Brendan O’Molony is the founder and CEO of Tenthouse Structures. He has a deep love of travel and creating extraordinary eco-dwellings that contribute to the conservation of wild spaces. He answered our questions, giving insight into his work, the environment and what inspires him.
1. Where do you go for inspiration?
I travel. A wondrous passage through all regions of my being, native, cerebral and new…and back to myself…. I see journey as art in motion.
Firstly, Africa….literally anywhere! The roots I connect with are firmly of this continent; having lived here most of my life, with an East and South African lineage that stretches back to the mid 1800’s.
I have been fortunate to have travelled the continent extensively from the Congo to the Indian Ocean, Aghulas to the Maghreb. I have felt both the visceral brute and gentle grace of its wild treasures, the heart and candour of its peoples. It’s hard not to anthropomorphise all I have experienced into some unified complex being. I do have a relationship with Africa though. Like no other place, it holds this duality that makes me feel both bold and infinitesimal, serene and terrified, connected and unsettled. Out of that suspension, original memory percolates my senses – a rich primal brew for creative wonder!
Northern Thailand is another theatre for me. I am deeply drawn to the magic bound to this world. The land, the Lanna culture, the food, people and of course the Buddhist architecture. I have loved ones here, and a beautiful little patch of property in the hills. Surrounded by the Ob Khan national park, I like to sit under my bamboo and leaf roofed ‘Kratom’, listen to the birds, watch the farmers attend to their fruit trees, fire up some hot green tea … and sketch.
2. What is the best part of your work day?
Anything that involves creative visioning or collaborating: Technical Eco-innovations; Agile supply chain strategy; Sketching roof form ideas for a new project; Client engagement on new project concepts. Basically anything that gets my both my analytical mind and creative juju going.
3. What achievement are you most proud of?
Building a dedicated, talented ( and somewhat maverick) professional team made of good humans. We gel. We punch above our weight. We engage compassionately. And we create extraordinary eco-dwellings to both connect with nature and our primal selves. And in turn, we make a meaningful contribution to the conservation of our remaining wild spaces.
4. What do you think is the most urgent global environmental challenge facing us?
Habitat destruction. I mean it’s a connected problem with an over carbonized atmosphere. But the natural world sustains us. It’s plants and wildlife clean the air we breathe, feed us, protect us and harmonize our biological minds.
5. What do you feel is the biggest issue in the green building industry that we have to overcome, and any ideas on where to start in tackling it?
Building codes. Not that I am against them at all, but lightweight alternative building systems are taking time to proliferate due to codes that don’t account adequately for either sustainable low energy-high comfort ambitions nor non-linear large deformation structural elements.
