Guest-Intern Jaro: A first dive into Impact Hub Zürich

Creating an experience inside a bubble is dangerous. That's why - whenever we can - we like to get feedback on the Impact Hub Zürich experience; from daily users to first timers. How they perceive the atmosphere, the space, the people, is real and all experiences are valid. But we cannot improve without hearing honest feedback.
 

So when the Sozialdepartement of Zurich and the Dynamo approached us with the offer of hosting an exchange-intern for a view days, we happily accepted. Jaro, an Ukrainian urban design and architecture student, was a newbie to traveling, to Zurich and to the world of Coworking. The perfect chance to get an outsider's perspective on our cosmos of collaboration and Coworking. He has collected his unfiltered thoughts and views in a journal-like style accompanied with his artistic sketches of our spaces. Let's dive into his world:

Day 1

Sihlquai. Start from a cup of coffee in Auer&Co - start of dive into Impact Hub Zürich space (fuel). Find a person - where? Like a game. Check-in in Hubnet. Complicated space. Need a training. Feeling like “inside a wardrobe”.

Mixed people like mixed salad. People like swimming fish (tuna). Talking while lunch. First try to interact through stickers - introducing myself. Had no effect. There is too much "trash" everywhere, brain damage if one doesn’t switch off attention. People look inside themselves and their projects.

Day 2

At Sihlquai. Building a commune. Cook together. Eat together. Work separately. Travel through the city together to Impact Hub Selnau. “Industrial jam” Meeting point for youngsters and old. Nice background shares rebel good old times with you. Didn’t find myself a proper place. Great soundtrack - bugs in glass container. More concentration inside but not my type.

Happy to return to Sihlquai. Like to warm sweater from cold cosmos. See warm bulbs light, old weird elevator.

Day 3

Viadukt arches. Early Skill Share Breakfast with insurance company. Breakfast ain’t too funny - could also be transformed into new experience, thanks to the brain! Viadukt - i like the fashionable auditoriums. Industry with clever touch.

Day 4

In Colab, I do many sketches. Place more interesting than people. Why? Don’t do much interaction with a space, just use it. Artistic is the opposite, now I understand. That’s why I start with interventions but had no luck: sit in front of entrance but nobody asked nothing.

Explore floors. 4th floor and I’m almost home. Glass blocks, dark wood, white walls. Favorite corner - electric alchemy. Commune of hipsters, too accurate, too shy or too concentrated. Sure I’ll back again if I sometime visit Zürich - this place is more labyrinth then collaboration form my first sight.

“Colabyrinth”

P.S. Feelings like I was not in a cosmos but thrown into an ocean. I’m a little fish but others look mostly the same. Open-eyed and deeply-breathing. Need to look better and closer at Ukrainian Coworking spaces. They look identical, like the newly opened Hub in Soviet Factory (Kharkiv). But I didn’t use them before. Just had no chance. We have an Impact Hub in Odessa as well.

We thank Jaro for his visit and his unfiltered, critical views on our Community and Coworking Spaces and the beautiful artwork. We honor your feedback and wish you all the best for your studies and future steps into the world of Coworking and Collaboration in the Ukraine.