Hé There New Year!!

Hé There!

With this we finish up a crazy and fun filled 2016! 

Thanks for all the support and well-wishes we have had throughout the past year, you have driven us to create a better and more interesting space and business, pushing us to better ourselves!

As we bid farewell to the year that was, we grow excited for the potential of 2017 and hope that mâché can be a part of your new year’s resolutions. We hope that mâche can give you that drive (and the space!) to get off your bum to develop those ideas, artistic skills, business ideas and connections that are just waiting to jump out of your head and onto paper!

We wish you all a wonderful New Years with a happy and safe celebration!!

See you in the new year!

Hé there #006

Serenity.

It’s almost Holiday time!

What a massive year – it’s been filled with many ups and downs. December sees the end of the first six months since mâché transitioned from just an idea into an actual place!

Adelaide has also seen many changes and advances this past year. Just across the road from our little space a brand new residential development (Boheme) has exploded onto the scene with rapid building works. Additional developments have also occurred within the city based around the small bar, café and restaurant scene.

The rapid development of several residential towers across Adelaide’s CBD will fundamentally change not only the immediate population of the CBD but also the surrounding areas. With the completion of the Boheme development, over 1000 additional residents will be living around our local Whitmore Square – a massive addition and our little building will eventually be up fordemolition for another addition to the square! With the additional people moving into Adelaide’s CBD (possibly the largest influx in quite a while) it will start a fundamental change toward a denser city.

Do we value space? What about the value of a place vs a space?

Adelaide is one of the biggest cities in the world based on spread of population. Starting in Elizabeth in the north down to Victor Harbour in the south you can drive this whole length through Adelaide’s suburbs – a pretty ridiculous feat! The result of this is one of the least dense cities in the world due to the large scale of urban sprawl. With a population of over 1.3 million, there are only just over 20,000 people living within the CBD (including North Adelaide). I feel that we’ve had such a surplus of space that we don’t truly value what we have in Adelaide – or the potential for places we can create.

Adelaide has some great examples of urban interventions (such as Peel Street and Ebenezer) though both of these were heavily pushed for by local government. My hope is that the current construction trend and densification could push towards more private and independent developments along the same lines – creating more opportunities and exciting possibilities for future entrepreneurs and businesses.

Alfred's on Peel

Sunny's Pizza

What does this have to do with mâché?

Increasing density and development run parallel with how mâché works – we encourage the bringing together of separate, normally disparate programs into a combined space. Much like the city brings in new programs, developments and businesses together to create opportunities, clashes and mixtures so - to does mâché! So much has happened since we set out to begin this little place and a wonderful group of individuals have pulled together to make it into something fantastic.

Where to from here? This coming year has so much potential – we’ve got exciting new members joining, podcasts shows being developed and more live streaming occurring. This is in addition to the back bone that our artistic group has provided for us so far, ranging from leather-working through to face painting!

mâché is currently putting together an application for the Old RAH site expressions of interest – which is part of the future development of the RAH once the hospital has made the move to its new site on the corner of North and West Terrace.

The Old RAH represents a new opportunity for Adelaide to investigate how develop and deal with dense spaces within the city and with all the potential of developing a new mâché site between a selection of new and existing businesses it seemed like a no brainer to give joining the RAH a shot! This process will take time however – the RAH site is looking to begin the process of development in the next two years so any move in this direction will take quite a while; but the opportunities are great, who doesn't want to be a part of a startup community?

So much has happened this past year, not only for Adelaide and mâché but for you too!
Luckily we have some wonderful yoga classes (hosted by the Vibrant Izzy Jane) to get you refreshed and ready for the incoming year!

Cheers!

-P

 

Hé there #005

Hé there!

So I’ve been at the Mâché front desk the last few weeks and I’ve noticed there’s a couple questions that I get asked more often than others;
1. What do you guys DO here anyways?
2. So what qualifies you to manage a co-working space?

Lewis performing as part of Snake Run! on the roof of Market Bazaar (now UniLodge East End and Fancy Burger's) These are the pictures I cut my teeth on.

I thought I’d take the opportunity I have here with the audience we’ve grown to answer those two questions. I’ll start with what “qualifies” me to manage a co-working space.

We’ll start back at the beginning, school. My education was tumultuous, at least in my head. I was diagnosed with ADHD from an early age and in about year 7 I was given a choice, to stay on the medication that helped my focus and grades or move on from it and keep my personality and social life. I have no regrets leaving the constantly switching prescriptions of Ritalin and ‘Dextamphetamine’ and constant hazy thoughts behind me and instead tackling life head on. It was so much a struggle that in Year 12 I was approached by the teacher who was my year level co-ordinator, I.T teacher, CISCO CCNA instructor and homeroom teacher. He advised me that my practical work was impeccable, and if I was to be judged on that alone I’d pass with flying colours, however DECS requires a certain percentage of success with the theory also. He gave me a choice, I can stay and more than likely fail, or I can leave and find a job. I chose the latter.
Since school, I’ve worked at vineyards picking grapes, swept building sites for $5 an hour, worked the drag shift at a petrol station while suffering from Glandular Fever and even did a stint at JB Hi-Fi. This was, until I found I could turn my photography hobby into a source of income.

