Text: Constantin Goagea
We always believed that office space and all its contemporary design has been and always will be absolutely incompatible with the great outdoors. It was either one or the other. Because when we think of nature, we think of leaves, grass and bugs, rain and mud (not potted plants and not office flowers lit with some super lamp, or even worse, some plastic print hanging on the plaster wall).
As I was in the botanical garden, among some seven meters high tropical plants, I was pondering that right there would be the ideal place to have a laptop and sit down and work. But I was only thinking about this idea of having office space among real wild plants, and I did not see any viable solution. It did exist though, as I discovered during Creative Business Week in München (many thanks, IF Design, for the invitation and BMW Romania for support).
foto: © Erik Lindvall /KantoorKaravaan
The Dutch from kantoorkaravaan.nl have started to gather old caravans and apply a bit of re‑design, equipped the interior, installed some outlets and solar panels for power autonomy, and the mobile office is ready for those who want a day or two or even some months away with their laptops in a wood, in a meadow or at the seaside. Plus a box for unlimited internet, so full access to the matrix in a recovered caravan, with birds peeping, chirping or clucking or any other sound coming from a real beak (not from the meditation music playlist). The caravans can be bought or rented, depends on how much you want it or how much you fall in love with this experience. Let’s put together all the elements of the equation: recovery, recycling, ecology, re‑design, nature, travel, internet and shelter in case of bad weather.
This story opened my appetite for this new combo of nature, old buildings and technology. Naturally, I started looking around at home, because I know that we have plenty of nature and great internet (better than the Americans, as the story goes) and loads of old stuff. I imagine that many of you would like to go to work quietly in an old house in the countryside or in the mountains, staring out the window from time to time, or working outside breathing fresh air (provided there’s good internet connection). So, having the radar open on this frequency, I recently found a project in Mocănimea Trascăului and Aries Valley, which sounds exactly like the thing I wanted: 37 old houses, some traditional wooden households, ancient vernacular architecture, somewhere in Alba Iulia among grassy hills, that Romanian architect Marius Barbieri has classified and put on a map with an asterisk. For that, surely, they must be saved immediately. Because they are authentic, because we can do something good with them, instead of letting them disappear. I could just see them as temporary offices for freelancers, designers’ hotel, botanical research center or birdwatchers’ camp, and so on.
*foto: © Capitel Proiect / Sălciua
Until then, at your city office or with your laptop in a forest, for all of you, increasingly mobile, creative and connected people, Zeppelin becomes the reference Romanian online magazine for architecture, design and the city. We like to relate ideas and projects, to bring forth issues or leading solutions, to be critical, and the pace of information does not sleep, so not only daily, but sometimes during the night (we know that inspiration or deadlines come for architects in the small hours), you will find architecture and design in our reports and pictorials. The printed magazine is transforming, becoming a bookazine, a quarterly book‑like publication, the size and quality of an album. In 2016 we want our publication to be smarter and more informed than ever — to be kept in the library like a good book; to be alert and diverse—so that you can find the same pleasure in browsing a first‑class magazine, made by one of the most awarded Romanian publication designers. We are looking forward to enjoying it together with you.
