Dreaming Up Solutions: o p e n studio's Erin Lewis and Oz Ozburn on Entrepreneurship, Success, and Taking Care of Yourself
Erin and Oz by Tom Harris Photography.
By Julia Gamolina
Erin Lewis, FAIA, is the founder of o p e n studio, a Raleigh-based architecture firm that focuses on working collaboratively with clients on residential, small scale commercial and institutional work, and design consulting. In 2010, Erin joined the AIA North Carolina (AIANC) Board of Directors as the Young Architects Forum (YAF) Director and is President of AIANC. She is also a founder of ACTIVATE NC, which is a statewide AIANC outreach initiative to strengthen the civic role in architecture and design. Erin also served on the Raleigh Historic Development Commission and the Raleigh Planning Commission
Oz Oburn is a Partner at o p e n studio, having earned her BSArch from University of Virginia and her Masters from Yale University. She worked for Studio Gang as Project Architect, working with institutional clients like the University of Chicago, the Academy of Global Citizenship, and Spelman College. Before merging with o p e n studio, Oz founded AOA, a residential firm, and Ladder Up, a social enterprise training and equipping all-female teams to provide renovation services. Oz also founded Design Ecology, a collaborative tackling issues involving urbanism, physical place-making, and gaps in the rural fabric caused by social inequalities. Oz has taught graduate studios at NC State and UVA.
In their interview with Julia Gamolina, Erin and Oz talk about their intertwining paths, serial entrepreneurship, and the ways they’ve taken care of themselves and each other.
JG: Let's start at the beginning — tell me about why you studied architecture, and how you chose where you studied architecture?
EL: I became enamored with a house plan my dad brought home and showed me when I was in first grade. I learned that plans are made by architects, and from that day forward, I announced I wanted to be an architect. My older sister chose to attend the University of Kentucky (UK) to study business. I followed in her footsteps for no other reason than I had fallen in love with a Mormon boy, who attended a small liberal arts school not far from UK. He had no idea I was in love with him, but I was going to study architecture, become Mormon, and marry him. Nothing ever came of the Mormon boy, not even a date, but when I visited my sister at school one semester to check out the architecture school, it blew my mind. I applied, and got in.
OO: I had decided I wanted to be a lawyer at the time of college applications — I flirted with the idea of being an architect all through my childhood, but was also interested in English and policy making. I headed to the University of Virginia, and with art being a big part of my life, I also signed up for a sculpture class. Into the semester, my sculpture professor promptly and bluntly told me I was pursuing the wrong career and insisted on my transfer into UVA’s Architecture School. It was wonderful guidance; architecture school taught me how to have an idea, how to test and develop that idea, and how to communicate it to others.
After working for three years and completing my NCARB hours, I selected Yale for graduate school. I knew I wanted to teach and I was also still interested in how the built environment and the communication skills of an architect could be applied to larger social issues and Yale was a good match to pursue those joint ambitions.
Bell House Aerial. Photography by Gary Jobe Builders.
Bell House Exterior. Photography by Erin Sterling Lewis.
Tell me about your experiences working for various offices before starting your practice. What did you learn that you still apply today?
EL: Oz and I met at the office where we both had our very first architecture jobs — Frank Harmon Architect (FHA) in Raleigh, NC. After graduation I decided along with my then-boyfriend and fellow architecture graduate that North Carolina was our next destination. I wanted to work in a small firm that mimicked the studio culture I so loved at school. A professor of mine gave me a list of small firms in the Raleigh area. FHA quickly topped my list and I landed an interview soon after graduation.
I ended up working at Frank’s for over eight years – all of them deeply formative. Frank was an incredibly generous and trusting teacher and I learned how to take the lead on projects I had no business leading so fresh out of school, get over my near debilitating stress of talking to clients on the phone in an open office, speak up about opinions I had about design, present at client meetings large and small, and so on. I also began to learn a bit about what it meant to be a woman in architecture, but it would take another several years in life and in practice before gaining the understanding I have today.
The boyfriend became my husband and eventually worked alongside me at Frank’s. We divorced less than three years after we married and he left the office. This was about the time Oz was hired. Her presence was a breath of fresh air — we became fast friends and often talked about opening an architecture firm or shop one day.
“Be curious; ask the follow up question. Look intentionally at things to figure out how they go together. Find a friend that speaks honestly to you. And finally, sketch, sketch, sketch!”
OO: One of my favorite memories from those days was Sunday afternoon — Frank would open the doors and windows and put on opera, loud. We’d sit around this horrible neon green wood print table and hand draw details. He’d explain the role of each material and show us when and how to push the boundaries of a standard detail or how to invent something to get it to do what we needed for the project. Frank was so good about giving young architects experience. I remember my first job was leading a state project for the NC Zoological Park. Here I am, fresh out of undergrad, leading a project with multiple consultants and the intricacies of a public funded budget.
After graduate school I was privileged to lead several projects for Jeanne at Studio Gang. The scale and aspirations of those projects was unlike my experiences thus far. I found the skill set similar to what I had previously used doing residential projects, but just on a larger level, where communication and organization is that much more important. On those projects I learned how to coordinate multiple voices. I also learned how to dream big and set larger goals, allowing yourself to figure out the detailing as you go.
Woodburn Residence Progress. Photo by Oz Ozburn.
How did o p e n studio eventually come about?
EL: Oz left Frank’s office in 2009 to attend grad school and I in 2010 alongside a current colleague to form a partnership and start a practice of our own. He and I worked together for almost ten years and built an incredible studio that remains successful to this day.
OO: I finished at Yale and moved to Chicago. Though states apart, Erin and I stayed close as friends and kept discussing ways we could collaborate. We ended up creating an initiative that facilitated conversations around socially responsible urban development called Connections 81.2. We successfully pulled off a city-wide three-day charrette in 2018, were asked to turn it into a graduate studio for NC State’s College of Architecture later that year, and were planning the second iteration in 2019.
