rosemary owen-smith was born and raised in birmingham to banker james owen-smith and patricia crossby and was trained as an architect at the birmingham school of art. after graduating in 1934, she found work designing church furniture in london before joining the more established art deco practice of robert atkinson, where she worked on the production drawings for the barber institute for fine arts in birmingham. it was during this time that she undertook a planning course at the architectural association before deciding to move to sweden in the 1939 after visiting new housing projects on her previous holiday. there, she worked for six years as an architect and town planner. she married the swedish lawyer- from a baronial family- gunnar stjernstedt (born 1911), taking his surname, and moved to gothenburg in 1943 where she worked for the city of gothenburg planning office on housing and playground layouts.