Felicia Hung & Nick Ozemba: Common beauty

When we started In Common With, we wanted to make things that were well made and collaborative with the people and environments around it. Lighting made sense as a starting point. It let us explore how different materials, processes, and perspectives could come together. Since then, our vision’s grown. We’re still led by curiosity and thinking in systems, but now we’re asking bigger questions, not just how to build a product, but how to shape the environment it lives in.

Quarters is a natural extension of that. It’s a space where the ideas behind the work can live out in the open. From the vintage furniture to the tableware we designed for The Bar, everything’s connected. It reflects how we like to live, host, and create. It’s less of a showroom and more of an ongoing conversation. And we started all this in a 200-square-foot studio, which meant we had to be scrappy. That constraint became part of our DNA.

A lot of our inspiration comes from the production techniques and how to push the traditional processes to the limit. This allows us to collaborate with artists, makers, clients, materials and environments in a very connected way. Our experience in operations and understanding of materiality helped streamline and elevate possibilities for how we can bring this out into the world.

Design can absolutely reflect individuality, but it also has the power to create connection. Right now there’s so much focus on speed; being the first to express a thought or take up space. But the best ideas often come from slowing down and engaging in dialogue. For us, collaboration is everything.

With Quarters, we weren’t trying to recreate the feeling of home, we wanted to build something more aspirational. People go to hospitality spaces to get out of their routines, to indulge a little, to feel inspired. Quarters brings that same spirit. It’s a space that feels warm and coherent, but with just enough edge to spark delight.

For us, it’s about world-building. Every touchpoint is connected, creating a rhythm that feels intentional and complete. You might not know exactly why it works, but your body relaxes, your guard drops, and something in you says, I like this. That’s what we’re aiming for.

We’re seeing a shift toward more layered, emotional spaces. Ones that feel personal, but not performative. People are looking for objects with substance that hold meaning but can connect to how they choose to live.

It’s something we’re always thinking about at In Common With—how to scale craft without losing the sense that someone’s hands made it. Our answer is working closely with the people making the pieces. It’s about understanding what makes their process special, then figuring out how to streamline without stripping away the technique or the soul. Our Fazzo shade from our Flora collection is a great example of this. It’s made using fazzoletto, a traditional Italian glassblowing technique where the rim folds back on itself from the heat and gravity. Instead of forcing uniformity, we developed a mold as a starting point, not an end. It creates just enough structure while leaving space for variation and the kind of beautiful unpredictability that makes each piece feel unique.

The beauty of something handmade is that it’s not perfect. It takes time, it holds care, and you can feel that. We try to keep that energy in everything we make.

So much of the lighting is about what you don’t see. It’s the invisible work that shapes how a space feels. Our photoshoots are a way to bring that to the surface, to show how lighting can quietly transform a room. With our Strata collection, we designed the pieces to function as both light and sculpture. Especially in city living, where space is limited, that balance matters. We photographed the collection at Villa Borsani and Villa Viganò. Shooting at Villa Viganò was especially special; it was the first time they’d allowed a collection to be documented there. Coming off Salone, it felt like a full-circle moment.

We make objects for everything that happens around them, a meal, a conversation, a shared moment. Commonality, for us, is about designing with openness. It’s finding shared ground, whether that’s with each other, with our collaborators, or with the people living with our work.

We think in systems. Core, one of our first collections, is a good example of that. It gave us a framework for scale, finish, and materials that we could experiment within. That kind of structure keeps the design language consistent, but still leaves room to play and push things forward.

My phone. My husband calls it my gameboy.