The Fab City global initiative members gather in Copenhagen for the Fab City Summit 2017. During the 7th and 8th of September 2017, experts in the field of digital fabrication, design, urbanism, blockchain technologies, big data, urban manufacturing, circular economy and social innovation, will work on the establishment of actions and strategies to build locally productive and globally connected cities for the next 36 years, following the Barcelona Fab City pledge. Connected with the trends on Industry 4.0, automation, AI, digital fabrication, synthetic biology, blockchain and other major tech disruptions, Fab City is working on establishing a global network of makers and doers, supported on the Fab Lab Network, governments, policy makers and Design networks, in order to make a more inclusive and circular future for the urban living.
Tomas Diez and Massimo Menichinelli from IAAC participated in it.
During the last several months I’ve been invited to events to present the work of Fab Lab Barcelona at IAAC, and especially during three events I had the opportunity to talk also about MAKE-IT but especially about the platforms developed in our labs, which can be considered Maker CAPS (Collective Awareness Platforms), since they focus on networking distributed and collaborative actors and processes. These events are Sharitaly 2016 (Milan, Italy) (15-16 November 2016), Innovation Village (Naples, Italy) (6-7 April 2017) and Energy & Smart Cities (Águeda, Portugal) (29-30 June 2017). Sharitaly is the main collaborative / sharing economy event in Italy; Innovation Village is the main innovation event in Southern Italy, and Águeda is a small Portuguese city with a population of 15,000 in central/northern Portugal, the first Smart City of the country. Here you can check the presentations for the Sharitaly 2016, Innovation Village and Energy & Smart Cities events.
Innovation Village (Naples, Italy). Source: Medaarch
The common element of the three presentations is the evolution of perspective that the Fab Lab movement is having now, which is increasingly considering its processes, outcomes and impact at a larger scale. Growing at a larger scale is (hopefully) a sign of the success of the Fab Lab and Maker movement, but also a sign of maturity in terms of reflecting upon the work done so fare and upon where to go from here. Growing at a larger scale means at least two directions, along which we are working on at Fab Lab Barcelona:
on the physical, local dimension: the Fab City framework
on the digital, global dimension: the Fab City platforms
Cities are where most of the planet’s population now live, and they offer the best opportunity to effect practical change at scale, and in a context to which people can relate. Cities are at the heart of addressing the social and environmental challenges of the 21st century. The Fab City is a global project to develop locally productive, self-sufficient and globally connected cities; it comprises an international think tank of civic leaders, fab lab champions, makers, urbanists and innovators working on changing paradigm of the current industrial economy where the city operates on a linear model of importing products and producing waste.
To become a Fab City requires having a more precise knowledge of the way cities work. The Fab City Expert Meeting is gathering world leaders on digital fabrication, innovation and urban design in order to look on future models of operations and research for the Fab City project. It will be organised in participatory sessions in which the best skills and knowledge from participants will be oriented towards a common direction of efforts in order to transform the way we work, live and play in cities. We aim to end up with a road map in order to look for funding and organisation opportunities for the future of Fab Cities.
Tomas Diez and Massimo Menichinelli from IAAC | Fab Lab Barcelona participated in this event, promoting the MAKE-IT project and discussing its related topics with the experts of the summit.
The Fab City Campus is a temporary and freely accessible campus open between 1 April until 26 June at the head of Amsterdam’s Java Island in the city’s Eastern Harbour District. Conceived as a green, self-sustaining city, FabCity comprises of approximately 50 innovative pavilions, installations and prototypes. More than 400 young students, professionals, artists and creatives are developing the site into a sustainable urban area, where they work, create, explore and present their solutions for current urban issues. The participants come from various educational backgrounds, including art and technology academics, universities and vocational colleges.
