The question asked in the title of this article, Fab Labs Or Gigafactories? Or Both? might be a bit of a weird one, as it’s obviously not simply one or the other but rather a spectrum of solutions with these two at opposing ends. Still, a useful framing since there is the possibility, through innovative forms of organizations and licensing, to make complex products locally instead of making them exclusively in large factories.
The Fab City is, of course, a lot more than technology in the city. It’s about a future-forward vision of the urban landscape that creates and produces locally while connected and collaborating globally. That being said, it’s no surprise that technology occupies a big space in that vision and that it also now overlaps with more “classical” visions of urbanism and architecture.
Though it is unnecessary to frequently update terms to highlight a potential area of interest, it is still highly useful to explore different perspectives. In this short article, the authors consider that the “Smart City” should rather be termed a “Deep Learning City”.
A better urban future There are a lot of great directions to ponder
Perhaps take this short post by Spin on how the positive impacts of micromobility may be underestimated with a grain of salt because they are themselves a micromobility provider with their scooters. On the other hand, they are sharing intriguing insights since they do have a lot of valuable usage data, which they have put to good use, combining their own research with their partners’ research (Ford and the University of Florida in the post).
