The first Makerspace in Athens is real and it’s bringing young professionals together, setting an affordable, communal networking space in Kaisariani.
Creatives who do not have the funds to rent or buy their own equipment can now have access to modern and traditional tools thanks to two former University of Edinburgh students who have recently returned to Athens.
Twenty-seven-year-old mechanical engineer Ilias Saltiel and Constantinos Zervos, faced with the new reality the financial crisis and brain drain had created, sat down and started brainstorming ideas for the development of a work space around which a sustainable community of modern craftspeople could be fostered.
“Makerspaces are quite common overseas as more people want to stop simply being consumers and are seeking to become creators, or makers,” Ilias told Kathimerini in reference to the maker movement, which for many signals a third industrial revolution.
“In Greece, this shift is linked to the crisis because many workers found themselves out of the labour market and on their own, having to use their other skills to make a living.”
The modern and bright space is equipped with a 3D printer, a needlework corner with professional machines that can sew, make and cut fabrics, a state-of-the-art CNC router that can cut materials both two- and three-dimensionally, jewellery workshops, a vinyl cutter, a laser cutter and a thermopress; even a smelter and a robot lab.
It’s all available to creatives for a monthly fee, in order to make unlimited use of the space possible.
“We promote the idea of doing it together. We interact,” Ilias says.
Moreover, non-profit organisation Athenian Makers has created workshops for elementary school students in the Greek capital as part of the Open Schools program run by the City of Athens with the support from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.
“We would like to add workshops for gardening, metalwork, cooking, a computer lab and a space with creative activities for children so that their parents can leave them there while they attend workshops. We will also set up an eShop where our members can trade what they’ve made in these spaces with each other,” says Ilias, who hopes the Makerspace can move to a larger and more central location in the future.