Little Wing Lee’s childhood home in Hawaii. 
Lee and her family on Easter. 
At the beach near Lee’s childhood home. 
Lee’s mother in the kitchen.
Little Wing Lee is the founder and principal of the Brooklyn firm Studio & Projects.
“When I was four, we moved from Boston, where I was born, to Hawaii. We lived on Oahu, on the opposite side of the island from Honolulu, in a very walkable suburb called Kaneohe.
It was a cream, off-white house—I can’t remember the exact color—and there were two parts to it: the main house, where my sister, mom, and I lived, and an addition, where my aunt, uncle, and cousins lived. It was super fun to have your cousins next door, to play in the mango tree outside, to have a front yard and back yard to run around in.
My bedroom looked out onto the Koʻolau mountains. I would lie in my bed, look out my window, and in the distance, see these amazing natural forms. That’s one of my favorite memories. I keep an image of them at my office.
The addition came off of the main house’s kitchen, and had a funny common space, a multifunction room, connecting the two homes. There wasn’t really anything in there. It was just this open space, with woven mats on the floor that my aunt brought from Fiji. I rode my tricycle around there. We had cats, and so maybe that’s where they slept.
We were in Hawaii, so people sat on the sofa as well as the floor. If my mom was in the kitchen, where the sink looks out the front window, she could keep an eye on my sister and I when we sat outside having breakfast. There were different zones in the house and each functioned differently, which is what made the house work well for us.
My mom’s interior design of the space created a feeling of ease. It was the art, the furniture, the pillows, the plants—even the cups, the mugs, the plates. All those details made it feel welcoming, cool, and beautiful. We had a plumeria tree in the front of the yard, so it always smelled amazing. We had honeysuckle vines, so we would pick the flowers and taste the sweetness of the nectar.
A yellow hibiscus flower decorates Lee’s hair. 
Lee’s sister, India. 
Lee and her sister on Christmas Eve.
When I think of spaces I love, or the house I grew up in, or my grandmother’s house, or houses of my mom’s friends, my favorite ones are those where I felt at ease. Where I felt welcome, and that I was welcomed by the people who created the home.
There is a functional part of ease—but there is also emotional ease, which is what I’m talking about. It’s when you walk in the door, and you can decompress and know that you can be your full self.
Now that I’m a designer, I want to create spaces like that: spaces that put people at ease. Spaces where you can take in the important moments in our lives that happen, particularly at home.
For a residential project, I often need to ask a lot of questions to understand what it is that a client loves about a given space [to figure out what defines ‘ease’ for them]. What are things that they wish they could change? What are spaces where they feel at ease already? Is there a place that they love, would love to recreate that in their home?
I don’t think ease is necessarily an aesthetic decision. A minimalist or a maximalist space can facilitate ease. There are a lot of design elements, and layers of stories and personalities, that go into making people feel that way. The color temperature, the seat height, the height of the table—those kinds of things can make you feel more relaxed or more uptight.
As a kid, obviously I didn’t have that language, but I could feel that everything was comfortable and not so precious in our house. It’s important to feel at ease at home because it’s the space for you. It’s important that it is a sanctuary.”
The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. (Photos: Courtesy Little Wing Lee)