Tricks of the Trade with Jeff Ramirez
Jeff Ramirez cofounded The Up Studio in 2011, bringing a background in brand design to a practice built by two architects. Since then, the New York studio has built a reputation for making big architectural ideas easy to understand and easy to love. We sat down with Jeff to talk about the value of asking "why," the risk that got his firm off the ground, and the patience it takes to build an art collection you truly love.
Uprise Art (UA): You have a background in brand design and started The Up Studio alongside two architects. How has that shaped the studio's approach?
Jeff Ramirez (JR): At first, it was just a logo! My now-partners (John Patrick Winberry and Adam Wanaselja) had worked together for several years in a traditional residential firm but they were both about to get their architectural licenses and go separate ways to launch their own firms exploring more contemporary work. When I was introduced to them I was immediately drawn to their big ideas but really confused by the way they were visualizing and presenting those ideas (to say it nicely). I quickly became obsessed with the challenge of simplifying architectural concepts and making them easy for anyone to understand visually. So, we decided to all partner together and launched The Up Studio in 2011. Over time our studio grew, and my imposter syndrome grew alongside it. But at some point I realized that my greatest value was in what I didn’t know. Because if I don't understand it, then our clients probably won't understand it either. I constantly have to ask my team why they are making certain decisions and I think my persistent questioning of “why?” has given our firm a much clearer approach to how we communicate our ideas and how we talk about our work.
UA: What is the design ethos of The Up Studio?
JR: Design that brings joy. We are primarily focused on custom home design in / and around New York. But, lately the opportunities for new projects in new exciting regions / typologies / etc have grown. Before we decide to take on any new project we try to evaluate if our designs could bring joy to our potential client’s lives and if the project will bring joy to our team's daily workflow.
It’s an incredible luxury that we’re now in a place where we can be selective with the work that we take on, and we put a lot of effort into making sure we bring in the best projects that we can!
Without taking that risk and betting on ourselves, I’m not sure we would have ever been able to get this thing off the ground.
Jeff Ramirez
UA: Was there a breakthrough project where everything you'd been building toward finally clicked?
JR: In around 2015, the three of us had been working together for nearly 3 years trying to convince people to let us design a home for them. But (understandably) no one wanted to be the first person to let us try – the risk and expense was just too high. It became clear to us that it wasn’t going to happen unless we took a huge gamble on ourselves. So, we found an empty piece of land in a beach town, we (barely) scraped together investments, and then designed, developed, marketed, and sold our own home. We learned a lot of hard lessons (ex. we did NOT have the personalities to be developers and working to 3AM every day wasn't sustainable) but it also gave us a proof of concept that ultimately led to our first home design clients. Without taking that risk and betting on ourselves, I’m not sure we would have ever been able to get this thing off the ground.
UA: What's something you've learned from the branding side of your practice that's changed how you approach architecture or interiors, or vice versa?
JR: I was trained to (try to) see things from the eyes of the end user. Whether it’s our clients, a planning board, or the public, I need to figure out how to explain our team's designs in a way that makes sense to people who haven’t studied architecture or interiors for decades. Usually, that comes down to try to get to the humanity of the design. Maybe the architecture is designed to capture the most natural light inside the home, so I need to communicate the value that light will bring to people’s daily lives. Maybe the furniture we selected is made by hand, and I need to communicate the care that the craftspeople living put into the pieces.
UA: How do you approach sourcing art for a client?
JR: So much of custom home design is about getting to know our clients personally. If we’re genuinely going to create a space that helps them live their ideal lives, then there’s a lot we need to know about them to make that happen. The challenge is that architects and interior designers rarely have the luxury of the time it takes to really know someone before we need to begin working on their design. One way I tried to solve this dilemma was by designing a card game that functions like a personality test. For them, it helps them discover amenities they might not have known about or thought about. But for us, it helps us quickly learn who they are, what they value, and who they aspire to become. Because of this, and because our team is designing the architecture and interior design simultaneously, we often know a lot about their life before we suggest any art. Maybe we know about the best trip they've taken as a family, or the kinds of films they go back to regularly, or how comfortable they are with us pushing them out of their comfort zone. These all become hints that lead us to selecting art that feels like them!
Jeff's Picks:
Artists you're loving lately: Senem Oezdogan for the beautiful relationships to architectural forms, Dan Covert who has expanded to sculptural forms in space and tactile techniques or surface applications that I want to touch and feel, and Allison Strickland whose work feels like a piece of nature and seems to encourage a moment of calm in our busy/active studio.
Where you turn for inspiration: Lately I’ve been working hard to create a film series for our studio that offers a fun, engaging, and beautiful look behind the curtain of the design process. I knew from the beginning that if I were going to create this series, that it would have to be much more intentional and considered than any other film project we've worked on in the past. In doing that prep work and research, I’ve looked at filmmaking in a whole new lens. I've become infuriating to watch anything with because I pause frames and rewind scenes constantly to dissect or admire them. I’ve started to re-discover a whole world of inspiration that I had been hiding in plain sight my whole life!
Rules for building your art collection: When I interviewed Tze Chun for our own video series, she suggested something that isn't always possible in the homes we design, but IS possible in my own home: wait. Holding off on purchasing art for my own walls is hard. I still currently have spaces in my apartment that feel naked. But, she's right. Waiting to find the right piece is often so much better than rushing to fill in a blank space.
Best design advice: The piece of advice I go back to over and over again is “start with why.” I first heard it from the writer Simon Sinek, but it has become an incredibly helpful tool for me and ties back to why I even helped start this studio in the first place – I really believe that if we as designers can get better at explaining WHY we are making the choices we make, that we can create better homes and spaces that genuinely bring joy to people’s lives. But, I don't know, maybe all they really needed was a logo…
Published Sep 9, 2026
