Coworking Spaces Alternative Topologies and Transformative Potentials

Dr Janet Merkel is an urban sociologist based at the Institute of Urban and Regional Planning at Technische Universität Berlin where she works on the social and spatial re-organization of independent modes of work. She holds a PhD in urban and regional sociology from Humboldt University Berlin. Her research interest includes creative industries and creative labour, cultural planning, and urban cultural policy. She has hold positions at Berlin’s Social Science Research Center (WZB) and Hertie School of Governance and was working as a Lecturer for Culture and Creative Industries at City, University of London and guest professor for economics of urban and regional development at University of Kassel.

 

Dr Dimitris Pettas is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Urban and Regional Planning, Technische Universität Berlin. He holds a PhD from the National Technical University of Athens (School of Architecture). He has worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Regional Development Institute (Panteion University), the National Technical University of Athens and the Research Centre for the Humanities. He has also been a lecturer in the Social and Solidarity Economy postgraduate programme at the Hellenic Open University. His research interests include the study of: the social production of public space, the development of platform economy and its impact on urban environment, the role of power relations and agency in modes of urban governance, the emergence and broader transformative potentialities of grassroots collaborative and social/ solidarity economy initiatives, the exploration and comparative analysis of epistemological and ontological approaches concerning the production of urban environment and urban life. 

 

Dr. Vasilis Avdikos is associate professor in the Department of Economic and Regional Development in Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences since 2014.He holds a doctorate from the University of Sheffield and a MSc degree from the University of Strathclyde. His research interests lie in the intersection of urban and regional development, and the cultural and creative industries. He has led and coordinated several national and international research projects; currently he is researching the impacts of collaborative workspaces in rural areas (MSCA CORAL-ITN) and the ways commons can offer new and sustainable solutions in GLAMs (GLAMMONS- Horizon Europe). He is the author of two monographs and two other collective volumes and several research papers.