Arboit Diez (Mikrourbanisme AS): My advice for the Romanian design industry – Solve problems, share, ask!

Urban beekeeping is the newest and strongest environmental movement, with designers pushing the creativity to new limits and expectations. Present at the Romanian Design Week to show its project By-Bi, Facundo Arboit Diez, founding partner of Mikrourbanisme AS, offered BR an exclusive interview.

This is its second part of the interview, in which he talks about the Romanian design scene and the experience he had in the country. You can read the first part of this exclusive interview here.

Romanita Oprea

What does creativity mean to you?

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For me creativity is simply something that everyone has within. Is not MY creativity or YOUR creativity, it doesn’t have to do with this far-fetched idea of thinking, but more with some logical solutions. I don’t think there is only one way for creativity or a certain system. Is more about what everyone has within and what solutions does your life experience and your wishes and your ambitions tell you. Just opening up, being in the moment, being yourself. Just letting it be, come out.

What was the feedback that you received from the people during Romanian Design Week?

I would like to point out that the Romanians are super friendly, open, nice and what I really loved and I found it to be really good was that they’ve shown a lot of curiosity. The people were very interesting in knowing how I did certain things on the project, were very eager to find solutions and solve different issues, in Bucharest and in Romania in general. I think that humbelty and hard work and curiosity are the ingredients that make one feel that the city has a potential for growth.  The solution thinking is really important.

I actually met this guy while we were at the seminar, he kept on asking question after question and he looked a little bit ashamed because he has all those questions to ask, but he came to me and told me something very interesting and something that I believe in a lot: “information is everything”.

He asked me if I can recommend him some links he should search, some books to read, videos to look at, in order to find the solutions he was looking for, especially low-cost solutions that he thought would apply really well in Romania. Something to show to the political class that the Romanian people are doing themselves and it works and can be an example for them to invest in later and create a better Romania.  He was looking for a permanent solution that he could present.

I found out that a lot of designer down here are eager to know how to make a business out of their passion for design and how to solve the problems in a low cost and pragmatic way. Which I think is the key solution for every city to address, because most of the cities don’t have a budget for social development, for urban furniture, etc. Working at a street level is what gives you the right solutions, in my opinion.

I found a little frustration there, but I think that it serves as a good motivation for creativity to strive and to create a strong environment, one that will create a profile for the Romanian design. And that is excellent.

Is your company open to have foreign talented people coming for internships? Would you be open to young, talented Romanians coming and learning from you?

Yes! We would learn from each other. I am not looking forward to people working for me, I want us to work together and help each other. We are a young company and is a little early to say yes right now, because our economic reality is still under question mark, but I would love to do that in the future.

We are very open to different cultures. We have one colleague from Poland, two Norwegians, I am Argentinian. From the start we are very mixes and that shows very much the personality and the cultural difference, the diversity bring to the table in the way to approach things. Norwegians are very calm and measure everything, are very pragmatic and want to keep everything very straight up and I am South American and more inclined into doing things wrong and we all shout at it until it gets good, more about growing a model and then ripping it off until we are all happy with it, while our colleague from Poland just does it and pushes it to be as good as possible and takes no “bullshit”.

When I need more patience I go to Agnes, when I need to be more thorough I go to Katja. When they want something concrete, they come to me.  Having those different approaches and cultures really help us every day.  Having peopled from Romania or any other country would all value to our company.  I want to make an emphasize on the word value. It saves a lot of hours of questions, wondering and uncertainty. Because you have a problems and more solutions to choose from and pick the best one.

I think this is want design should be: simply let the best find its way and then follow it and make sure that it gets done it time. Good ideas get done pretty much by themselves.

Do you have an advice for the Romanian design industry?

Solve problems! There’s plenty of things we can all find within our own social context. Just address them and don’t be afraid about failing! Don’t be scared about not having a back up or the money. There is always a solution, as long as you have the idea. Write it down and make sure you don’t love it.

Share, don’t keep it to yourself! Ask! That will make the whole design environment grow and be faster, by simply helping each other and not competing. I think it’s important to be an open source nowadays.

I have a lot of architecture friends that live and work in different countries and sometimes we borrow solutions from each other. The only condition is to make it better than the other person did it. You can take it, but you better make it better.