There have been many changes during the last week…
Caracol, a designer studio, moved its big 3D printers out the building and left an empty big room at the upper floor. Yesterday, the designers of ResCure arrived, the first group “in residence” that will live here till june 25th and accelerate their project thanks to WeMake know-how and its shared spaces.
There are many people around now, many machines and tables too; there is not a fixed way to deal with spaces. At least, functionality and results make spaces lived by people and changed time to time. Some machines are heavy, but I have seen the 3D printers and other stuff moved easily from one side of the place to the other, or more tables mounted for the newcomers in few minutes. There are also many classes and participants around; so many tables, activities, computers, cables and…of course, people. There is a heterogeneity at work that makes such peculiar activities possible; half way instructional, half way productive. When it comes to prototyping, mocking-up, or discussing how to define something that is not standard, or mass produced, there is an involvement on different levels and by different actors. It reminds more of a home life than a factory; there are no written rules about how to deal with spaces and home rules as well, as far as I have understood. Anyway everything seems very well organised and scheduled: MIR guests arrived yesterday, but had already two classes: one about AGILE approach by @alessandro_contini and one about Github by @Costantino .
It is important that everybody here uses and delivers contents using the same tools and integrating to others within the bigger tasks. Me too, i had to live this “rite of passage”.
There are two considerations now. First, big changes in constituted order of space may bring changes in the way work is organised. Second, there is not a better way than changing the program, or modifying the shopfloor, to see how people react and enact in other ways, de-routinizing the ethnomethods shared at WeMake and whoever may access its social world.
The arrival of ResCure-ers brings opencare work at WeMake to a new level. Different local settings can be understood now as network localities coexisting and sharing the same space-time dimensions. The classes are shared with WeHandU and inspire more makers at once. The understanding of how others work give a day by day and specific shape to own projects. By what they talk about and what they do, “Making for opencare” discourse becomes a visible and touchable meaningful concept for different people involved in such exchange of knowledge. A large community is at work these days here…I have counted about 40 people…It’s amazing! Teens, Senior Makers, opencare staff, makers and designers, students and trainees…all together.