VP and Managing Director of STIRIXIS Group speaks about #AestheticsCreateEthics, the Value Creation Circle™, and the way design shapes behaviour, trust, and everyday experience.

Elena Kyrnasiou-Athanasoula, VP and Managing Director of STIRIXIS Group, was featured in Athens Voice issue #998 (City Lives 2), speaking about the philosophy and practice behind thirty years of work across 29 countries and 900+ projects.

The conversation covers the thinking behind #AestheticsCreateEthics and what it means in practice: that spaces are never neutral, that a well-designed environment builds trust before a single word is spoken, and that strategy only delivers real value when it is felt in the spaces people inhabit every day. She speaks about the Value Creation Circle™, the integrated system of strategy, design, execution, and evolution that STIRIXIS Group has built its work around, and about why separating these was never an option.

“If we agree that space shapes behaviour, then the way we design the city is essentially the way we choose to coexist.”

The interview also touches on Athens specifically, on what good design can do at street level, and on the responsibility that comes with shaping shared spaces. Small gestures, an entrance that welcomes, a building that gives something back to its street, accumulate over time into the kind of city people want to live in.

STIRIXIS Group has been working at the intersection of strategy, design, and human experience since 1993. The full interview is in Athens Voice issue #998 and online at the link below.

Read the full interview in Athens Voice:
Elena Kyrnasiou-Athanasoula: Design is the means, not the end