SHERIDAN, WYOMING – Feb. 10, 2025 At the beginning of a new year, we are presented with the annual invitation to change. Change, a visitor we often greet with reluctance – it disrupts our routines, questions our habits, and challenges the security of familiarity. Although many of our rituals are treasured celebrations of daily life or mechanisms providing stability, others are more habitual, causing an autopilot response as we scroll on phones or sit in the same chair every day.
How can we see the world and our spaces anew? How can we maintain healthy rituals while responding to the invitation to adapt? As we embrace a season of beginnings, we're exploring how change is a guiding principle in both design and life.
Molo Softwall: Adaptability as a Design Principle
Knowing we can adapt is empowering. It is delightful and rewarding to physically alter environments to adapt to needs or seasons. A familiar environment is energized by the introduction of the unfamiliar. At the beginning of designing what is now the soft collection, one of our main motivations was considering that if a building or space can change, we can get more out of it. Life is dynamic, our buildings should be, too. A space occupied for years can become new again, stimulating interaction and inspiring creativity.
At molo, design success lies in an object's ability to invite adaptability, interaction, and joy. Everything must be infused with simplicity and intuition – a design distilled to its most essential form, requiring no tools or expertise. We make things that people can participate in. Our soft collection offers a continuation of the creative process to each person who comes in contact with it.
Iterative Movements
Change is at the heart of our studio and our designs, and investigating how we can adapt – whether through subtle shifts or significant transformations in space – is a driving creative force.
An example of this came early on as we were establishing molo in Vancouver. We won an architectural competition in Aomori, Japan to design 200 units of housing and amenities to revitalize the city center and make downtown living more desirable. However, a change in the building site prompted further design studies. During the design development, we experienced the four seasons of Aomori alongside the unique history and culture. Seeing everything with fresh eyes, we were completely immersed and engaged with this site-specific work.
Over a ten-year period, the project transformed into the Aomori Nebuta House Museum and Cultural Center. This was a period of profound change and personal growth for us. Goals sometimes require years to find the right path and materialize.
Aomori Nebuta House Museum is one of our most cherished projects.
A Year of Liberation
Change can feel daunting, but what if we saw it as something natural, even enjoyable? Our studio, much like our designs, is a living, breathing project constantly evolving through small, deliberate steps.
This perspective didn't come from business wisdom; it came from an interest in learning by doing. We didn't rush toward an end goal but embraced the journey as its own reward. You can do the same. Shift one habit, move one piece of furniture. Maybe this year you decide that change, when embraced, is not a disruption – it's a liberation.
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