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Arena* & Owners Weekend 2022
Crete & Athens

Header Speakers

With our keynote speakers and panelists as our guides, we took a journey rooted in circular thinking to explore more sustainable paths forward.

DH Arena Spaker Illu Lucas
DH Arena Spaker Illu Julia
DH Arena Spaker Illu Fernando

Lucas De Man

A pioneering mind in circular economies, Lucas De Man is the founder and CEO of the Amsterdam-based New Heroes, a network of creators that use storytelling to question matters that define society. Through Biobased Creations by New Heroes, De Man models possibilities and celebrates the impact of biobased materials in a circular society.

Julia Watson

Author, designer, and activist Julia Watson is a leading expert in Lo—TEK nature-based technologies for climate resilience. She travels the world to study how ancient innovation and indigenous technologies can help us navigate our changing world. Starting in May 2022, Watson’s work will appear in the Barbican’s exhibition, “Our Time on Earth.”

Fernando Laposse

London-based Mexican designer Fernando Laposse specializes in transforming humble, often overlooked natural materials into refined design pieces. He has worked extensively with such plant fibers as sisal, loofah, and corn leaves. His works are held in the permanent collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum and SFMOMA.

DH Arena Spaker Illu Stephen
DH Arena Spaker Illu Mitchell
DH Arena Spaker Illu Juliet

Stephen Burks

A designer and educator based in Brooklyn, Stephen Burks runs Man Made, a design practice that bridges the gap between authentic production in the developing world, contemporary design, and industrial manufacturing. Burks was the first African American to win the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt National Design Award in Product Design.

Mitchell Joachim

Architect and urban designer Mitchell Joachim is the co-founder of Terreform ONE, a research group that aims to combat the extinction of our planet’s species through pioneering acts of design. Joachim’s long list of accolades includes spots on Rolling Stone’s list of “The 100 People Who Are Changing America and Wired magazine’s “The Smart List.”

Juliet Kinsman

A London-based journalist, sustainability advocate, and broadcaster, Juliet Kinsman has spent almost three decades sharing stories about the world’s most special experiences and extraordinary changemakers. Kinsman was the first Sustainability Editor of Condé Nast Traveller and author of The Green Edit: Travel.

DH Arena Spaker Illu Nienke
DH Arena Spaker Illu Clara
DH Arena Spaker Illu Hanna

Nienke Hoogvliet

Nienke Hoogvliet is the founder of Studio Nienke Hoogvliet, a design studio based in The Hague with a focus on material research and experimental and conceptual design. The studio’s projects, which incorporate such materials as seaweed and fish skin, raise awareness of social and environmental problems in the textile, leather, and food industries.

Clara Le Fort

As an international lifestyle and sustainability editor, Clara Le Fort writes for Les EchosWE, Le Point, ELLE, LeFigaro.fr, curates Louis Vuitton City Guides, and writes books for Gestalten. Today, Le Fort only takes on projects that have a positive impact from a human, ethical, and sustainability perspective and/or are driven by talents in art, design, savoir-faire, or food.

Henna Burney

Henna Burney is a material designer based at Atelier LUMA, a design and research laboratory located in Arles, France. The Colombian-born Burney specializes in developing new types of biomaterials. She works extensively with salt, creating a glass-like material that now clads the interior of Frank Gehry’s LUMA Arles tower, among other projects.

DH Arena Spaker Illu Katie
DH Arena Spaker Illu David
DH Arena Spaker Illu Naomi

Katie Treggiden

Katie Treggiden is a journalist, author, and podcaster and the founder and director of Making Design Circular, a membership community that empowers designers and makers to join the circular economy. She is exploring the question “can craft save the world?” through an emerging body of work that includes her fifth book, Wasted: When Trash Becomes Treasure, and a podcast.

David Rowan

Founding Editor-in-Chief of WIRED magazine’s UK edition, David Rowan explains how emerging technologies will impact business—and how leaders should prepare now. Rowan deconstructs tech trends in real time, unpacking how major innovations like artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and more, are changing businesses and consumers.

Naomi MacKenzie

Naomi MacKenzie is the cofounder of KITRO, a Swiss startup harnessing the power of technology and using it for sustainable change. With artificial intelligence as the foundation, KITRO offers an automated, state-of-the-art imaging solution that is easy to install and provides instant analysis of waste.

DH Arena Spaker Illu Hannes
DH Arena Spaker Illu Dorothee
DH Arena Spaker Illu Suzanna

Hannes Schoenegger

Hannes Schoenegger is the cofounder and CEO of Swiss bag brand QWSTION and its award-winning spin-off brand, Bananatex®️. The company has been making bags from plants since 2008, combining functionality and timeless design with the smallest ecological and largest social footprint possible.

Dorothée Schiesser-Peyrouzet

SapoCycle turns discarded hotel soaps into lifesaving products. The nonprofit organization collects discarded soaps in European hotels, reprocesses them, and distributes them to improve the sanitary conditions of children and families in need in developing countries and in Europe. People with disabilities carry out the soap recycling, which provides them with a stable work environment.

Suzanna Laskaridis

Suzanna Laskaridis is an active member of the Greek shipping community and the founder and director of BlueCycle, an innovative circular initiative that aims to reuse marine plastic waste generated from shipping and fishing activities. Inspired by the sea environment, the designers use robotic 3D printing to create beautiful new pieces, such as furniture, from upcycled marine plastic.

DH Arena Spaker Illu Rodrigo
DH Arena Spaker Illu Karlijn
DH Arena Spaker Illu Capkaroso

Rodrigo García González

A designer, architect, and inventor, Rodrigo García González is the cofounder and co-CEO of Notpla, an award-winning sustainable packaging start-up that is creating alternative solutions to single-use plastic made from seaweed and other natural materials. The innovative plastic-like packaging is edible, biodegradable, and compostable at home.

Karlijn Sibbel

Karlijn Sibbel is the design director of Notpla, an award-winning sustainable packaging start-up that is creating alternative solutions to single-use plastic made from seaweed and other natural materials. The innovative plastic-like packaging is edible, biodegradable, and compostable at home.

Evguenia Ivara (Cap Karoso)

Tucked away on the little-explored Indonesian island of Sumba, Cap Karoso is alive with French-led culinary excellence and contemporary Indonesian art.

DH Arena Spaker Illu Musa
DH Arena Spaker Illu Rockhouse
DH Arena Spaker Illu Cretanmalia

Tara Medina (MUSA)

On Mexico’s Pacific Coast, between the Sierra Madres and the rolling surf, MUSA is a 165-acre destination that transcends the bounds of hospitality.

Paul Salmon (Rockhouse Hotel)

Hovering over a volcanic coast on the western tip of Jamaica, Rockhouse presents a seamless transition between nature and man, and benefits the local community through its own Foundation.

Agapi Sbokou (Cretan Malia Park)

A holistic approach to well-being, a focus on slow-paced living, and a lush outside world blending harmoniously within, all define this new take on Cretan luxury.