Exploring technology-enabled maker-spaces to empower communities

About the Project

Explore how data-driven co-working and fabrication spaces can engage independent makers, designers and craftspeople to respond to local needs. The project builds on the emergence of vibe-coding to empower communities through vibe-making processes (Generative AI and Internet of Things (IoT) enabled manufacture and craft).

Positioned at the intersection of technology, community and innovation, these fabrication hubs are decentralised and agile, manufacturing spaces. They offer a sustainable alternative to centralised mass production. The hubs ensure and provide the opportunity to respond to local communities and the specificity of places. By integrating direct experience and local knowledge of place, and smart technologies on their own terms, independent makers can harness digital manufacturing benefits while preserving the unique value of human-centred, craft-based production, and collaborating with local communities to understand, represent, and manifest place.

In turn, digital fabrication services can support skills development in underserved communities. Also, it enables independent creators to remain competitive in an evolving technological landscape by:

• blending traditional craftsmanship with digital fabrication, integrating Computer Numerical Control (CNC) milling, 3D printing and Generative AI-assisted design
• providing local communities with shared access to advanced tools, lowering individual investment barriers
• facilitating knowledge-sharing and encouraging makers and would-be makers to experiment with novel approaches
• promoting localised alternatives to centralised mass manufacturing
• strengthening community networks, fostering co-creation and resilient local economies.

The successful applicant can shape and develop the project through their own disciplinary, methodological or creative interests. We invite proposals for practice-based enquiry. This may, amongst other approaches, involve participatory methods and approaches for fostering community engagement. Potentially the enquiry can investigate local communities’ perspectives, concerns and needs regarding place, social impact and sustainable manufacturing approaches through prototyping and co-creation methodologies.

As part of the candidate's practical research they may, for example:

• develop tools for understanding local communities’ perspective of place and making
• evaluate machine tools usage
• conduct stakeholder interviews
• map current and potential systems of production
• conduct workshops and events
• develop user studies.

The research approach and focus will be defined with the successful candidate. Candidates may wish to propose, for example:

• new frameworks that enable independent makers to adapt to smart factory-driven economies
• explore how to meaningfully and appropriately integrate and engage with specific locales
• how sustainability can be integrated into shared fabrication hubs, ensuring ethical and sustainable production remains viable.

The findings may result in replicable strategies for building resilient, community-driven and digitally enabled production ecosystems, informing both academic discourse and real-world applications in policy, practice and design research.

Potential research questions

1. How can independent makers and designers leverage emergent technologies such as IoT, Gen AI etc. to enhance sustainable production, and encourage making from a broader section of the community through small-scale production, shared fabrication hubs, and decentralised manufacturing ecosystems?
2. What role can emergent technologies, sustainable production methods and hyper-local manufacturing play in empowering independent makers, supporting skills development in under-served communities, strengthening community engagement, and understandings of place and placemaking?
3. What insights and methodologies from this research can be applied to help independent makers build local, resilient, community led production ecosystems that balance craft, digital fabrication, and sustainable manufacturing?

Project partner

The external partner for this project is BLOQS, a digital fabrication service housed in a 30,000 square feet purpose-built workspace. BLOQS’ facility was built in 2022 with funding from the GLA and Enfield Council. It is used by over 700 businesses.

This partnership situates the doctoral project within the Meridian Water regeneration project in Enfield where BLOQS are strategically positioned within the development’s “Your Place to Make and Create” pillar of placemaking. The Meridian Water development has brought 10,000 homes and 6,000 jobs to the area. It aims to grow the local economy by providing opportunities to work with 21st century creative production methods.

BLOQS is based in North London giving central and easy access. If the student is London based, they can travel to site as required.

Collaborating with BLOQS will provide the PhD applicant with a unique, real-world testbed to explore community-building, sustainability and hyper-local manufacturing. The researcher will have firsthand access to a dynamic ecosystem of designers, makers, and industry professionals. This will enable them to observe, test and refine community engagement strategies in a practical setting. BLOQs’ commitment to sustainability and IoT-driven manufacturing offers a rich environment for studying innovative, sustainable production methods.

Onsite time can be utilised for meeting with the leadership team and staff, scoping of the site and organisational processes, access to facilities for test-rigging and prototyping (in consultation with the partner), space for ethnographic study, participant workshops and interviews.

Visit BLOQS’ website for more.

Supervisors and research at UAL

• Dr Michael Kann is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Design at Chelsea College of Arts. His research interests include design pedagogy, humanising / more-than-humanising technology and the application of participatory and practice-oriented design.
• Dr Rosie Hornbuckle is a Reader in Design (Associate Professor) and co-founder of the Complex Collaborations Design Research Hub at University of the Arts London (UAL).
• Prof Maria Chatzichristodoulou is a scholar and cultural practitioner. She is a Professor of Performance and Digital Transformation, Dean of Research and Knowledge Exchange at Chelsea, Camberwell and Wimbledon Colleges of Arts.

How to apply

See the application guidance and submit your application on our website.