EL: While planning the next Connections event, a struggle with mental illness that had been buried for many years, almost took my life and afforded me the opportunity to step away completely from my personal and professional life to heal. After hundreds of hours of treatment and therapy, I was able to see clearly that I needed to make a big life change in order to maintain the health and mental stability I had worked so hard in treatment to achieve. I had also been able to see that running a firm and my involvement in other architectural initiatives, while rewarding in many ways, was keeping me from full immersion in the glory and hell of the design process, which I dearly missed. Additionally, the pandemic revealed a deep affinity for the peace and quiet of working from home. Being open to these truths inspired me to leave the firm I helped create and start o p e n studio in the summer of 2020.
OO: I can’t express how hard it was to watch a dear friend go through such trials. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you Erin, but I keep all the letters we wrote each other during your treatment in a special box. Having been colleagues, travel companions, and life collaborators for over a decade, it was incredible to watch Erin heal and grow.
Deciding to pause the Connections initiative was hard. I had left Studio Gang in 2017 to start my own office as well as a non-profit that focused exactly on issues that Connections was starting to tackle. While Erin took a pause to focus on her health and family, I took the energy we had grown and applied it another way. I founded Ladder Up in 2020, which is a nonprofit that trains women in the residential construction trades. We made some great progress that year, but due to the pandemic, I maintained my small architectural firm to help fund the pilot projects.
“Feed your imagination well and often, never lose sight of what brings you joy, and take care of yourself.”
EL: In 2021, solidly into my forties, my now husband and I decided to try and have a baby – my first, his third. I never thought that practicing architecture and being a mother was possible for me, even though in my heart of hearts, I longed to have a child more than anything. What started as a plan for Oz to fill in from afar as I had my daughter turned into a merging of our practices – finally our dream was coming true!
OO: Having been working solo for five years, I was ecstatic to have another voice in the design process, something that I didn’t know how much I missed until the pandemic. I’ll never forget mapping out our first few months as business partners on graph paper with colored pencils, talking about how I’d cover for you during your maternity leave if you did the same for me later.
EL: And I did! Oz had her daughter just this May.
OO: It’s actually pretty crazy. And now we’ve been in business for two years as open studio but it’s almost our twentieth anniversary working together.
Looking back at it all, what have been the biggest challenges? How did you both manage through perceived disappointments or setbacks?
EL: From my very early days in architecture school, I wanted to be a successful architect. I began to believe that architecture mattered more than most anything else and that if I wasn’t working at it all the time, that meant I wasn’t dedicated enough. Much of my experience in architecture school was about pleasing people, namely professors and jurors — all within the spirit of working hard, exploring ideas, and making beautiful things. Pleasing people became synonymous with success to me and before I knew it, everything I did went towards being who I thought everyone thought I should be. It was exhausting and for a period of time, I wasn’t sure I even wanted to continue practicing architecture. Thankfully, I was able to dig deep, and rediscover what I love most about architecture — dreaming up solutions to challenges and bringing them to life.
OO: I suffer from serial entrepreneurship. I love architecture, love knowing how to build things, love figuring out new ways to create inspiring spaces; however, the other half of my brain and heart wants to take all the abilities that we as designers inherently use and apply them to larger social issues. Erin and I deliberately built in space for Connections and for me to explore this side of design. Just last year I moved to Charlottesville for a year to teach full time at the University of Virginia. Now back in Chicago, I continue work with the Goldin Institute. I think my constant challenge is how to find ways to expand the role of “Architect” and apply our expertise to things beyond our projects.
Who are you admiring now and why?
EL: Patti Smith. I admire how deeply she honors all the people, places, and things that have influenced her. I admire the authenticity in her work as an artist, writer, and human being.
OO: Always admiring Grafton — connection to place; love of texture and materials; reinvention in, and mastery of, massing approach to each project; finding purpose in the love of the work not in the need for spotlight or fame. Also, Taylor Swift. Duh.
Belden Residence. Photography by Tom Harris Photography.
What is the impact you’d like to have on the world? What is your core mission? And, what does success in that look like to you?
EL: I wanted my greatest impact to be changing the world in a measurable way. Turns out, it was an impossible task, largely because I wasn’t able to define how I would know whether or not I succeeded. However, I was able to find a definition of success that is satisfactory and achievable.
Success is prioritizing myself and my family over my work; is making a living doing what we love by working with nice people and making beautiful things; receiving an unexpected text or email from a former client saying, “Thank you for creating something I never thought possible”. Success is maintaining our woman-owned business that proudly offers full-pay maternity leave, child care subsidy, health care, and flexible schedules.
OO: I’d like to have an impact in my family, raising my daughter to become a kind person and good leader. I’d like to have a positive impact in my community by actively observing and intentionally participating. I’d like my career in architecture to create deliberate and beautiful places.
Success to me is similar to Erin — creating and maintaining an office that listens to clients and helps them excavate their true desires and needs and turns it into beautiful space. It’s also an office that gets us excited on the daily to run. A year ago, Erin and I traveled to Paris to commemorate our first year as partners and soak up some inspiration. We sat in a Paris cafe and outlined where we wanted to be in five years. I am so thankful to say that all of the personal and professional goals we dreamt up while sipping wine and eating cheese, are currently on track.
Finally, what advice do you have for those starting their career? Would your advice be any different for women?
EL: Feed your imagination well and often, never lose sight of what brings you joy, and take care of yourself.
OO: Be curious; ask the follow up question. Look intentionally at things to figure out how they go together. Find a friend that speaks honestly to you. And finally, sketch, sketch, sketch!