Matt O’Malia Interviewed in Maine Home + Design and Architecture, Design & Photography
OPAL founder and principal architect Matt O’Malia recently sat for two interviews, with Maine Home + Design magazine and the Architecture, Design & Photography podcast.
There was a lot to catch up on.
The pandemic of 2020-21 has dramatically shifted our clients’ priorities, the business environment in which we operate, and the ways in which OPAL responds to both. Both conversations reflect Matt’s deep consideration of these matters—starting long before the pandemic—and the opportunities they present for OPAL, the design and construction industry, and society at large.
The Maine Home + Design interview focuses, naturally enough, on design and aesthetics. As Matt explains, OPAL’s work has always drawn inspiration from Maine’s landscape and traditional building culture, while also reflecting contemporary conceptions of spatial continuity and light, his own restless interest in exploring new forms, and a commitment to putting climate solutions at the core of every project. It’s a formula that dates from the firm’s founding, Matt explains. And it continues to evolve, along with client expectations and advancements in carbon-sequestering construction technologies like cross-laminated timber (CLT) and the Timber HP line of wood fiber insulation produced by OPAL’s manufacturing affiliate, GO Lab.
Tech entrepreneurs were once fond of the saying “Move fast and break things.” A more appropriate motto for Matt might be “Learn fast and build things.” His career as an architect and entrepreneur is animated by a relentless drive to see around the next corner and solve the next problem, including those far outside the typical purview of architects. Architecture, Design & Photography host Trent Bell characterizes Matt’s sustained, multifaceted effort to address the global climate crisis as “a response to a truth you couldn’t look away from.”
An architectural photographer who has shot many OPAL projects over the years, Trent leverages his long relationship with Matt to delve deeply into his subject’s history, insights, and motivations. If you want to know what makes Matt—and this firm—tick, here is a good place to start. And when you’re done listening to this interview, you may want to browse the Architecture, Design & Photography archive (this interview is episode 45). Trent is widely respected as a visual artist, and he brings the same acuity of observation and communicative flair to this auditory medium. We’ll be listening.
