I'm Helen Yongearius. We are in Berlin. I'm an industrial designer. I live before in
Rotterdam and I've been working there for 15 years and I had a beautiful house, a studio
around the corner, nice team, good clients all over the world. It was not inspirational
for me. I like to be a starter and I'm good when I'm a starter, when I'm young and new
in a field or in a culture. So we wanted to move and looking around. After a while we
knew we wanted to be in Europe. So we looked to a few cities and we have decided to go
to Berlin because it's a green city. It's a big city but it feels like a village. But
the main thing is that it is not about money. So it is not the stress of money in a city
as a relaxed environment. It's not finished which also makes it still creative and things
are moving and there is a young crowd. It's not a huge design crowd but I'm not interested
in having that close to me. I have a very small group of clients. So I really am very
picky who I work with because I want to have a longer relationship with clients and also
that you can build together a collection. I work for Textiles with my harem in New York.
So I do upholstries. I do 3, 4, 5 textiles a year for the American market but for that
is the company that sells it in Europe. And then I do fitra. I do furniture with them
but I'm also the art director for textiles, colors, surfaces, classics. And then I work
for KLM. So I have an aviation part in my portfolio. So we did the business class for
the 747 aircraft interior. We did all the soft parts but also the chair. So it's the
full interior. And then I just did the UN lounge in New York for the delegates with
the team, Kerem Kohlraus, Irma Baum, Louis Schraumberg and Gabriel Lester. For the Dutch government
we did the interior of the delegate lounge. This will be opened in September. So this
is the group of projects that I'm now working on. And you know I don't have a hands-on workshop
anymore in the studio. I had that before. So a large one. But now that I work with larger
companies I have like at Fitra there is a huge team who are doing the hands-on work.
And at Kerem they do and all the mills that I'm working on. So I make small models but
I can't. You know I'm spoiled because the clients have their own research and development
for me. So I can ask them can you make this model or can you do this fabric or color.
So it's a huge network and I'm the spider.
