Posts about the Stone Soup residents

Expressing yourself creatively as a way of living

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How many of us could say that our profession reflects our passions and our true life calling? You know that feeling when you wake up in the morning and you realise you make your living by practicing something that you love as if it was a hobby.

Olga Alexaki feels very lucky waking up every day with such a sensation. She comes from a family of architects and she grew up with an inclination to arts and crafts and the habit to draw anything that came to her mind.

“Because of my family, I was always fascinated by architecture and I could easily picture myself following the same profession, as Ι ended up doing. My aspiration was to give a more modern and creative approach to my personal work based on my expertise and taste.”

During her studies Olga explored her creativity by designing jewelery. She formed a company named “Open that Stone” producing handmade collections of wooden and perspex accessories.

Surrounded by inspiring people

As a professional architect you may find multiple ways to cover your clients’ needs and simultaneously express yourself creatively. The trick is to find the source of inspiration. For Olga this source is the everyday life and that is the main reason she wanted to have an office in a coworking environment rather than a traditional office place.

Olga is working with Iris Papadatou at YOU & ME Architecture, which is based at Stone Soup. According to her, being surrounded by individuals from diverse fields of expertise is really inspiring.

“We like the kind of fun architecture, with playful structures that gives the opportunity to people to feel comfortable and welcome. Operating in a shared environment triggers our creativity and enriches our perspective for our own projects, as we view it as a chance to observe how people use the space, in order to work, to cowork and network.”

Are you an architect? Let a coworking space inspire you

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Iris Papadatou is the co- founder of You&Me Architecture, a company that was established 4 years ago in the UK. She set up the company with her best friend and co-partner Alicja Borkowska.

Iris and Alicja have known each other for 18 years. Their friendship started during their studies, until one day they decided to build their own company. Iris states: “I think is important in any creative business that you see eye to eye with the person that you establish something.” Soon after, they expanded to Athens, Greece, employing freelancers.

Their expertise lies in public realm projects, retail, commercial interiors and exhibition design. By mixing architecture, public space, art and community participation, YOU&ME aim to have an impact in the regeneration of society’s identity.

YOU&ME in Athens

Iris explains that YOU&ME is a community based, multi-disciplinary architecture platform and co-design is one of their main areas of interest and expertise. So with this concept of collaboration in mind, their presence in a co-working space gives them a lot of opportunities. Networking and sharing ideas and knowledge with people from diverse sectors makes the coworking space a fruitful ground to grow their business.

As Iris said: “The whole concept about our practice is collaboration, so on all of our projects we work with creators and we embrace that process. Our presence at Stone Soup is a good starting point, because I’m already starting to think how we can have some more collaborations with different disciplines and enjoy this creative dialog that the space provides us.”

At the moment, most of their clients are UK-based, but the majority of the production and design activity of the company happens in Greece. However, Iris does not see that as a barrier, in fact she considers it an advantage, since  working from a different place gives you more flexibility in terms of schedule and a different creative perspective etc. Technology gives us different possibilities nowadays. Work is always attached to your computer, so you can take it with you everywhere you go and meetings can adapt and be set up via video calls . “We did not plan that two base situation. It happened and now we try to make that work. We say that we have an international practice and we can have the meetings via Skype.”

YOU&ME in London

Since 2012 YOU&ME have been working on UK public sector High Street Regeneration projects for local councils. These projects consist of transforming declined urban neighborhoods into nice areas to live and work in. As an architect, Iris is considering both the social aspects, while upgrading and modernizing urban contexts at the same time. Working with local residents and shopkeepers to regenerate their image, branding and actual shop premises is what YOU&ME are doing at the moment. “We get in touch with people who would never be exposed to this type of architect’s service, and this is great. We learn a lot throughout the process as well”, Iris observes.

Iris’ next steps are to open and expand their business in the Greek market. Working at Stone Soup for one month now, the idea is to link up with local creators and establish a network of collaborators, in a similar manner to their way working back in the UK.

Check out their beautiful work by visiting: https://www.youandmearchitecture.com/work

Max approaches life as a journey and Athens is a beautiful traveling destination. Read more about his recent life.

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Max B. is from Germany, he studied industrial design and worked with his father as a Sound designer for the film industry in Berlin. Living his whole life in Berlin he felt the urge to travel and live somewhere else.

He has been traveling with a small Volkswagen van in Europe so he has experienced the nomad life. A year ago he decided to build a home in a more spacious van and travel further away. Initially he thought of traveling to Asia or India but when Max arrived at his first stop in Athens, he found it hard to continue his journey. Although the intention was to visit for only a few months, thanks to the people, nature, food and music he decided to extend his stay.

“Greece is the type of country in Europe where it feels good being here; let’s say that people are more ‘Mediterranean’. The approach is more open and things are more easy going around here.”

It’s the first time for Max working from a coworking space. “Is nice to talk to all this different kind of people. I work with a computer and I am focus on the screen all the time, so is good to have someone that you can have a dialog from time to time and cook together.”

Greece as the first stop of his inner journey

Max’s bachelor thesis was about Modern Nomads. He says that the concept of the term fits his lifestyle though he prefers not to call himself a nomad as his journey is more spiritual. “The work I’m doing is a mean to make my living. My actual focus is on observing my inner processes. Giving room to allow and understand fears, asking myself, what’s love, why we pursue pleasure and thus get a deeper understanding of the Me and the general suffering of mankind.

“In the last year it became very obvious, that I cannot continue working, more or less just for the sake of earning money and not seeing anyhow my contribution to improve the general wellbeing of people and the world in that we live in. Greece seems like a good starting point to walk on new paths.”

Now, Max is finishing his work for a German criminal investigator TV series and starting to work on an independent Greek film about a group of friends in a squat in Thessaloniki and the refugee crisis, a documentary with some storytelling.

Getting started with my internship at Stone Soup, by Valesca Ribeiro

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Hello, my name is Valesca, I am 24 years old and I live in Brazil. I have a bachelor degree in Organizational Communication and now I am studying Marketing Management. I got my internship at Stone Soup via AIESEC, a global platform that aims to cultivate leadership amongst young students.

I arrived in Athens this week and I will stay for a couple of months. I love to explore new cultures and meet people; that is why immediately after my graduation I traveled to Australia. I stayed there for a year and a half studying and working. When I got back to Brazil, I decided to continue with my studies and traveling plans. When I saw the opportunity to come to Greece I applied without hesitating. Now I am here ready to learn and collaborate with the Stone Soup team.

Being in a different country may be challenging, but it is also a great opportunity to push my boundaries and mature professionally. Stone Soup is a coworking space and consultancy firm and their vacancy caught immediately my attention. When I first heard about the coworking concept, I found the idea intriguing, because I thought it could shake down traditional market models. I believe that my internship here is going to be a great opportunity to expand my knowledge and get connected with people in different areas and learn about marketing and beyond.