Project Work Space

We need something comparable to an office:

• space with a “work atmosphere” to work on his projects (Willi)
• space for other (also future) coworkers of him (Willi)
• space in Berlin to work on his PhD, which is at the MPSD Hamburg (Florian)

→ We want to unite because our needs are close enough and together we have more possibilities (also economically)

We have experience together:

• We both are developing different but new things, so we do a creative work and need stimulation for that
• we already made the experience that discussing the project of the other can not only stimulating his about also your project

→ We want to unite because we think that together we have more than the sum of our solitary work

⇒ A project is born

Letting this seed grow, a vision developed about what such an imaginary space could be

• space to meet with people because of our actual work
• space to meet people with different background to get new and “random” input. This not only in terms of your actual work, but for example one could learn from an artist about a good surrounding that stimulates creativit
• space that is enjoyable
• space that is free to host events

⇒ “Le Cafe des Sciences”

Learning from others:

• research showed that the concept coworking space, born in the startup scene isalready close to our ideas
• we found a decent place: http://www.tuesdaycoworking.com and we will have a table there from mid March to learn how those work (EUR 200,- / desk for 2 people / month)

Perspective:

• making our own coworking space that integrates all our recent and future ideas

What type of place shall we choose?

• Normale Gewerbefläche?
• Mietshäuser-Syndikat?
• Old Cafe/Restaurant?

Which form shall the place have:

• GmbH?
• “Cafe of a BRCP-like Association”? (Vereinsgbäude)
• Circolo Arci: Italian meeting places of the communist party

What else could/should we include? Things that go beyond existing concepts like coworking space

• Consultation for physics problems
• Talks/lectures for non scientists about physics/science
• Specialized Talks/lectures for experts
• conferences/meetings of the BRCP

Discussion

• A free place for guests would be very helpful for members of the BRCP or other guest in Berlin (Markus)
• If we want to work/think partly like in art to foster creativity (“work” transforms to acts of “creation”), then such people and techniques should be included from the beginning (Markus)
• The community feeling of the members of a coworking space should be important from the beginning: do not highlight the success of the individuals but achievements as a collective; this can counter the “Harry Potter neurosis” of “I am special” brought up by Claudio and induced by the anonymity of city life in order to stick out of the masses, BUT: “You are NOT special!” (Markus)
• Do not copy university or traditional research institutes: Everything they do, do it differently! (Markus)
• To make the place successfull, the location matters a lot (Willi)
• One other idea that we might have confused with the so-called drug-like “Flow”-state (Book: The Art of Happiness, The 14th Dalai Lama) is to work out ways of how to increase ones mental ability. Some people have a good idea about that, yet it mostly applies to everyone individually. I for example am experiencing my mental heights when I train my short term memory. Some of us also confirmed to have experienced a state of working on an problem for days without sleeping [Markus: really?] because they can't stop solving a problem. We would try to gather experiences and personal ideas of how to reach this “Flow”-state in order to make it easier to reach everybodies individual mental height. (Willi)
• For creation, working alone or even in isolation might be also favorable, cp. this essay of Isaac Asimov that was mentioned recently in a BRCP-medium (Markus)