Designer of the Day: Brit Epperson

Here, we ask designers to take a selfie and give us an inside look at their life.

Age: 36

Occupation: Architect and interior designer

Instagram: @studioplow

Hometown: I grew up on a sprawling wheat farm in the two-stoplight rural town of Fairview, Oklahoma.

Studio Location: We are based out of Northern California with offices in San Francisco and the Valley of the Moon.

Describe what you make: Studio Plow is a multidisciplinary architecture and design studio known for an aesthetic that is restrained, yet warm and soulful. Working in collaboration, we craft a narrative that uncovers the spirit of each space, mapping its full potential. With this carefully considered and highly curated approach, we create spaces that are unique to our clients and their values.

The most important thing you’ve designed to date: A home for my parents near the foot of Pikes Peak in Colorado. The spacious, ground-up residential project was the product of years of dreaming and design iteration. The result is a forever gathering place for some of the people closest to my heart.

Describe the problem your work solves: We aim to tell impactful stories about the client, the space, and objects. Each project is a new opportunity for discovery, resulting in completely bespoke design.  

Describe the project you are working on now: We are currently in construction and partnering with Grain Built on a bar project just outside of Joshua Tree. Playing with desert tones and dissolving the line between interior and exterior, the bar is an integrated part of the landscape.

Describe the project you are working on now: Studio Plow is also helping a long-time client transform their Park City home. This residence is focused on family gatherings and holiday parties. As it is a ski-in/ski-out mountain hideaway, the design team is working to integrate a softer and lighter interior design into the rustic mountain lodge structure.

A new or forthcoming project we should know about: Plow has shifted to a remote-first studio with team members stretching from Colorado to Oklahoma and Southern California. This has given us the opportunity to rethink how we interact with our clients and team members. Earlier this year we began conceptualizing a new client experience. We are flipping the traditional design office model on its head and are in the process of creating our own showroom and gallery in a beautiful residence north of San Francisco.  

As a woman-owned studio, we naturally gravitate to a community of creative women who challenge, support and push us to go further and do better. To highlight the voices of some of our incredible collaborators, we are curating an ongoing series of interviews on our website. Our interview series, In Conversation With, illuminates the extraordinary people behind Plow.

What you absolutely have to have in your studio: I must have copious amounts of daylight and my aging feline co-worker, Lucy, as a constant companion in my workspace. I also seem to need an ever-growing collection  of vintage furniture such as a Marcel Breuer–designed Cesca chair, upholstered in a tired, minty green which was rescued from the trash of my old office building and now acts as my desk chair.

What you do when you’re not working: I say this somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but I’m often torturing my kind and long-suffering partner (also an architect) with home renovation projects. We purchased a new home earlier this year and are slowly renovating the interior ourselves. When I’m not renovating, I’m likely in my studio sewing or knitting handmade garments. A couple projects on my workbench right now are the cozy Sweater No. 9 by My Favourite Things Knitwear and the Bisque Trousers by Vivian Shao Chen.

Sources of creative envy: The audacious use of color by Luis Barragán, the bravery of Charlotte Perriand, and the quiet genius of Madeleine Vionnet. I’m also very inspired by my bucolic childhood. Studio Plow is named in homage to the long, hot summer days I spent plowing wheat fields. I recently visited my childhood home and collected a jar of the iron-red dirt from the roads surrounding it, and had it ground into ink by the talented James Tucker of the Aesthetic Union for Studio Plow’s printed materials.

The distraction you want to eliminate: I have a love/hate relationship with social media. I often find it to be an endless spiral of meaningless content, but it can also offer an interesting way to find and connect with other creatives.

Concrete or marble? Marble.

High-Rise Or Townhouse? Townhouse.

Remember Or Forget? Remember to forget.

Aliens Or Ghosts? Ghostsssss.

Dark Or Light? Light.