tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca-fr/topics/fab-lab-56121/articlesfab lab – La Conversation2018-07-04T21:19:19Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/992022018-07-04T21:19:19Z2018-07-04T21:19:19ZHow fab labs help meet digital challenges in Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225604/original/file-20180701-117377-1qh8ygs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C1500%2C979&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jerry-can computer.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fab labs serve at the same time as production, creation and prototyping workshops, hands-on training spaces and facilitators of social ties. They contribute to reducing the traditional head-on opposition between “knowing” and “doing”.</p>
<p>The wave of fab labs came about in the United States in 1998, under the impetus of <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/neil_gershenfeld_on_fab_labs">Neil Gerhenfeld</a>, professor at MIT. They are workshops designed to be open, shared and collaborative. Their objective is to provide a physical space comprising digital tools (laser cutters, 3D printers, etc.) for everyone to use, which allows an individual to create and invent. They therefore make it possible to design, prototype, build and test a wide variety of objects.</p>
<p>These spaces take on a particular meaning in Africa, where they are becoming relays for the development of educational Commons.</p>
<h2>The specificity of African fab labs: educational commons</h2>
<p>While Sub-Saharan countries have made huge strides in the development of their education systems, the fact that they initially lagged behind and have strong population growth mean that the region still has 50 million primary or secondary school-aged children not enrolled in school. In addition to these difficulties of access, there are the major challenges concerning the equity and quality of teaching given to students.</p>
<p>Sub-Saharan African fab labs offer a huge diversity, but they set educational objectives more clearly and more systematically than their counterparts in developed countries.</p>
<p>For example, many offer workshops, not only for children and teenagers, but also for students, to make up for the lack of equipment in universities, or for women, to facilitate their social and professional integration. Beyond the training aspect for the youngest in the rudiments of electronics or digital manufacturing, the educational project thereby aims to address local societal issues.</p>
<p>Sésamé Koffi Agodjinou, founder of <a href="https://www.woelabo.com/">WoeLab</a> in Togo, is an anthropologist who was trained as an architect. He sees fab labs as a way of working with citizens to rethink cities, which are usually designed only by urban planners. In line with the principles of vernacular architecture, and its vision of a city that is more of a village, the fab lab offers a space and moments to create social cohesion, and symbolically a new place of initiation for young people.</p>
<p>Guiako Obin, creator of <a href="http://www.baby-lab.org/">Babylab</a> in Côte d’Ivoire, chose an underprivileged neighbourhood of Abidjan, which suffers from poverty and insecurity, to install a fab lab and make it a driver for social transformation via education. In this way he also fights against idleness and delinquency among youth.</p>
<p>Finally, the <a href="http://www.blolab.org/">Blolab</a> in Bénin, created by Médard Agbayazon, has the objective of promoting digital literacy among young people and local professionals (artisans, farmers), as well as helping them build inexpensive, accessible and rapidly developed solutions. Here, the ingenuity of the fab lab community, inspired and supported by global informational resources, provides solutions tailored to local needs. For example, the lab has allowed the development of an application to report cases of gendered violence.</p>
<h2>Frugal and tinkered innovation central to the system</h2>
<p>With more than <a href="https://www.fablab.io/labs">40 spaces</a> created in the recent years, the vitality of this movement in Africa is confirmed. They all provide new spaces for innovation thanks, in difficult conditions, to the resourcefulness, creativity and strong will of its promoters.</p>
<p>In the workshop, the production itself also needs to cope with the challenges of the lack of available financial and material resources. Fab lab communities, which therefore have a frugal approach to innovation, make every effort to meet local needs with simple and customised solutions. They also use and contribute to online resources, whether for manuals, building instructions, communities of practice or even crowdfunding websites.</p>
<p>This is exemplified by the <a href="http://youandjerrycan.org/">Jerry Do-It-Together</a> initiative, which organises workshops to build Linux computers using recycled electronic components housed in a 20-liter jerrycan. Users, designers and hackers get together around Jerry computers to learn how digital technology is made and gear it to their needs.</p>
<p>The growing movement of African fab labs is also driven by a will to share knowledge and open up innovation: in Africa as elsewhere, they thereby call into question the usual production, education and intellectual property methods and, more generally, make us question the role of the citizen in economic and societal projects.</p>
<h2>In what way do these spaces constitute the Commons?</h2>
<p>Fab labs are entrepreneurial, associative, public or academic. They illustrate how the theory of the Commons can inspire production activities. Since the Nobel Prize for Economics was awarded to Elinor Ostrom in 2009 for her research, there has been an unprecedented enthusiasm for the Commons. It refers to the collective management of a resource by a community, which defines ad-hoc rules and sets up a governance structure allowing the distribution of rights and obligations and the resolution of conflicts.</p>
<p>The objective set by the community is central to what is done in common. In the case of a Commons structured around a natural resource, it often – but not always – involves preserving the quantity or quality of the resource. This definition inherited from traditional Commons (agriculture, herding, fishing) extends to a whole new generation of Commons, what we call the “informational” Commons, whose objective is rather to share, disseminate and enrich the good, along the principle of “additionality”.</p>
<p>Fab labs are drivers of these dynamics. Those physical spaces aim to develop digital knowledge, disseminate it, share it (within communities), and conserve it (on web libraries and platforms). It pools machines as well as experiences. It contributes to the accumulation of knowledge and the redistribution of this knowledge via training programs. Knowledge is consequently both a component of the fab lab, but also an objective.</p>
