In the world of interior design, few names represent the fusion of fine art, material craft, and modern living like Aubrey O’Brien. As the founder of Aubrey O’Brien Inc., a full-service interior design studio, she brings a uniquely personal and intuitive approach to transforming spaces. Each of her designs is a testament to her belief that environments should be deeply human, artistically expressive, and technically refined.
Aubrey’s work is rooted not only in aesthetics but in feeling. Her projects aren’t just about making spaces beautiful—they’re about creating a physical experience that nurtures, inspires, and functions in harmony with the people who inhabit them.
A Design Journey Built on Craft and Curiosity
Aubrey O’Brien’s story begins in a creative household where design was a daily practice. With a mother in interior design and a father in custom home building, she was raised amidst floor plans, job sites, and material samples. These early exposures gave her a foundation of both technical understanding and creative flexibility, and they sparked a lifelong passion for making space meaningful.
Her formal design education began at Ringling College of Art and Design, where she graduated as the Presidential Scholar for Interior Design. Her academic path also included LEED accreditation, an apprenticeship in traditional woodworking in Italy, and hands-on training in welding and metalwork—an unusual and powerful combination that defines the sensibility of her studio today.
Even before founding her own firm, Aubrey worked across diverse creative disciplines. She helped design iconic resorts for a global entertainment company, worked in fashion design and luxury retail interiors, and participated in an artist residency in Shanghai. Her breadth of experience allowed her to understand space not just as an architect or a designer, but also as a sculptor, storyteller, and craftsperson.
The Studio: Aubrey O’Brien Inc.
Aubrey O’Brien Inc. is a boutique interior design and art studio that delivers high-end residential and bespoke commercial projects. With a presence in both New York and Sarasota, the studio’s work extends across urban apartments, family homes, retail boutiques, workspaces, and more. The hallmark of every project is a deep, tailored process that centers on the individual client—never a pre-set aesthetic, but always a clear, cohesive vision.
The studio’s core services include:
Concept Development – Every project begins with listening, learning, and aligning. The studio works closely with clients to understand not just the function of a space, but the feeling it should evoke.
Interior Design & Space Planning – From structural refinements to furnishing layouts, Aubrey’s team considers the architecture, flow, light, and atmosphere of each room with both technical rigor and intuitive sensitivity.
Material and Product Sourcing – The firm curates surfaces, textiles, fixtures, and furnishings with meticulous attention to quality, sustainability, and tactile expression.
Custom Furniture and Fabrication – One of the studio’s most distinct offerings is its in-house ability to design and oversee the creation of custom furniture, lighting, shelving, and sculptural installations.
Styling and Final Touches – The process continues through to the smallest details—vases, books, throws, lighting levels—ensuring every space feels finished, personal, and alive.
What makes Aubrey’s studio exceptional is the way all these services are delivered not as isolated phases, but as a fluid, integrated design journey. The result is spaces that are coherent yet surprising, refined yet comfortable, modern yet timeless.
An Artistic Philosophy Rooted in Humanity
For Aubrey O’Brien, design is not about chasing trends—it’s about chasing truth. Her philosophy centers around the belief that well-designed spaces help people live more grounded, more joyful, and more connected lives. She approaches every project with three guiding values:
Optimism – Every design challenge is an opportunity for something better. Rather than fearing ambiguity or limitations, Aubrey welcomes them as fertile ground for invention and clarity.
Presence – Her interiors are designed to support mindfulness and being. They are environments where attention slows down, materials speak, and daily rituals are elevated through thoughtful design.
Material Intelligence – From stone and steel to linen and leather, materials are chosen not only for their beauty but for their history, their integrity, and their sensory impact.
Aubrey’s commitment to craftsmanship is not a branding strategy—it’s a lived practice. She brings her own hands-on experience in welding, woodworking, and painting into every project. This gives her designs an authenticity that clients immediately feel—every corner and curve tells a story of intention, skill, and care.
Interiors as Portraits
Each interior designed by Aubrey O’Brien is a portrait: not of herself, but of the client. Her role is not to impose a style, but to listen deeply, draw out what matters most, and shape a space that reflects and supports the lives it contains.
This approach has led her to design a wide variety of interiors, including:
Family homes that prioritize function without sacrificing artfulness
Sophisticated bachelor pads with custom metal and wood elements
Calming nurseries that are joyful and sensory without cliché
Retail spaces that elevate branding through physical storytelling
Workspaces that enhance creativity, focus, and well-being
In every case, Aubrey brings a sensitive eye to the architecture and a sculptor’s touch to furniture and fixtures. Her projects often include built-in shelving, one-of-a-kind tables, hand-finished lighting, and layered textures that make rooms feel grounded and poetic.
A Teaching Voice and Cultural Contributor
Aubrey O’Brien’s impact extends beyond her private clients. She also serves as an educator, teaching history and fundamentals of interior design. Her teaching practice reinforces her design work by connecting her to the next generation of creative thinkers and encouraging her to stay in conversation with evolving design theory and practice.
Her dual role as a practitioner and educator allows her to bridge innovation and tradition, concept and craft, intuition and discipline.
East Coast Modernism Meets Artistic Minimalism
Aubrey divides her time between New York City and Sarasota, Florida—two locations that subtly influence her aesthetic. From the vertical, cultural vibrancy of the city to the light-infused, architectural history of Sarasota, her work resonates with a soft modernism that’s rooted in both place and people.
Inspired by architects like Paul Rudolph and modern sculptors like Isamu Noguchi, Aubrey’s designs often draw on structural clarity, organic form, and the balance between solid and void. Yet her interpretation of minimalism is always warm. She believes that restraint in design should make space for presence—not remove personality.
A Future Shaped by Intention
As clients become more conscious about how their environments affect their emotions, productivity, and well-being, Aubrey O’Brien’s philosophy grows increasingly relevant. In a world that often rewards speed, her studio is built on slowness, clarity, and care.
Looking ahead, she envisions expanding her custom furniture line, deepening collaborations with artists and craftspeople, and continuing to shape spaces that allow people to be more fully themselves.
Each project she takes on is an opportunity to ask: How can design heal? How can objects hold memory? How can space invite stillness?
A Design Practice Like No Other
In a crowded field, Aubrey O’Brien has carved a path that is both refined and personal. Her work doesn’t shout—it whispers with presence. Her spaces aren’t copies—they are conversations. She doesn’t follow a trend book—she follows the thread of real people’s lives, aspirations, and the poetry of the everyday.
To experience a space by Aubrey O’Brien is to step into a story—a quiet, handcrafted narrative where art and function are inseparable, and where the home becomes not just a place to live, but a place to truly be.