Izzy performing as part of Robotosaurus at Animal House. This photo is what got me my first club job.

I’d never considered freelancing, I always saw my photography as an escape from my regular life, but I was thrust into the bands and bars scene sometime around 2007-2008 and ended up working full time from 2010 doing only photo work. At this point you’re probably thinking “How does this even relate to the second question??” and that’s fair, I’m known to go off on tangents. Like this one time back in nineteen diggity six.
Just kidding. The thing is though, after working freelance for nearly nine years you get some insight in to where the trappings are and what it is about freelancing that really can suck the life out of the job. I managed to circumvent nearly all of these things before I eventually quit to have a break, but here’s some points.

1. You’re your own boss. This means that you’ve got to discipline yourself, and just like any employer/employee relationship you can’t be too hard on yourself or you start to get depressed. When you’re depressed you’re unproductive and when you’re unproductive you lose clients and therefore money. Which is, in turn, depressing.

Alleyway gig in the middle of the day next to the Adelaide Oval. That trumpet got the brunt of every performer's aggression.

2. You have to be self motivating. This plays off of depression a little too, you really have to knock through every single barrier your mind throws up by itself. Every single distraction you provide yourself with your hard earned cash needs to be told “NO” when it calls your name from the corner of your room.

3. You need to be constantly ‘schmoozing’. Networking is vital. VITAL. I’m a recluse and I love holing myself up in my room and never coming out unless to eat or bathe, however I always made time to introduce myself to nearly everyone I met. Every single person in the room is a possible work opportunity, and that work buys the good soap, so you’ve got to ditch whatever thoughts you’ve got hanging around in your head and just go for it.

Joe, just going for it.

4. (Possibly the most important) You need to be constantly LEARNING. Every single moment you have “free” you have got to be experimenting with your tools, reading about how they work and how people have used them in various ways. Whatever your tools may be, there’s always someone in Sweden or Japan who’s ready to blow your mind with something they found out they could do when they were bored one day. With the Internet being as it is, you’ve got to limit the periods in which you do this, but I assure you that even if you don’t do half the things you read about, it’s better to know about them and stay on top of the trends in order to see if you need to ride them or avoid them.

If you get in early on the more lucrative crazes, you end up well versed enough to give advice, which in turn makes you invaluable.

So, what qualifies me to run a co-working space? Well, technically nothing, but I can relate to every single person who walks through the door. Everything they encounter in their work I can guarantee I’ve had a similar experience and I’m still standing and ready to cheer on anyone else who decides to step up to the challenge of being self employed.

Friends like mine are living proof that "having a go" is the most important asset you can have. From club DJ to audio engineer to record store owner, Brad just gave it a go first. Qualifications don't always set you up for success.

This brings me to question numero uno. “What do you guys DO here anyways?!”

The collective “we” (Jac, Dans, Bianka and myself) aim to provide an environment in which the self employed can thrive. One of the hardest things about being self employed is working from home, and not everyone is in the position in their career to get their own office space, so we’re the happy medium. We aim to be more than just an office space though. We want to have a mix of people who can share talents, experiences and advice to each other in order to keep one another on track and work to the best of their abilities. Like, Tony is a web designer but he’s no photographer and his client needs product shots. Tony’s job would be easier if he knew what the shots were before he started work so he asks Fiona if she’s free to do some photos. Instantly, one client has created two jobs in the one building, cutting down the turnaround time and allowing for some creative collaboration. Or maybe Aaron the film maker needs a voice over artist but he’s got no contacts and has no idea when it comes to audio. He can walk over to Ryan, who does weekly podcasts in the recording studio, and ask him if he knows anyone with a particular style of voice and if Ryan can maybe get them in for an audition.
The amount of internal networking would make the space a one stop shop for clients who need people from multiple disciplines to tackle a project.
So that’s what we “DO”. We facilitate creativity by providing an affordable and positive environment for people to get work done.
We also do knock off beers every now and then on a Friday.

I hope that’s answered the questions, and given you a little insight in to how I ended up in the position I am at mâché. If you’ve got further questions, feel free to hit the team at hello@mache.space or my personal email at erick@mache.space

Peace!

-E.

Hé there #004

Out exploring....

Hé there,

The m has been bit by the travel bug lately, I’m out over here in Melbourne for a couple of weeks and I have been thinking a lot about the key component of our mixed co-working space – Collaboration.

What spurned this thinking was my need of coffee (as per usual) where I bumped into this wonderful example of small scale businesses working together to provide high quality goods and services in a way that benefitted each business. Market Lane provides the wonderful coffee – Baker D. Chirico lends a hand with the baked goods. Singularly these businesses are great, but together they’re a match made in heaven.

Baker D. Chirico on the left, Market Lane Coffee's serving window on the right (with great on street seating!)

Currently based in Carlton - I noticed that there is a scale, density and population not unlike that based in Adelaide’s CBD. There are several well established and beautiful co-working options available within Carlton; surprisingly they all focus heavily upon technology and developer based services, with little provided for cross pollination  -but these are not what got me excited.

