Making “Making” Critical: How Sustainability is Constituted in Fab Lab Ideology

Loading...
Thumbnail Image

Access rights

openAccess

URL

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä

Date

2017

Major/Subject

Mcode

Degree programme

Language

en

Pages

20
1-20

Series

The Design Journal, Volume 20, issue 2

Abstract

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.

Description

Keywords

fab lab, digital fabrication, open design, distributed production, SUSTAINABILITY

Other note

Citation

Kohtala, C 2017, ' Making “Making” Critical : How Sustainability is Constituted in Fab Lab Ideology ', The Design Journal, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 375-394 . https://doi.org/10.1080/14606925.2016.1261504