In Conversation with Nick Lowry

Have you always been interested in home design in particular, or was there another type of design you started with?

I feel like I had a very similar journey to a lot of people - from fashion to architecture, then furniture, and more broadly interiors. It makes sense when you think about it: design is really about what you experience and interact with most in your life. For a lot of people fashion is that entry point, and as you go deeper you start noticing how much the disciplines cross-pollinate - how fashion designers reference architectural works, how the spaces where things are shown shape how the pieces feel. Then you just go further down the rabbit hole.

That's kind of how it was for me, too. You start fashion and you kind of go into the next thing. I feel like it's pretty common, especially in New York, for people to go that way. You go in the world and it's the first thing everyone kind of sees.

For sure - everyone needs clothes, and fashion is such a direct way to express yourself. Everyone needs a chair too, but there's a difference between splurging on your first jacket from a brand you love versus committing that same amount to a piece of furniture. One's easy to justify, the other feels like a much bigger decision.

Do you remember when you first started being more intentional about your home?

I was lucky to start getting interested in home and interiors before having my own actual space. Then during college with my then-girlfriend (now wife), we started to build out a little bit of a wish list with a shared note of "dream pieces".

Oh, wow. That's early.

For sure! It was just a good way to list out pieces you saw on Tumblr, in magazines, or came across some other way - building out a little rolodex of pieces we'd love to own one day when we had a space that could accommodate them.

Then after we got our own place, we very slowly started to check things off - picking up pieces as the opportunity arose, the price was right, we had the space, and it wasn't a splurge.

I feel like you have to triangulate because it's so expensive. Do you remember the first piece you were like, oh I'm so excited about this?

I would say probably our Wassily Chair. It's a 1960s version produced by Gavina, and it's in this really unique dark brown, almost purple-hued leather. It popped up on Instagram through a dealer - priced well, but without a lot of the more specific details listed. And I was like, okay, that color wasn't produced by Knoll, but everything else checks out, so it's probably pre-Knoll, from around the 60s. Seeing it in person confirmed it. It was around $800, which turned out to be a great deal.

Yeah, not bad. I feel like it's always fun when you get something, then you start doing the back research to figure it out.

Do you have any kind of guiding principle that you follow when you're kind of curating the space these days? Or has it evolved over time?

It's definitely evolved over time. Going back it was a lot of modernist pieces and capital 'D' design - known and named designers. But we've continued to gravitate towards things with material honesty as a grounding factor. Pieces made of simple materials, with visible hand work - that proof of life that a person was there and made it. So a lot of my focus now has been on smaller design studios, artists, and independent makers.

I feel like for me too it's evolved over time. For most people I know, the journey is kind of constantly winding.

How much of your process, for example coming up with the objects, designing your space is, would you say is intuitive, versus planned ahead? I know you have that list that you've looked at. Is it like, this is the end picture I'm planning? Or as you go through and someone presents something, or you see something, you're like, oh, I actually really like that.

I think it's a mixture. I'm definitely a planner, but since it's a space my wife and I share - I've learned to 'pitch it.' She's more visual, so if I have an idea, a home project, or come across a piece I love, the next step is showing her the pieces or ideas, and then later I'll mock it up or mood board it in context - like, 'hey, this is what I'm thinking and this is how it works with the rest of our stuff.'

It's funny you say that. I feel like over time I've gone from being casual about, oh, why don't we do this? Or, how about we do this? To getting more and more formal with the pitches. You do it enough and at some point I realized that's just the easiest way for me to present this to someone.

Yeah, exactly. I think as soon as there are more than two furniture changes in a space, you lose the existing contextual relationship with it - so the pitch and mocking things up starts to really matter.

The context of the space itself changes, you have to rethink it in some way.

For sure - like if you change the hue of a rug, or anything that shifts the warmth of the space, how do the existing pieces react? Does it ground things more? Does it lighten the space? The context changes, so you need something that shows the full frame of reference.

I've noticed that when changing a space it can be hard because it's unlikely you're going to change all the pieces at once. You're going to change two things here, one here, one here. It's almost like you're slowly snaking your way towards a new direction. But between the final destination and where you start, it has to all be connected. Otherwise it just doesn't make sense.

