of universities, including Columbia, Harvard, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania.

 

Simon’s furniture and artwork have been exhibited in galleries in Melbourne, FL; Miami, FL; and Santa Monica, CA, and his furniture is currently available at the Wexler Gallery, Philadelphia, PA.  His art piece, "Mapping Ourselves Through the Cosmos," orbited Earth in the Mir Space Station's electronic archive starting in 1995, as part of the first art exhibition in Earth orbit until the de-orbit of the Mir Space Station occurred in 2001.