'Radically Reimagining' Sustainable Design at Oza Sabbeth

Several years ago, Nilay Oza and the rest of the team at Oza Sabbeth Architects began using a term that would become a simple way to encompass the approach they took to many projects, and the ethos and philosophy of their award-winning firm.

“Radical reimagination” is the alliteratively pleasing and punchy way that Nilay Oza, an architect and founder of the firm — along with Peter Sabbeth — describes the form much of their projects take.

Teardowns have become almost de rigueur for many high-end luxury builders and big-name architects on the East End over the last two decades. In many instances, starting from scratch seems like the simplest and most direct way to complete a custom build for a client, and eliminate any complications.

But instead of tearing down the “box” that is already present, so to speak, Oza likes to think both inside and out of it, and encourages his clients to do so as well, to come up with a finished project that not only fits their needs but makes use of what was already there, in a new, exciting and most importantly sustainable way.

“We lean into the idea of renovations,” Oza said in an interview in March. “It’s a fairly important part of what we do. For starters, it’s the most sustainable thing to do. We’ve seen way too many 6,000-square-foot ‘green’ homes that tore down a house to get there.”

Instead of viewing the challenges that an older, existing structure might present as obstacles on the path to creating what a client wants, the architects at Oza Sabbeth try to see them as opportunities.

“There’s something sort of charming about the quirks,” Oza said. “To excite our clients, we came up with this term of ‘radical reimagination.’ The idea is not to think of it as a renovation, but instead you’re taking something old and you’re working with it. You use your architect and vision to reimagine what the structure could be.”

That approach is definitely unique, and could even be considered radical by some. But it’s also what helped the firm land one of its most exciting projects to date.

In 2022, Oza Sabbeth received an email from the Peconic Land Trust, asking the firm to throw its hat in the ring when the Trust put out a request for proposals to upgrade and expand the public information center at Bridge Gardens, the gorgeous 5-acre property in Bridgehampton — donated to the Trust in 2008 by Jim Kilpatric and Harry Neyens — that includes a public garden and sculpture garden, and demonstration garden.

Oza said his firm was very interested in the public information center project for several reasons.

“It’s a lovely property, and it sounded like a fantastic idea,” he said, adding that upgrading that public information center seemed like a “great way to talk about the mission of the Peconic Land Trust.”

Oza said his firm and the officials with the Trust, including Garden Director Rick Bogusch, who lives on the property, were immediately on the same page when it came to an overall vision for the project, with sustainability being a priority for both.

Oza Sabbeth got the job, and made its first series of presentations to the board of the Trust in the spring of 2022. After a lot of planning and discussion between the firm and the Trust, the final drawings for the project are just about complete, Oza said, and the process of applying for all the proper permitting can begin. If that goes smoothly, he expected construction could begin sometime in the fall of 2025, meaning that this summer will be a vital time for the Trust to continue fundraising for the project.

While the concepts of radical reimagination are certainly at work on the Bridge Gardens project, Oza explained that what they’re doing there technically constitutes an “adaptive reuse.”

The building there was originally a residence, but now will become a public building, complete with features like a commercial kitchen, that will be designed to accommodate up to 150 people for various programs and other ventures.

While Oza Sabbeth does do some of its own builds, it also partners with other general contractors on its jobs. Frequently, the firm works with Modern Green Home, the business started by Oza’s other partner, Peter Sabbeth. For the project at Bridge Gardens, Oza Sabbeth will work with Buddy Wines of RLW4. Oza said he recommended to the board of the Trust that they bring Wines and his company on because of Wines’s experience in similar, community-based projects, like the renovation of the Bridgehampton Child Care & Recreational Center and Temple Adas Israel in Sag Harbor.

When planning the project at Bridge Gardens, the firm had to take several factors into account. The upgraded building would need to serve multiple purposes, from accommodating a 150-person fundraiser on one day, to hosting classrooms and workshops on other days, and also providing workspaces for staff and a live-in suite for Bogusch.

The plans called for opening the building to the gardens that it has existed in for decades, in part to honor the horticulturalists who donated Bridge Gardens to the public. The idea was also to have the building put together in a way that it would appear to grow out of the landscape rather than being placed upon it. Large expanses of glass will help those inside the rejuvenated building feel like they are in the gardens even when inside, instead of separated from them. The plans also call for a deep overhang, which will not only create ample sheltered outdoor space but also expanded the usable footprint while at the same time reducing heat gain on the larger glazed surfaces.

