Making "Making" Critical: How Sustainability is Constituted in Fab Lab Ideology

Fab Labs, fabrication laboratories, are shared workshops where citizens can access digital fabrication equipment to design and make their own objects. They are proliferating rapidly and represent an alternative to mass production and consumption, an ideology whose environmental and social benefits t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Design journal Vol. 20; no. 3; pp. 375 - 394
Main Author Kohtala, Cindy
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford Routledge 04.05.2017
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
Art education
Design
digital fabrication
distributed production
Ethnography
Fab Lab
Ideology
Laboratories
Mass production
open design
Sustainability
Workshops
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Summary:Fab Labs, fabrication laboratories, are shared workshops where citizens can access digital fabrication equipment to design and make their own objects. They are proliferating rapidly and represent an alternative to mass production and consumption, an ideology whose environmental and social benefits their "makers" like to espouse. A longitudinal ethnographic study in a Fab Lab in a European design school examined the Lab's ideology building, how ideals were enacted and where compromises were visible. Environmental issues were intertwined with other ideological concerns, but they were rarely promoted in their own right. Engagement with sustainability-oriented makers and stakeholders is recommended.
ISSN:1460-6925
1756-3062
1756-3062
DOI:10.1080/14606925.2016.1261504