Edward Dutton

Doing a PhD can take people in all kinds of directions other than just academia but Dr Despina Sfakiotaki has trodden a particularly original path. Having come to Oulu ten years ago to do a doctorate in Japanese architecture at the university, she has now set up ‘Zen Kei Design Studio.’ She designs and makes Japanese Gardens.

‘Forced to do something!’

When asked why she set up the business, Despina, who is Greek, is quite frank. While finishing her doctorate her marriage to a Finn broke-down and she was left as a single mother with two young kids.
‘I was kind of forced to do something!’ she laughs. But she’s also convinced that designing and making Japanese gardens can be popular in Oulu and beyond.
‘They’re very popular world wide and Finns are more oriented towards Japan than the Greeks,’ she informs me. ‘There’s this love of nature and minimalism and back to basics in both cultures.’
Her clientele at the moment most highly educated Finns and business people who generally speak ‘very good English.’ She has designed a number of interior Japanese gardens for business offices and her work will be exhibited at the Vaasa Home Fair next summer. However, she admits that ‘paying to have your garden designed is quite a new thing in Finland and especially in Oulu.’

‘Rising City’

But surprisingly, Oulu has been quite a good place to start a business in designing Japanese gardens.
‘People don’t live in flats . . . there’s lots of space here to do the gardens and there are companies that are prepared to invest in this kind of thing’ she says. ‘Also, there are a lot of new structures . . . Oulu is a rising city.’ Through the Architecture Department at the university, Despina knows most of the local architects and she also praised the help she received from the council.
‘I got start up money, lots of free advice . . . the people are very helpful and all the forms are quite easy to fill in.’
Despina offers a variety of gardens and the cost depends on the size of the Japanese garden to be designed. A small garden in a terraced house, for example, will be 500 euros including VAT. And if the customer wants Despina to make the garden itself – and she has had many of her own gardens exhibited – then she charges 40 euros an hour.

Finnish Hospitality

When she has actually done this, Despina has been amazed by just how hospitable some of her Finnish customers have been. She remembers doing a garden for a particular client where the client had laid on an entire lunch spread for her including sandwiches and cake.
‘I was amazed by that. They take time to sit down and discuss everything with you. They treat you very nicely.’
And there are many other things in Oulu that the Greek architect has found to be very different from her native Thessaloniki.
‘Sometimes people take you for granted,’ she said. ‘They think that you are being helpful because you’re a Greek and that’s maybe what you do. Sometimes they don’t realise that, like anybody else, you might want something in return!’ She has also found the business environment to be ‘faster’ here and that Finns are sometimes a little less trusting than Greeks.
She has also found that Oulu people are much less used to investing – or paying somebody else to make – ‘aesthetic’ items such as Japanese gardens.
‘This is a new field and many people are quite conservative in a way. I work with an educated elite who speak English but broadening it out may be a problem. Not many of my clients are just ordinary Oulu people. In Sweden people are more interested in having their gardens designed but here it’s like some people are a little bit scared of it!’
But with her doctorate, Despina is one of Finland’s leading experts on Japanese gardens and she has found this to very important to many Finns who seem to particularly respect education.
Having been in Oulu for ten years – and with two Finnish children – Despina has got fairly used to the culture but there are still little things abut Greece that she misses.
‘I miss the food,’ she tells me. ‘And the warmth of people talking all the time! In Greece I can hear people shouting, waving their hands when they talk, hugging everybody . . . !’

Balance and Harmony

And Despina is certainly well travelled enough to be able to make comparisons. Having always been interested in the relationship between the person and nature, she lived and did her Masters thesis in Iceland where she became fascinated by the unique landscape there. She studied in Austria. She then visited Japan extensively where she became very interested in the Japanese emphasis on keeping all of the ‘elements in balance’ and in the interest in detail and harmony which she also finds in Finnish culture. The name of her company reflects this.
‘Zen-Kei refers to the foreground of the three layers – foreground, middle and background . . . but it’s also the whole view when see from above. It’s a general outlook.’ Despina also chose the word ‘Zen’ because it’s a Japanese word that she thought ‘everybody would know.’
Despina now has a fully operating webpage for Zen-Kei, brochures and a portfolio of the work she’s done – including an exhibition at Oulu University and a Horticultural Exhibition in Kempele.
As we finish the interview she has to be off to pick her son up from day care and her eight year old from school. To her delight, they are already becoming interested in ‘stones and moss and nature.’ So maybe this interest in natural harmony runs in the family!
But Despina’s interest and expertise is fairly unique in Finland and, as she admits, it’s certainly one of the more interesting things to do with a PhD.