A large, leaf-like, biophilic roof is a prominent feature of the exterior and, like a leaf’s drip tip, it includes an elegant scupper that will guide rainwater to a shallow pool. In a description on the firm’s website, it says that feature is a way of “celebrating simple natural processes rather than concealing them.”

In addition to the collaboration with RLW4, Sag Harbor-based civil engineer David Rhodes will also be a big part of the project, helping create the vegetated wetlands septic system that will be part of the project. Rhodes has been working with Stony Brook University and Southampton-based landscape design firm Aeryis to create the constructed wetlands on the parking lot level.

The collaborative nature of creating the plans was something members of the Peconic Land Trust, and especially Bogusch, said was a great feature of working with the Oza Sabbeth team.

“Myself and the other staff members really enjoyed working with them,” Bogusch said. “They included us throughout the process, from concept development and alternatives right through kitchen design and lighting.”

He spoke about what the new and updated building will mean for Bridge Gardens, the Trust and the community at large.

“I’ve had the pleasure and privilege of living in this house for 17 years now and I’ve really enjoyed it,” he said. “It’s wonderful how much light it has, and how it brings the outdoors indoors. We gave them a complicated program and they really achieved that program extremely well. They’ve made what’s good about the existing building even better, and in terms of bringing the garden into the house, they’ve really united the building and the landscape.

“For our outreach program, this will make it even better and allow us to expand it,” he continued. “Perhaps more importantly, the building will be an education center for the entire land trust and a place where the land trust interacts as much with the public as Bridge Gardens does.”

Oza is clearly excited about the project. It’s obvious in his tone, and his palpable enthusiasm for what it will mean to the community and for Bridge Gardens shines through when he speaks about it.

His firm has designed many beautiful homes for clients using innovative design approaches, and he’s clearly proud of and passionate about that work as well, but he explained why a project like Bridge Gardens carries a special kind of meaning.

“It’s for the community, first of all,” he said. “I think the Peconic Land Trust is such an institution here that it deserves a beautiful presence, both for the people that work there and for its legacy, so that it can describe its work to the public. Anything that is for the civic good is an unvarnished good, so we definitely want to do our part in that.”

Oza, who was born and spent his childhood in India, added that while he did not grow up on the East End of Long Island, he has now been here for many years, raising a family with two young daughters, and that reality informs what motivates him in his career as well.

“I’m not from here, but now I consider it my home, and for that reason I want to be more committed to its well-being,” he said. “So I was very keen that we do this project, and we made that clear to the Land Trust.”

Ten years ago, Oza partnered with Sabbeth to create Oza Sabbeth, in what was an organic joining of forces.

“We were sort of getting calls from the same people, so, in a way, we said, let’s just give them one number to call,” Oza said, explaining that their partnership works well, with Oza serving primarily as the designer and Sabbeth as more of the executer of projects. “I run the design team and Peter is the one who is the first contact for clients and gets in the work.”

Sabbeth’s background and upbringing have a lot to do with the way he has shaped his career and the philosophies that provide the framework for what his firm does and how it approaches projects. Oza, a self-described “Army kid,” was born in the south of India but lived all over the country while growing up. He came to the United States in the late 1990s, earning his master’s in architecture from MIT. He then went on to work in New York City before taking on a project out east where he was the lead architect for a development of 30 homes in northern Sagaponack.

A keen interest in both the present and the future, and how each shape the present, is fundamental to Oza’s approach to design.

He is adamant that builders and architects have a responsibility to consider the consequences of climate change and how development plays into that — he’s presented on those issues during local workshops for children and young adults, focusing in particular on the fallout from Superstorm Sandy.

“Development can happen, but somebody has to look at the consequences of climate change in this area, because it can’t be on the community in 20 years when something goes wrong,” he said.

“I’m very conscious of history,” he continued, in speaking about his design philosophy. “And the minor and major elements of history that one finds out here, be it an agrarian building or something that is kind of quirky but very utilitarian in a way. I try to use that in my work. And that comes from my sensibility growing up in a place like India, where history is always around and never really left.