The startup market is further influenced by the involvement of the nearby University of Melbourne which provides a connection initiative - linking networks, students and organisations through a series of events, workshops and seminars through the Carlton Connect Initiative at Lab 14.

A range of anchor programs are directly tied into the Carlton Connect Initiative and include the following:

Victorian Life Sciences Computation Initiative:
Providing highly advanced computational infrastructure for a variety of research institutes aimed at fostering collaboration between research initiatives.
Creative Spaces:
 A program base on the City of Melbourne Arts Melbourne branch providing affordable spaces for creative industries.
The EU Centre on Shared Complex Challenges:
Engaging development between Australian and European universities and institutions, focusing on climate, energy businesses and future industry.
Melbourne Accelerator Program (MAP):
Encouraging student start-ups through seed funding, office space and mentoring.
Australian-German Climate and Energy College:
Providing opportunities for studying climate change, energy development, and energy transitions across the EU and Australia.
CO2CRC:
A research institute focusing on carbon dioxide capture and abatement schemes.
IBM Bluemix Garage: 
Providing App integration and development services along with cloud based infrastructure.

Providing a university based testing ground for start-ups and business initiatives is a hugely beneficial and innovative opportunity for entrepreneurs to develop their ideas sooner and start testing them in the local market.

The benefits are two fold – the University develops and expands their existing networks of contacts and links with industries in local and international sectors, while further encouraging local entrepreneurs to develop new industries and jobs.

I feel that the inclusion of a university and the resources it could provide set the tone for a new way of developing alternatives for young developers, businesses and the future format of what we consider a ‘university’ to be. The Carlton Connect Initiative is the strongest example of a mixed collaborative environment I have found and it’s the ideas that come about through mixed developments like these which get me excited and proud to be involved in mâché.

That’s it for me, thanks for tuning in to the mâché crew - we will catch you next week!

Cheers,

Peter (Jac)

Hé there #003

We've added some party lights and projector wall (for special occasions) to our front facade to bring more colour to our wonderful neighbourhood!

We’ve had a productive week at Mâché, making the most of our beautiful space and taking time to enjoy the spoils of our labour.  We are super excited to be sharing Mâché with 6 magnificent co-workers that give each room a life and exuberance that the space was created for!  Team Mâché welcome any curious questions about joining us, if you’re looking for an affordable corner of the earth to cultivate a hobby or follow a business dream, hit us up.  Mâché has the best facilities available to members 24 hours a day.

Hanging pot plants in our super fly light wells

You see, Mâché has been tirelessly curated to meet the complex needs of today’s co-worker.  Our facilities elevate creatives in various industries.  Whether you want to start a business, pursue photography, paint, draw, record, broadcast, design, stitch or sew, Mâché is a friendly, homely space with super-fast internet for you to make your own.  We want your art on our walls, your brains buzzing in our halls!

So, on the weekend.  Imagine our brand new meeting room, bursting with natural light and full of possibility. Mâché kids are busily creating short films to not only showcase Mache’s potential as a photography and film studio but so that you can get to know them.

Mâché mascot and platinum member Sheik preparing for his close up

We played and made some short films titled ‘Mâché Minute’ (working title).  Sixty seconds in which a viewer gets a little insight into the people - the part that makes this playful little engine chug

Let’s move into first person now…

Since joining the team, the thing that has struck me as such a strength for Mâché is the diverse skill sets in each founder’s backgrounds.

Dans is the smart as a whip, EcoCaddy creator, carbon neutral crusader, go-to guru when it comes to developing an idea or start up business.  He also played percussion in school but we would not suggest that you invite him to the drum kit at your next event. 

There’s Erick, who some believe has technology coursing through his veins.  Erick has a predisposition for problem solving in video games and he’s on top of each new development in the technological landscape. He can trouble shoot a computer issue in next to no time and he works a great welcome desk! 

Finally, Peter, the quiet and creative, builder, planner, developer.  He’s the one you go to when you want something designed on a 3D printer or need a complex council form filled out.  He gets the job done, he’s clever and considered.  You will find him, quietly adding to Mâché, monitoring electrical cables and measuring walls.

These fellas are here to field questions, bounce ideas to set up people that will grow our Mâché community.  They’re inspiring and go getting; testament to the spirit of the purple little place they have created.

This is me trying to look natural while filming a ‘Mâché Minute’.

I am not a co-founder yet since joining the team I’ve rattled off plenty of ideas, interjected communication breakdowns, encouraged shameless self-promotion, used the recording and function rooms, demanded an ‘m’ cookie cutter be 3D printed (thanks Pete) and written the occasional FB post.  I have had the opportunity to be an honorary Mâché member and I gotta say, the perks are, well, quite perky.  The facilities are top notch, internet is fast and the people are grand! What more can I ask for when I’m woefully strumming a guitar (I started learning 4 months ago) or frantically tapping at a keyboard.

That's it from me and us, for now!

Thanks for tuning in.

Peace

B

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