We all need our third place! No matter how much we'd like to stay out of the house on a cloudy day, we often have a springboard - an example would be a creative space. All the marerspaces fablabs and other workshops. What are they all about?
the publication is available online
© Institute for Urban and Regional Development
As part of our #ReportThursday series, we present reports, manuals and documents that are sure to be useful to architects, urban planners, activists and all those who deal with cities. The publication "Creative and Workshop Spaces. Makerspaces, fab labs and workshops in the spaces of Polish cities," was created at the Institute for Urban and Regional Development as part of the Urban Policy Observatory's non-cyclical research.
What the report is about - first of all, it addresses the issues of who a maker is, how urban workshops work and what their innovation and creation potential is. We invite you to take a shortcut from the publication and its key findings.
The publication is available on the Urbanlab project website.
what does it mean to define creative spaces?
© Institute for Urban and Regional Development
homo creativus - the maker man
The Industrial Revolution proved tragic first for traditional crafts and then for small industry. If we add to this the effects of globalization and the acceleration of automation and informatization - in fact, individual manufacturing almost became extinct. This became the canvass for fabricators, often also called hacks, despite the otherwise pejorative nature of the word.
Fabricators, are a group of people who can be described as enthusiasts of modern craftsmanship. For them, creating objects or solutions is a passion that allows them to relax. For the maker movement, networking and collective activities are important - that's why they usually organize joint workshops. For the maker movement, fun and education are equally important - they develop manual tools in a way that theory does not.
Today's makers don't just chisel wood, weld sheet metal or fire ceramics - they use all the goods of technology like 3D printers, lasers for cutting or programming.
breakdown of creative spaces
© Institute for Urban and Regional Development
creative spaces
The makers, unless they operate individually, gather in special places which we can define by the general term - creative spaces. They include hackerspaces, fablabs, makespaces or techshops. What characterizes these places? First and foremost, the provision of easy access to tools and equipment that are beyond the means of the Sunday DIYer. These spaces also help provide a place where people with ideas and concepts congregate, so that creative exchanges of ideas and experiences can take place. At last but not least is knowledge - workshops can allow people to gain knowledge and experience in many aspects, not just purely craftsmanship.
An example of a grassroots organized Urban Workshop in Gliwice
© Institute for Urban and Regional Development
Workshops can be created in two ways - bottom-up and top-down. As the authors of the publication point out, each has its advantages. The examples of the grassroots Urban Workshop in Gliwice and the ProtoLab in Rzeszow, created by local public institutions, are cited. The path to creating workshops can vary.
From an urban perspective, the most important thing is the city-forming potential of creative space workshops - they are a place where you can fulfill yourself creatively, the entry profile is very low so there is no problem of accessibility, and it also stimulates the issue of innovation in the context of, for example, urban solutions. This is the potential of the third place, described by the authors of the publication.
UrbanLab conducted research on the use of creative space
© Institute for Urban and Regional Development
space - tools - knowledge, or why you should use it
The description of creative places outlined above is just an outline of all the possibilities related to creative spaces, which are described in the 60-page publication published by the IRMiR. It also contains a set of recommendations on how urban workshop institutions should be created and supported. Urban workshops would help solve the issues of many of the problems we face in our cities. They would support education, strengthen social ties, allow us to unleash the potential of residents, or a useful backup in the form of designing parklets, or other grassroots urban initiatives.
The publication is available on the Urbanlab project website.
the publication is available online
© Institute for Urban and Regional Development