“I’m a modernist in my design,” he added. “I don’t make traditional houses, but I seek to find history and its through line in everything I try to do architecturally.”

He put those principles and ideas together in the most personal way possible by designing his own home, featured on his firm’s website under the name “Pike and Pond.”

The home, designed by Oza and built in 2018, is very visible from one end of the property, on the Sag Harbor-Bridgehampton Turnpike in Sag Harbor, but possesses privacy and tranquility as well, overlooking a pond (hence the name, Pike and Pond).

Oza said he is enormously grateful to live in and provide this type of home for him and his family, and said designing it was a unique experience for several reasons.

“It’s given me a lot of insight into my clients and what they go through,” he said. “Every architect should build their own home. The level of anxiety and agita that ones feels on the other side, it’s really eye opening.”

Oza and his family were going through a lot at that time. A month after they moved in, his wife, Sarah Cohen was diagnosed with breast cancer, and was battling the disease for the first year they lived there.

“It became a space for her healing,” he said. “She says she was lucky to be in a place like that and be able to convalesce there.”

While Pike and Pond was a project that was deeply personal for Oza and his family, several other projects stand out as meaningful for him, in terms of the way they represent the values and defining characteristics of the firm and its work.

“Black House” is one such example. The 2,500-square-foot home was finished in 2015 in Sagaponack and was a renovation of humble post-war ranch.

The project and its significance are described in detail on the firm’s website:

“What it lacks in ‘architectural significance’ is made up by its location,” it reads. “It benefits by an advantageous location on the site that would have been lost had we decided to demolish and rebuild.

“Our clients came to us with a desire to retain its small scale. This was in sharp contrast to the neighborhood’s growing extravagance. In choosing to carefully expand and add we created a private courtyard, an indoor-outdoor dining space, and an art studio. All these spaces are simultaneously linked and hemmed in by a glazed vestibule that also serves as the entrance. We have come to recognize the success of this simple design in forming zones of privacy that in turn allow for multiple uses within the confines of a small area.”

A more recently completed project, dubbed “Great Oak,” showcases the firm’s versatility. The firm was approached during the pandemic by a couple who wanted a new build, in the style of a traditional East Coast vernacular cottage, inspired by the New England aesthetic of gabled roofs and extruded dormers.

The clients wanted “a clear internal structure, with public-facing living spaces on the ground floor and their own separate bedrooms on the second floor,” the website’s description shares. Sabbeth created a plan built on the idea of “rotational symmetry;” on the second level, three bedrooms — two of which are identical — center around the house’s circulatory spine, a double-height atrium with a subtle staircase. On the ground floor, “a modernist glass box feels like it’s floating on the wooded site, bringing a moment of clarity and a connection to the outdoors.”

The home won the AIA New York Award for Best House Over 2,500 square feet.

The Oza Sabbeth firm has made a name for itself for creating innovative and sustainable designs, and giving clients what they want, even if — and especially when — that proves to be a challenge.

When it comes to the future of architectural design on the East End, both for community-based projects like Bridge Gardens, and private homes for individual clients, Oza has clear ideas about what he hopes and believes is on the horizon.

“In terms of a long-term trend, I hope it’s going to be a reduction of size,” he said. “I tell my clients, you can have 10 rooms of sheetrock or five rooms of beautifully paneled wood. I hope that’s the way it goes. I’m in favor of smaller homes, period.”

He added that while the firm has some projects that are larger in nature, and that there is precedent for large mansions existing in the area, the larger trend toward working at home should lead to a more careful consideration of what the home should be like and function, as both a living and working space.

He also added that the future should involve a stronger push to seamlessly integrate available technologies into new homes, in a way that makes them better overall, for the homeowners and the environment as well.

And finally, he said the biggest trend or movement he hopes to see take hold in the future is “raw, straight up sustainability.”

“Rather than going after home size, we should be concerned about home efficiency,” he said. “We have to use energy in a much better manner, in terms of design and usage. Technology can be very helpful in these respects.”

“When you’re renovating, the most important thing is to make the home more efficient,” he said. “And put in technology that makes the building act and react to its environment. That’s a big deal. Over the next 10 or 15 years, there will be big improvements, and designers will have to focus on that even more.”