DAISY DODGE
FOUNDER, PARTNER, DESIGNER
Daisy was born and raised in New Orleans. She has also lived in Charlottesville, Southern California, Tuscaloosa, Charleston, and Japan. She left home to attend the University of Virginia, where she pursued an interdisciplinary range of coursework in creative writing, studio art, and environmental studies and graduated with a BA in English; she also holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Alabama and a Master of Architecture from Tulane.
In her final year at Tulane, she completed the URBANbuild program, a year-long design/build practicum in which students design a home in the fall semester that they construct from the ground up in the spring, from digging foundation trenches to finishing details. After architecture school, she worked on numerous residential and commercial design projects with Nick Marshall of Chase Marshall in New Orleans, as well as with Byron Mouton of bild design, before founding Union Studios in 2017.
Before pursuing a lifelong interest in architecture, Daisy began her career as a writer and educator. She has taught creative writing and English at several universities and independent secondary schools on the east and west coasts of the US and in New Orleans and Japan; most recently, she has taught design studio at the Tulane School of Architecture.
A graduate of the Interdisciplinary Yoga Teacher Training at Nosara Yoga Institute in Nosara, Costa Rica, she is also a certified yoga instructor. She is an avid traveler and spends as much time outdoors as she can. Daisy lives near Bayou St. John in New Orleans with Colin Keith, her partner in design and life, and a good dog named MK.
COLIN KEITH
PARTNER, DESIGNER, FABRICATOR
Colin was raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and spent as much of his childhood as he could exploring nearby New Orleans. An early interest in architecture led him to work with Remson Haley Herpin Architects while still in high school; he worked with Trapolin-Peer Architects while pursuing his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at Tulane School of Architecture. Upon graduation, he took a position with MOSA Design + Fabrication, where he began expanding his skill set to include carpentry and fabrication in a range of materials.
There, he developed a love for designing in full-scale prototype, building by hand, and combining cutting-edge digital skills with traditional craftsmanship to produce warm, modern furniture and interiors. He loved this mode of making so much that he ultimately transitioned to full-time work with a local fabricator. Over the next two years, he employed both digital and traditional craftsmanship to help design and build custom furniture and interiors for numerous private and commercial projects.
Early in 2019, he opened his own shop on Broad Street and brought his rich array of creative skills to Union to form a combined architecture, interiors, fabrication, and furniture studio. When he’s not in the shop making things, he loves a good round of disc golf in City Park, a good day on a boat of any kind, and watching his beloved Saints win in the Superdome.
THE UNION STORY
I went back to school to study architecture in my mid-thirties. I’d never intended to start my own firm, though I did begin to dream of a design studio above a yoga studio with a wood shop in the back, and it occurred to me that I might call it “Union Studio.”
I liked union since my father, a cabinetmaker and coffee producer, wore a grey t-shirt every day; he always said his favorite color was grey because it was the union of black and white. I liked union because I was a yoga teacher, and yoga means “union” in Sanskrit. I liked union because I believe in the universal nature of things—that, spiritually and physically, we are all one.
Fast forward several years of school and 40-year-old-intern life, and suddenly I had just enough work to step out on my own and start a little studio. When it came time to name it, I had forgotten all about my dream. I was stuck, until I remembered Union.
I named our company Union Studios because I didn’t know exactly what we’d be making here, but I thought it might be more than one thing. I named us Union because I was interested in the union of design and construction, and of architecture and interior design. I named us Union instead of using my own name because I always wanted us to be about the collective creativity of whoever might eventually work here.
Eventually, I remembered that my father and his father had produced Union Coffee, along with French Market Coffee in the red can, and came to learn that my mother’s father had started his engineering firm in an office on Union Street, right here in New Orleans. I’m so grateful to be able to carry on the family traditions of design, craft, construction, and creative entrepreneurship with Colin as we build a new family and company of our own.
— Daisy