No matter the weather, the lighting is always perfect at Quarters, the new gallery slash concept store and bar for In Common With. It makes sense that the Tribeca loft is perpetually ambient for a brand that has, until recently, focused on lighting design. Founded by Felicia Hung and Nick Ozemba, the Brooklyn-based company expands their offerings by designing not only a new hub for creatives, but also new and first-ever furniture, tiles, and hardware line.
Now open, Quarters occupies an 8,000-square-foot floor (which will eventually become two) of a historic 19th-century loft. With the help of Ian Starling, the duo converted the open floorplan to something between a residence and hospitality project. Walls were erected to structure the layout into different rooms, showing off different pieces from the studio (or the studio’s many collaborators), while offering different sites for activation.
“It’s theatrical, the way we made the space planning decisions,” Ozemba told AN Interior. The duo drew on castles as inspiration for the loft’s dramatic flair. For instance, the dining room is surrounded by doors that can be closed off for an intimate gathering and then flung open as the food is brought to the room. Throughout, a sense of art deco is felt in the many uses of exotic woods and materials.
Programming also informed the organization of the space. Quarters is more than a showroom, it’s also a bar open to the public. Right off the foyer, the bar greets guests with vintage furniture and a fresco full of eels with earrings by artist Claudio Bonuglia—an early introduction to the brand’s elegant whimsy and collaborative approach.
The coffee table situated within the bar is the first introduction to the brand’s first furniture collection. For the series of wooden furniture, In Common With commissioned 10 tattoo artists to a create flash sheet that was then inscribed into the tabletops with a branding iron. The tattoo tables are shown throughout the space in their different iterations like as side or dining tables.
Square pendants in the pantry space utilize the tattoo iconography in a different way. Below it, the space is centered around a countertop, bookended with custom millwork whose shelves are stocked with accessories and food—which are also available to purchase. “A lot of it is either very Italian or very Taiwanese. It reflects so much of what we put into our product, and the more accessible price point. In classic Martha Stewart fashion, everyone can enjoy something here,” explained Ozemba.
Across from the bar, on the other side of the foyer, lie two bathrooms that feature another first: a geometric tile collection made in collaboration with a century-old tile factory and designed with artist Shane Gabier. The rooms showcase two of the four glazes available in the tile collection, complemented with spherical hardware the duo designed and new lighting pieces. In the first, a fixture made from a silk-screened glass powder sits on top of glass, fused together, and tiled into a gridded pattern. In the second bathroom, a hand-cut striped pattern is turned into a basket weave lighting fixture. Put together, the rooms attest to the studio’s ability to balance both decorative designs and more architectural products.
Seahorse-shaped scones, also made in collaboration with Gabier, light the way from the pantry to the study and bedroom. The residential display helps situate the studio’s new bed with an upholstered headboard, tattoo side tables, and wood and cotton table lamps made from a patchwork technique. The vignette is, as Hung described, “like letting people into our brain of how we imagine these pieces being used.”
The bedroom opens up into the Great Room where more vintage furniture is paired with In Common With’s various lighting collections. In the larger space it’s easy to see how cohesive the studio’s many releases are despite being from different designers. It’s not that the duo set out to cultivate a certain aesthetic with each collaboration, noted Ozemba, but they approach each with a knowledge of material and craft: “We’re using techniques that are centuries-old. We both think that it’s really important to hold on to that as everything else around us is drifting to a more manufactured and industrialized production method.”
“Which kind of speaks to our design process,” continued Hung. “The way we apply color and forms focuses a lot on how the raw material wants to be worked.” The dedication to craft it also what excited the duo in collaborating with fashion designers which the studio is currently tinkering with.
The warm, inviting showroom-cum-bar is testament enough to In Common With’s more humanistic approach. It’s shown even in the meticulous details of the interior. The exit signs have been plastered into the wall for a smoother, clean finish. The fireplace at the top of the room is not actually a fireplace but the HVAC return turned into a decorative element. Behind the large wooden built-in bookcase, an obtrusive fire pipe is concealed.
“A lot of our inspiration for this was museums of people’s houses, like architects and designers that are now dead, but how they lived with objects and shaped their space,” said Ozemba. “I’m happy that we’re creating a dialogue in that way, because I feel like a lot of what happens between interior designers and architects and product designers is transactional.” Quarters, a walk-in-no-appointment-necessary showroom, gathering space, and bar, seeks to be that bridge.