Yeah, otherwise there's a huge disconnect. A home is always a work in progress - constantly being edited and added to, but for it to feel cohesive you need direction. You don't want it to feel like a construction zone at any given stage, so it has to work throughout.

Definitely. One of the things that's fun about your space is you have obviously a very aesthetic space, but it's also very utilitarian in a lot of ways. It's very organized, like you've mentioned you've been doing lots of the work with some of the organizational type stuff. How do you think about the balance between functional versus aesthetic?

I feel like the best example is kitchen spaces. When it comes to organizational inspiration I like to learn from the people who do it for a living - watch chefs, check out open kitchen tours at great restaurants, see how they organize and operate since they interact with that space far more intensely than any of us do at home. If you're able to distill even a tenth of that into something that makes your life a little easier, that's a win. And I think utility can be beautiful in its own right - reducing visual noise by standardizing or simplifying what you have is organization in itself.

I've seen spaces that are so pure utilitarian but so cleanly done that it almost becomes an aesthetic itself, the aesthetic is the utilitarian-ness.

Like an old knolled workshop wall.

Yeah, exactly, which can be beautiful. It's a different type, it's almost conceptual instead of aesthetic.

Another question I have is about design stimuli and just being online. Being online can be so overwhelming in terms of the sheer volume of design stimuli, content, concepts, design periods, styles that you're seeing. How do you engage with this unending stream of inspiration?

I think it's hard. I'll open by saying I don't watch that much design 'content.' Most of my consumption is through object discovery - auctions, marketplaces, dealers, or reading articles - anything that starts a research rabbit hole. It's more like, oh I saw this piece or vignette and now I want to learn more about it or do something like that in our space. It feels more targeted rather than absorbing everything constantly and getting caught up in FOMO, trends, or other people's spaces.

It sounds like you have a very strong sense of directionality within you and you're not just passively consuming the endless bombardment.

If you just scroll you're going to be constantly consuming and end up in an echo chamber. Algorithmically the more you interact with specific content, platforms learn that you like that individual or that type of content, and you just get fed more of the same - a photocopy of a photocopy.

It's like how everyone's pinning the same thing.

Yeah, exactly. If you're building that neural net of the 'same' things you're going to get a really weird feedback loop. It's worth being intentional about what you interact with so you're still seeing things that are new, things that aren't exactly your taste, and gaining some fresh perspective.

Related to that, what makes you feel some kind of way about furniture? What makes you feel like an object or furniture is worth investing in?

I think craft and the story behind it. When it comes to objects I've been continually gravitating towards what I was saying before - material honesty, but also things that reflect myself or our experiences.

Objects or art picked up while traveling carry their own connection - they feel more personal than just a 'purchase.' But pieces you've been hunting or lusting after for a while have a similar kind of story imprinted on them. And then there's the maker themselves - knowing who's behind something, appreciating their craft, and then introducing it to your life that way.

Yeah, that makes sense. Do you have any references, whether it's a book, a list of pieces that you like, IG posts, or like a pin board that you save and keep coming back to over and over?

I'm very type-A in that if I really like something, I'll screenshot it for my own personal record. Sometimes you save something on Instagram or Pinterest and later you can't find it because a brand pivoted, someone cleared their account, or old posts just disappear. So I've gotten into the habit of archiving things myself - lists, boards, folders.

I'll use Pinterest for mood boards because it's an easy way to curate a feeling, but then I'll have separate notes with specific things I'm hunting for - whether for our current space or a future one. It's just easier to reference when you're at a flea market or doing a deep dive online.

Super organized.

You mentioned over time you want to change the look of your home. Are there pieces that you feel even if you change everything, this is the one piece that's just got to stay?

I'm really happy with the direction the sitting area of our living room has moved towards this past year. It goes back to the idea of things being personal - it has more pieces by small designers, makers, and found objects. Above our sofa we have a painting by my wife, Anne Li. Our coffee table was commissioned from Gregory Beson, who's a Brooklyn-based furniture maker and artist. Our stainless steel and stone side table is by Korean designer Sisan Lee. And then an antique patinated bronze vase we found on a trip.

