What does togetherness mean to you?
Simply having breakfast together in the morning. You
can’t be more together than that. We had a really
delicious, affordable breakfast at The Pop-Up Hotel.
The guests always ate their breakfast outside under
parasols that don’t let a single drop of rain fall on their
food. But people spent a lot of time playing board
games too, for example, and all of it happened around
the same table. Every tiny house had its own infra-
structure: its own Extremis Anker picnic table and a
barbecue. But we also had a kind of plaza with a sauna
barrel. That was where the long togetherness picnic
table Marina was, and if people from different houses
wanted to hang out together, they used the Marina.
That created another connection between the various
different tiny houses.
What effect has a stay in The Pop-Up Hotel
had on guests, do you think?
We had a guestbook in the hotel, and I urged everyone
to fill it in honestly so that we could use their feedback
to find out what we needed to improve. But seriously,
that guestbook has warmed my heart so many times.
People did exactly what I hoped they would do.
They enjoyed each other’s company, lingered over
breakfast, played games, read books, walked, cycled
and stayed away from their mobile phones for a while.
Digital detox was a very important component of The
Pop-Up Hotel for me, and that really was what people
did. Everyone felt – and lived – close to nature.
I believe that our society is far from peaceful. The
rat race, the ‘stress-is-a-drug’ society… I’m not even
the one who came up with those terms. People are
expected to be in touch and available around the
clock. On social media, by e-mail, messenger, phone.
If you want to succeed in your aim of simply getting
people to calm down, the first thing you need to do is
take all those stimuli away. That is why there was no
television, either. We really did let people hand over
their smartphones in exchange for Nokia 3310s, so
that they were reachable if necessary.
What are your plans for the future?
We are hard at work now to realise our ultimate goal,
that permanent place of ours: Paradise. We hope
to find a place for it as soon as possible, so that we
really can make the concept permanent. A place
where people can come to unwind for a bit. To leave
civilisation behind and enjoy the little things in life. We
have big ambitions. Ultimately, I want to try and make
the world a slightly better place through my entre-
preneurship, and do things that are important. For
example, Paradise is not just about escaping burnout,
depression, chronic stress and the rat race: it is also
about protecting nature for generations to come.
Extremis
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