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stellapapadopoulos

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You have worked in many different countries. Can you share your thoughts on/insights on working abroad as an architect? How was that experience, especially working with different clients with different expectations?

As traveling helps us understand more about people and different cultures apart from our own, architecture and design becomes a contributing factor to that experience as well.  I found working and living abroad has helped me more not only as a person, but as a designer.  I have learned living in different cities and working with different clients may include different expectations on projects and goals.  I learned to listen more, as the way I learned may not always be the best solution.  That to me, was the greatest difficulty– to allow myself to understand and also accept new expectations.  Accept change, accept new expectations.  It’s ok to be uncomfortable, because it will only make you stronger in the long run.  We learn as we grow. And, the more we learn the greater we become.  Different construction methods helped me understand alternatives as to how things may become built that are more efficient, including ways we can work together to make something work.  Client expectations are always different, whether or not they are from the same country.  But, different cultures have different social and business norms that have given me a greater sense of expectations and have abled me to work more effectively.  I find the more we can familiarize ourselves with living and working in different cultures and societies, we are then able to easily adapt to what may not be familiar and can only makes us stronger and able to propose solutions in the future that may have not been known to us previously.