These are pieces we have a personal connection to - they feel as though they're truly, truly ours. And I think it's difficult for furniture to do that.

Another example is our sofa - it's from the 70s, a Le Corbusier-style piece made in Italy, great leather, full feather down. We found it on Craigslist eight or so years ago for $400. It's a piece we'll have with us forever - whether in a future home, a bonus room, an office, whatever - because it truly feels like a part of us. We've lived with it, countless friends have slept on it, and there are a few scratches from zippers and general wear. It's comfortable, it's lived in.

It's a piece that became personal. We bought it nearly a decade ago, but it became something that's ours. It transitioned - similar to a hat or jacket you've had forever, worn a ton, traveled with, and created stories in. Eventually, it's just yours.

It's like your experience with it has made it what it is.

Exactly.

What about the total opposite, what if you had to start over completely fresh? You didn't have any objects, you had to start completely new, what would you start with? How would you anchor this new kind of beginning?

That's hard. I do think the most important piece in any space is probably a sofa. It's such a large piece of furniture that it structures everything - the flow, the feel, the scale. Whether it has legs and feels more airy versus something fully grounded, it changes a space more than anything else.

It's a piece you really need to be intentional about because swapping it out will have the biggest impact - more than a coffee table, dining table, or shelving.

It's where you spend a lot of time, too. It's both the size of it being so large, and where you spend the most time.

It's also the piece people compromise on the most. You can get something that's beautiful, but is it actually going to be a sofa you want to lounge on and watch a movie? Or is it just going to look great?

You have to find the balance between something you want to live with and something you love looking at. You can get away with prioritizing looks on an accent chair you might sit in a few hours a month, but your sofa, you're probably on it a few hours a day, just like your bed and an office chair.

Do you have anything that you used to love that you've since grown out of?

I'll go back to the Wassily Chair. It's still a piece I love as a design classic, but it's been a victim of dupeification - it's a 100 year old design, and reproductions have existed nearly as long.

Ours will probably go into storage when I find a replacement. I love our example, but in the future I'd relegate it to a secondary space. Not the living room or bedroom, but somewhere you can appreciate it as an object without it being the center of attention, like a guest bedroom or office.

It's a piece that's appeared in so many iconic spaces that it's become a natural springboard into interior design for a lot of people. From fashion like Rick Owens, to Bauhaus and brutalist design that matches that feeling - it's a very common thread.

It's the pipeline.

Exactly.

For me, there's so many pieces that I love or like from a design perspective, aesthetically, etc. But you only have so much space and what fits your space or what you need your space is not necessarily always in line with the objects you love the most. It's been kind of a process of realizing, oh, you know, this is amazing, it's one of my favorite pieces, but it doesn't necessarily belong in my home.

Another challenge with furniture compared to, let's say clothing, is it's more difficult to change out. Partly because of the price, partly because of the size, you're not seasonally changing your dining table per se. How do you think about going for more timeless pieces versus things that speak to you at any given moment?

I think it comes down to taking your time and categorizing what a piece actually is to you. A lot of things are solution-oriented - they're filling a need, not making a statement.

Whenever people ask me about furnishing a space I always say don't rush it. If you see someone move into an apartment and it's fully furnished within a month, they probably made quite a few mistakes along the way that will lead to wasted dollars and time - the overnight transformation narrative doesn't really work in practice, and trying to force it leads to more mistakes.

The bigger thing is you don't know how you're going to live with your space until you actually live in it and figure out how it flows. We've been in our apartment six years. Our sofa has been in three different layouts and we ended up back at the original. Our USM started as two bookshelves and a credenza that we floated around and it always felt like an afterthought. It wasn't until we reworked it - integrated my desk, built it out properly to display our books and objects - that it actually anchored the space. Now it holds everything: replaced a bar cart, a cabinet that stores some kitchen appliances, and gave us a ton of storage while still being a great piece of design. And even now it's a work in progress with little changes we're going to make in the future.

