There are a lot of grassroots and human-centred aspects to Fab Cities, but it’s also an intersection of fields where technology tends to play a large role. Even with better maintenance, re-use, repair, upcycling, and recycling, a lot of our electronics end up in the trash or supposedly recycled but actually shipped elsewhere to be disposed of in less than ideal situations.
The “fab” in Fab City originally comes from “fabrication” and Fablabs. These labs, initially constructed around technology and tools of local fabrication, are also being applied to other fields with intriguing results. The Fabricademy, founded by Anastasia Pistofidou (who’s also co-founder of Fablab Textiles and research leader at IAAC, Fab Lab Barcelona) is a shining example of applying fabrication technologies alongside the principles and ideals of transparency, open-source access and sharing knowledge, and influencing older practices of craftsmanship.
The second edition of Further afield, where we look at some ideas that are perhaps a bit further afield than our usual focus but that can inform our thinking on cities from a broader perspective.
Pop-up spaces are not a new thing (even the article we’re linking to is two+ years old), but few are well done, fewer still are not incubating retail spaces, but it’s even more unique to find a group that does multiple projects over a few years. That’s what the CultureHouse have been doing, turning pop-up spaces into social infrastructure.
We’ve written about the commons a few times in the past, and this piece by Eula Biss is probably the best one. Although not directly related to cities, since she looks at the more traditional agricultural village-based commons, it’s an excellent explanation of the concept and its history, extremely useful as background for any discussion about other forms of commons.
