Three Decades of Design with Soul

Yuendumu Pool, NT

A pool in Central Australia provided the catalyst for the philosophy that lays at the heart of MODE which this year is marking 30 years in business.

Founder Rhonan O’Brien said he had made the decision to establish his own practice during a sabbatical in the early 1990s.

He was asked to design a large extension for the home of a friend and, once people heard he was working, that sabbatical “turned into a career”.

He began Rhonan O’Brien Architects and Designers in 1991, and MODE Design Corp was established in 2005, due to the growth of the practice.

Current principals Robert McCray and Peter Bertram became co-directors with O’Brien that year, and in 2010, Wayne Jackson and Trevor Barker became directors after a merger with Codd Stenders.

Today, MODE has more than 140 staff and eight studios in Australia and New Zealand as well as a presence in Asia.

O’Brien said establishing his own practice had brought risks and rewards, with the latter outweighing the risk.

“It would have been far safer to stay with a firm, especially given that when I launched it was the time of ‘the recessions we had to have.”

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