And a lot of that came from deliberately using more temporary solutions first. A $15 Facebook Marketplace bar cart filling a purpose until you find the right thing isn't a failure - it's smart. You're not going to drop $300 on something that might not be the perfect fit if you're still figuring it out. Solve the immediate problem cheaply, live with it, and when the right piece comes along you'll actually know it belongs there.

I think this way of categorizing is really smart. I'm a big fan of this thought process.

Is there a routine or ritual at home or space at home where you feel most kind of settled or at ease?

Probably my coffee station, it's both a utilitarian hobby and part of a daily ritual. We have a cup shelf full of ceramics that we've collected and drink from. It's a space that I love the feel of and interact with daily, it works well in practice and feels finished, which is nice.

It's clear that your space, your sensibility and your way of moving through the world resonates with a lot of people. Has sharing all this online impacted you?

It's accelerated opportunity - as 'home' has become my job over the years I've been able to sit down and spend more time thinking about interiors for work, and it's also allowed us to bring pieces we dreamed of as stretch goals into our home sooner through brand partnerships. Without that we probably would have slowly pieced it together over a longer time horizon, but with many of the same pieces - so it's been really meaningful.

From a more personal perspective, I'm really happy with how I've chosen to share things. I try to frame everything around the objects and makers rather than myself - it's our space, but the goal is to showcase the thing, not me. If someone recognizes me or bumps into me it's always 'I love your space' or 'I got X thing after seeing it in your video' - and honestly that's exactly what I'm going for.

I've deliberately tried to move in a different direction, somewhere more informative. Not review content, not lifestyle content - more like, here's an object I love, here's the story behind it, here's what drew me to it, and here's how it lives in our space.

I can definitely see that looking at your content. That part comes out and differentiates it, too.

Would you ever be interested in designing spaces for people or objects?

Interior consulting is something I'd definitely be interested in - but I'm very much in the mindset of, if you're not going to put everything into something, don't do it - especially if someone's paying you for it.

If I were to design spaces for others I'd want to shift my focus more fully towards that. You're living and breathing that process. To do it well it's a huge amount of research, creating full pitches, and learning what someone actually cares about and asking the right questions to get there. A lot of people don't know what they want - they'll describe how their space looks now, talk about their hobbies, or they might have expectations that don't align with their budget or existing architectural bones. Getting to that real answer and those compromises takes time and commitment.

On the making side, I'd rather platform the people who are able to dedicate most of their time to creating objects and let them do what they do best.

If I were to collaborate with a brand it would ideally be more iterative - tweaks to something they already make or are experts in. Changing the legs on a table, reworking a cabinet, picking finishes or adding details. Something that ends up creating a unique result with a story without requiring a full ground-up design process. Reworking with them rather than building from scratch.

I respect that. You go all in on the stuff you're doing is the sense I'm getting.

Last question - is there a design or creative dream that you haven't explored yet?

I think it would be having our own space - whether that's an apartment we buy or an actual house. The ability to make structural changes: layouts, flooring, tiles, finishes. There are real constraints with renting that you're always working around.

When renting you can do whatever as long as you can undo it, but being able to create something that meets our exact wants and how we actually live seems so freeing. Just being able to say, it's ours, we can just do it - rather than, okay how difficult is this to undo, how permanent is this really?

Is it worth the effort? Because we're just renting.

Exactly. I think that's the next move. Architectural elements define the direction of a space and the interior supports it - just like here, the skylight and the loft-like height define everything, and the interior decisions work with that rather than fighting against it. [editor's note: the interview took place in the Sun at Six gallery in Brooklyn]

It's part of what makes designing spaces in New York so hard because most spaces are just white boxes.

It's either white boxes, or in the case of so many newer builds now, they're roommate-focused - nine feet of living space, a sofa, a TV, and no room to get creative outside of a cookie-cutter layout. Good design needs some friction to work with - an awkward corner, an interesting window, a ceiling height that does something. When everything is optimized for maximum units per floor, there's nothing to respond to.

It's optimized for developers making money. It's not at all about what's comfortable or what people would want to live in.