A Day in Prague with reSITE's Alexandra Siebenthal

Alexandra Siebenthal is the Digital Communications Manager for reSITE, a non-profit platform connecting people and ideas to improve the urban environment. She is the creator, producer, and host of reSITE's podcast, Design and the City. Her day involves breakfast on the balcony, Manifesto Market, time with Femme Palette, and yoga on a rooftop.

6:45pm: Like clockwork, I am usually woken up by my cat, Sova (it means ‘owl’ in Czech) presenting me with her toy mouse or playfully biting my hand. I’ve found her morning greetings far more effective than an alarm on my phone, which is convenient as I try my best to not start my mornings checking messages. We’ve gotten into such a routine, and she won’t let me forget.

Now that it's getting warmer, I take my breakfast—tea and a smoothie with granola—on my balcony with the cat, read morning newsletters while watching my neighborhood wake up. I began this routine during the first lockdown, and I found enjoying these earlier hours, watching the sunrise from my flat, to be grounding. Before leaving or starting work for the day, I started doing Sam Harris’s meditation course for 10 or so minutes every morning. I’m still terrible at it, but enjoy the experience.

8:30pm: Perhaps my favorite part of the day: coffee in hand and a walk with a podcast. I pop into one of my favorite coffee shops nearby for an oat milk latte. They are always kind to me as I stumble through my order in Czech. It’s a routine interaction I’ve come to value so much, providing this sense of community I’ve found Prague to be rich in. When the pandemic hit, they were sewing handmade masks and giving them out to customers.

Our office is in the city center, and on nicer days I skip the tram and walk. The walkability of the city is something I’ve always been a bit infatuated with after growing up in suburban San Diego where cars dominate. I am almost always listening to a podcast - my current favorites include You’re Wrong About, iWeigh and Unlocking Us. It provides plenty of inspiration for how I can improve Design and the City—from podcasts or even just from experiencing the city. It’s become a ritual that gives me time and space to think, and I even keep it up on WFH days where revisiting all corners of this city never gets old.

My background isn’t in urbanism or architecture, but I’ve found Prague, and my experiences in other cities I’ve spent time in, to be my greatest teacher in urbanism and what constitutes a livable city. When I started working for reSITE four years ago as their digital media manager, all these thoughts I had about public space in cities suddenly came into sharp focus. The dots connected. Urbanism was never on my radar as a concept, but I was already thinking in those terms.

10:00pm: By now I’ve settled into the work day. Our office set-up is unique in that it is shared with the founder’s other project, Manifesto Market. It’s fluid and open, with 360 views, and filled with people who make it an incredible space.

After organizing my to-do’s for the day, I respond to messages and prepare for the meetings I have scheduled. If there was no lockdown, by now the team would be putting together our annual event centered around bringing all various actors of city-making together to share ideas on livable cities in June. Now, my efforts have pivoted to developing a new platform, a podcast (Design and the City), that carries our same mission.

I typically then get started on some research for a podcast episode, or begin prepping an episode for publication. It’s been an incredibly wild experience with the podcast evolving as it has, in the midst of the pandemic, leading me to step outside of my comfort zone and wear several different hats to bring this vision to life.

1:00pm: I try to not get too deep into a project or I have a hard time stopping for lunch. On sunny days, I love to grab takeaway from this delicious vegetarian bistro nearby and take it up to the rooftop of our building. It has incredible views of the city and lots of sun.

After that, the afternoons I reserve for more uninterrupted, deep work as they are my peak creative hours when I feel most alert. That normally includes doing some deeper research for a guest and constructing an episode arch, hunting for the main threads I hope to weave through the episode.

I spend a lot of time on post-production once we’ve recorded an interview. I use software to transcribe the podcast, giving me the ability to read the podcast while highlighting the most inspiring and powerful quotes. Those we use to help sum up the episode in the communications, thoughtful introductions and description plus all other copywriting needed. I even handle the graphic design for our social media with audiograms and quote cards. I love producing content from some of the insightful bits our guests share into smaller, digestible pieces that still make an impact. It helps spread important themes and messages from every episode.

When I need to record, I visit a studio across town and edit with the audio engineer. No two days are the same when it comes to producing a podcast, but it’s also what I find to be exhilarating, getting to create so many pieces to a puzzle.

5:00pm: Some days when I am on a roll and immersed in a project, I have a hard time stopping. I never want to kill the train of thought or burst of creativity, but having a yoga class to attend helps me stay balanced and avoid burnout.

6:00pm: My yoga practice has become a source of so much growth in my life. When not in lockdown, I aim to go to my studio, Prague Yoga Collective, 3-4 times a week. It has become part of my creative process and takes the edge off of days where the anxiety of navigating new territories is strong. I’ve also found that sometimes the really challenging class forces such a deep focus channeled to my body, that it takes my mind off whatever I’m trying to mentally work through with the answer or an idea coming to me on its own. Some of my best ideas have been conceived in a yoga class. It has impacted me so much that I organized a weekly office session with one of my favorite teachers during the past two summers, on our building’s stunning rooftop terrace.

7:00pm: My evenings I try to reserve for personal creative outlets. I’m involved with a organization called Femme Palette which organizes mentorships, webinars and events, all to help women advance in their careers. I also take small commissions as a photographer, something I’ve been doing since I was 17. Recently I have been collaborating with friends who opened an ethically-made clothing shop, an interior design business or just wanted some major milestones captured.

In quarantine, I started experimenting with cooking a lot more, a habit I’ve maintained. Lately I’ve been exploring enchilada recipes, what I miss most from growing up in San Diego. It’s also the time where I try to connect with friends and family. I am missing the days where meeting up with friends for a glass of wine or two was still the norm. There is a growing natural wine scene here with a lot of excellent places to enjoy a tasting from producers in the region.

I also enjoy doing some sort of hands-on project—anything to get me to step away from my computer. Currently I am working on a giant geometric macrame hanging for my wall. When things begin opening up here again, I am hoping to get back into pottery or take more sewing classes. I get a lot of satisfaction from the process of making things.

11:30pm: I'm fully in wind-down-mode at this point, and Sova is here to remind me, waiting in bed to go to sleep. It’s a good moment to reflect on the day, and as I write this, the year. One both incredibly challenging and rewarding—its hard to wrap up the complicated evolution I feel has taken place, and brought me here. This year has been unbelievably hard for so many, and I want to be the first to admit my life is nowhere near this perfect everyday. It's been as messy as it has been empowering. So, usually anything to shut my mind off--a bath, a book, or a few episodes of Schitt's Creek (I’m so late to the party on this one) before drifting off around midnight--is necessary.