Sabine Hielscher

Making the most of community energies: Three perspectives on grassroots innovation:

Grassroots innovations for sustainability are attracting increasing policy attention. Drawing upon a wide range of empirical research into community energy in the UK, and taking recent support from national government as a case study, we apply three distinct analytical perspectives: strategic niche management, niche policy advocacy, and critical niches. Whilst the first and second perspectives appear to explain policy influence in grassroots innovation adequately, each also shuts out more transformational possibilities. We therefore argue that, if grassroots innovation is to realise its full potential, then we need to also pursue a third, critical niches perspective, and open up debate about more socially transformative pathways to sustainability.

Making things in Fab Labs: a case study on sustainability and co-creation

ABSTRACT Digital fabrication laboratories (such as Fab Labs) are a global initiative of workshops that offer open access to technologies to produce objects from beginning idea to final production. Fab Labs encourage open and free knowledge-sharing among ‘experts’ and the general public. Claims are being made about community-based digital fabrication workshops transforming practices of design, innovation, production and consumption, while describing positive impacts on the environment and social goals. Research that examines such claims is sparse. This paper explores realities of using digital fabrication technologies within a Fab Lab. It draws on a case study that describes practical outcomes of a design workshop in which a multidisciplinary team engaged in issues of sustainable design and processes of co-creation to design and fabricate a prototype. This experience provides insight into the impact of digital fabrication technologies within a sustainable and co-creational design context and critical reflections are presented.

Experimenting with Novel Socio-Technical Configurations

Abstract Grassroots digital fabrication workshops (such as FabLabs), and associated technologies (such as 3D printers), are attracting increasing attention as a potential source for addressing a variety of social and environmental challenges. Through an analysis of an in-depth case study on FabLabs, this paper aims to provide insights into the practices emerging in these workshops and realities of the relationship between its members and technologies that are currently under-researched. It does this by drawing upon the domestication literature that concerns itself with how people use, adapt and reject technologies and integrate them into their life. The paper examines the significance of the interactions between people and technologies in FabLabs and offers concluding reflections on the role of these relationships within broader social and environmental changes.