Susana Simonpietri was exposed to art from an early age. Her mother, a university art professor, and her father, an attorney, were heavily involved in the art scene around San Juan, Puerto Rico. The family had a casita in their backyard that artist friends traveling to the island would stay in, creating a revolving door of talent and inspiration. “I don’t know that [that experience] made me want to be an artist; I think I realized from an early age that I was one because I thought the way they did,” Simonpietri tells host Dennis Scully on the latest episode of The Business of Home Podcast. “It made me realize that I had a tribe of people.”
She went on to pursue an education in literature and language, but her time studying abroad in England and France ignited a different passion for design and architecture. After earning her master’s in interior architecture from Pratt Institute in New York in 2004 and working for some high-profile firms in the city, she went out on her own, launching the design firm Chango in 2009. The Brooklyn-based studio has since grown to 30 employees, with projects regularly published in top shelter magazines.
Over the course of her firm’s 15 years, Simonpietri has prioritized creating a healthy work culture for her employees. “I had seen really toxic environments, and I was, without really stopping to pause and think about it, starting to emulate that when I started my firm, because that’s what I knew,” she says. “I started to realize that I wasn’t getting the best work out of people. I was feared in a way that I didn’t want to be feared, and I had to stop, take many steps back, and really study myself and say, ‘What do I want to be?’” She has since strived to create a workplace where employees feel comfortable, safe and supported—and free to speak their minds. “That then leads to these wonderful ideas creatively blossoming because everybody in the room has a place to be able to come and speak up and say, ‘What about this?’ or ‘What about this other thing?’” she explains. “It’s been a discovery for me, and I didn’t have any mentors in my life that did this. I never saw a good example. I was taking a risk, but what was the alternative? I would have been so unhappy.”
Elsewhere in the episode, Simonpietri talks about how she communicates and works with the younger generations of designers, why she sticks to residential projects over commercial, and how she’s used Instagram as a way to authentically attract new clients.
Crucial insight: One way the designer looks to create a positive work environment is through an in-depth screening protocol she developed for new clients that includes an online-inquiry questionnaire, introductory phone calls and a basic online search. That regimen was inspired by her experiences at other firms, where clients (some of whom later ended up in the news for their criminally abusive behavior) would make employees feel unsafe. “Part of the reason why my office goes through such an intense vetting process, and I hope to God that we never find out that any of our clients have issues like that, is that I don’t want to expose my team to anything like that, or have a working environment where people have to feel that way,” says Simonpietri.
Key quote: “One thing that I have found to be deeply beautiful in the process of developing a larger office is that I am one hundred trillion percent sure that the work that we are doing now is the best work we’ve ever done. I would never be able to do such complicated work with a small team. It’s the combination of all of these beautiful individuals coming together and the incredible pool of talent and sounding boards that we have. While having a bigger office could be, in a lot of ways, a nightmare, we figured out how to turn it into a positive on a daily basis, and I’m enjoying it.”
This episode is sponsored by Four Hands and Surya. Listen to the show below. If you like what you hear, subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
The Thursday Show
BOH executive editor Fred Nicolaus and host Dennis Scully discuss the biggest news in the industry, including more fallout from Hurricane Helene, a renovation boom and what a controversial celebrity home tour says about the state of design media. Later, Christina Juarez and Benjamin Reynaert share the story of founding their shoppable event, The Ticking Tent.
This episode is sponsored by Loloi and Isla Porter. Listen to the show below. If you like what you hear, subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
