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.

Is it circular or “just” upcycling? Regardless, cool little project documented at Centrinno, where they focused on “the importance of creating synergies and relations with a network of micro and small organisations united by the will and interest in creating an urban and circular manufacturing.”

Here’s an excellent written version of a talk given by Adrian McEwen (in 2015), one of the co-founders of DoES Liverpool, which is “(sort of) a makerspace (and more) in Liverpool.” His talk, The Dark Matter of Makerspaces, covers quite a bit of ground and offers some great tips and insights, not only for people running makerspaces but any kind of community space, or even many community-focused organisations.

One way of dealing both with consumerism and tighter budgets is to have access to shared resources. In this interview with Gene Homicki, co-founder and CEO of myTurn, we can learn a bit more about how people are starting and running libraries of things.

Hard to think of something more Fab City than this lovely project! The team behind Domingo Club wants to “promote plant proteins and create the tools for everyone to make them at home, for the benefit of our planet.” The project started with them winning a 2021 Distributed Design award for their open-source fermentation incubator. The prize money helped them to set up a mini fab lab (fabrication laboratory) and rent a studio, everything they make and sell is made in their fab lab. They open-source everything, the plans for the award-winning incubator, the software for the electronics to run it, and the 3D forms for their tempeh moulds, all available on their Github account.