Led by Devin O’Neill and Faith Rose, the Brooklyn based O'Neill Rose Architects have been widely recognized for their cozy and clean-lined residential and interior work. For this week's Small Studio Snapshot, we talked with the husband-and-wife team about how they got their start, and the hurdles they've overcome along the way.

How many people are in your practice?

There are 5 people in our office.

How did you guys meet each other?

We met in graduate school at Yale but later discovered our paths had crossed many times before that.

Why were you originally motivated to start your own practice?

We wanted to be able to focus on our own practice, direction, and work. We wanted the opportunity to go after the projects we are interested in, and develop them in a direction that supports our over all body of work. It was important to us to have had a variety of experiences within the profession of architecture before we started our own firm. Before we knew it, we were almost 10 years out from school. Then the crash in 2008 woke us and we decided we shouldn't wait any longer. The crash was really tough for some of our friends, while others weathered it well. We realized if we built a small firm which was versatile and nimble, it would be able to handle most unexpected challenges. We were very fortunate during the recession; we had only one employee and enough long term projects to carry us through.  I think it also helped that we are financially risk averse; we take the leaps we need to.

What hurdles have you come across?

One of the most interesting hurdles has been dealing with the different demands of managing an office, managing the projects, and meeting the needs of our clients, all at the same time. You have to constantly shift roles and adapt the way you lead, manage and listen.

Each role is not that hard to do but the act of constantly shifting between these roles can be quite challenging. Negotiating between the client, contractor and employees—sometimes all at once—can be tricky while you are trying to keep the consistency of the project together.

What advice do you wish someone had offered to you before starting your own practice?

We were lucky to work for firms with fairly clear structures that we wanted to emulate; even so, there are practical things that we had to learn on our own; like how to build a solid core of employees, how to position yourself publicly, and other strategies that really allow your firm to develop and become more versatile.

Is scaling up a goal or would you like to maintain the size of your practice?

Scaling up is absolutely a goal, but we want to do it very slowly and intentionally. We don't want to grow in a way that causes us to need to accept projects that aren't right, or find ourselves in a financially untenable position.  Architects don't tend to talk about the financial side, but in the end, our firm is a business, and we work hard to apply good business practice in order to keep our work strong and focused.

What are the benefits of having your own practice? And staying small?

It allows us the freedom to develop our own work and create a firm that supports that work. Being small gives you the opportunity to be involved in cultivating projects the whole way through. For example, if a moment arises during construction which allows us to further develop a design idea, we are able to do so because we are there on the site.