BB19. Breaking Boundaries. Is Innovation What you think?

BB19: Is Innovation what you think?

Held at Innovation Warehouse, Smithfield / Wednesday 19th June / Evening
Architect Paul Vick will join Innovation Warehouse Founder Ami Shpiro on the evening of 19th June to present a series of talks exploring innovation “and what it means for you and your city”.

The event will paint an intimate picture of how the invisible structures of the work within the building, and the visible structures of the architecture where the event is held, together continue to break the boundaries of our perceptions and lives.

Paul Vick was the architect for Innovation Warehouse when it was established back in 2010. The first innovation hub of its kind, Innovation Warehouse pioneered a new format in which the startup growth programme went hand in hand with the architecture – and far beyond the concept of simply providing cheap office space.

The idea was to provide a high density but efficient use of space, now commonly known as “coworking”. Back in late 2007, Ami Shpiro had the vision for an “experiential business school” – a hybrid shared-office space come accelerator, the curriculum being the day-to-day activities of the resident entrepreneurs’ own businesses.

He would scrawl the workspace blueprints on tablecloths and sometimes sign the doodles – depending on the audience. Effectively, Shpiro had conceptualised the model for a community of collaborating startups – now known as Innovation Warehouse – and all coworking spaces to follow.

Such a space required a model of cultural openness promoting a network, and forums for the sharing and creation of value-added knowledge – now known as the “sharing economy”. Spatially, it also promotes and uses ideas and spaces around it, spilling into local cafes, shops and outside spaces as convenient

Where business growth is understood as the today and tomorrow of our City’s wellbeing (economically, socially and culturally), Innovation Warehouse and the ideas of an architecture (both literal and figurative) that come out of it go on to challenge us in making and evolving the city’s fabric.

This is a truly reflexive approach where the process of creating the wealth-generating companies and jobs of the future informs and requires a physical architecture to help it perform this process: we make our architecture and our architecture makes us.

Agenda – Wednesday 19th June / Evening

The topic of Ami’s talk will be on the Coworking Business Model – how to gain access to higher yields in commercial property investments, while having a positive impact on the environment.

Paul Vick will discuss Paul Vick Architects’ particular approach to creating and enhancing value; what innovation is and how one draws on the many values in a city to de-risk investment in both the short and long term.

Where typically planning permission is a definition of viability, Paul Vick also brings their experience of achieving 100% planning permission record.

More info: www.paulvick.co.uk

https://twitter.com/PaulVickArchs

https://www.innovationwarehouse.org/