<p>They are spaces which are both part of a territory, but also of the many online communities (free and open-source software, <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetMap</a>, social networks). This duality of physical and digital communities leads to a two-pronged movement: a reterritorialisation, via a local use, of digital Commons developed on a global scale and, otherwise, a deterritorialisation of knowledge generated in fab labs for uses on a global scale.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This text is based on the working paper <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vvawhIISpiU8-_SiUCoAoADzn5maG_12/view">“From Informational Commons to Educational Commons: Fab labs in French-speaking Africa”</a>, co-authored by Stéphanie Leyronas, Isabelle Liotard and Gwenael Prié.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/99202/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>The Viva Tech Fair took place in May 2018 in Paris, showcasing innovation in Africa. The continent’s fablabs, driven by digital tools and collaborative dynamics, are shaking up traditional foundations.Stéphanie Leyronas, Chargée de recherche sur les communs, Agence française de développement (AFD)Gwenael Prié, Responsable d'Equipe Projet, Agence française de développement (AFD)Isabelle Liotard, Maître de Conférences, HDR , domaine d'expertise : économie de l'innovation, économie des réseaux, Université Sorbonne Paris NordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/984402018-06-26T20:14:56Z2018-06-26T20:14:56ZWhat should be the EU policy for Mediterranean ‘third places’?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223398/original/file-20180615-85849-8lj0vm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C24%2C1497%2C862&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Finale of the projet COWORKMed in Zagreb, April 2018.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">COWORKMed</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://coworkmed.interreg-med.eu/">COWORKMed</a> project is a multidisciplinary European research partnership aimed at understanding the challenges and potential benefits of coworking spaces in territories across five European countries: France (PACA region), Spain (Catalonia), Italy (<a href="https://coworkmed.interreg-med.eu/fileadmin/user_upload/Sites/Social_and_Creative/Projects/COWORKMED/2.2.2_Tuscany.pdf">Tuscany</a> region), <a href="https://coworkmed.interreg-med.eu/fileadmin/user_upload/Sites/Social_and_Creative/Projects/COWORKMED/2.2.2_Greece.pdf">Greece</a> and <a href="https://coworkmed.interreg-med.eu/fileadmin/user_upload/Sites/Social_and_Creative/Projects/COWORKMED/2.2.2_Croatia.pdf">Croati</a>a. The project began in December 2016 and ran until April 2018. The final presentation of the COWORKMed project took place in Zagreb on April 2018_</p>
<h2>Defining, counting and mapping</h2>
<p>Led by the <a href="https://www.avitem.org/fr/projet/coworkmed-recherche-sur-l%E2%80%99innovation-sociale-des-clusters-de-coworking">Agency for Sustainable Mediterranean Cities and Territories</a> (AVITEM) and several European partners – the Institute of Entrepreneurship Development (Greece), Barcelona Activa SA SPM (Spain), IRIS Research Institute s.r.l (Italy), Conseil Régional Sud Provence-Alpes-Côte-D’Azur (France), Zagreb Development Agency (Croatia), Barcelona International Business Incubator (Spain).), the project’s primary goal was to define the concept of coworking spaces. After discussions, which considered the importance of the idea of territories, in particular, partners agreed on the following <a href="https://ied.eu/what-about-coworking-spaces/">definition</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“A coworking space is a physical space aiming to build and implement a dynamic community of users sharing a propensity to foster collaborative, open and sustainable relationships. Coworking spaces are actively managed to promote these goals, also by organising events and activities supporting mutual learning and exchanges and by developing new functional typologies and interactions with other services or centres.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Using this definition, the partners sought to compile a <a href="https://coworkmed.interreg-med.eu/fileadmin/user_upload/Sites/Social_and_Creative/Projects/COWORKMED/3-3-1_-_Coworkmed_Census.pdf">census</a> of coworking spaces through <a href="https://livemap.getwemap.com/iframe.php?emmid=6326&token=JOQ39BO9ZT34EQAI4TVUH9ULS">collaborative mapping</a>. More than 320 coworking spaces were identified across the territories of the COWORKMed project, with heavy concentration in Catalonia (more than 150 spaces). The spaces are all of recent creation (since 2012) and most (66.7%) are privately run. These spaces account for 2.3% of the world’s coworking spaces (COWORKMed, 2018).</p>
<p>This census showed the extreme diversity of coworking spaces, which take many forms: fab labs, maker spaces, living labs, third places, business factories, public innovation laboratories, etc. Bearing this in mind, the project’s partners decided not to stick to a static understanding of coworking spaces so as to remain open to new opportunities, especially relating to the development of third places. The number of third places is expected to rise over the coming years along with the continued growth of independent operators, the transformation of economies (knowledge economy, collaborative economy, digital economy and so on) and the emergence of a regulatory and incentive framework that encourages <a href="http://www.lemonde.fr/emploi/article/2017/09/12/la-reforme-du-code-du-travail-favorise-le-teletravail_5184562_1698637.html">remote working</a>.</p>
<iframe width="100%" height="600" src="https://livemap.getwemap.com/iframe.php?emmid=6326&token=JOQ39BO9ZT34EQAI4TVUH9ULS#/search@43.72552940054183,9.552607327980922,6)" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<h2>Identifying third places’ externalities and needs</h2>
<p>The study’s second goal involved identifying the socio-economic, environmental and territorial benefits of coworking spaces. Reports were produced showing the capacity of third places to increase the productivity and performances of companies, employees and workers. These spaces also enhance quality of life while stimulating changes in the labour market and collaboration and innovation processes (read the reports at coworkmed.interreg-med.eu). Other reports aimed to establish details about the extent to which third places reduce commuting distances, greenhouse gas emissions and the numbers of people on public transport at peak times.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hvCFQ09nCD0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>In order to increase this impact on territories, the COWORKMed study also highlighted the need to structure public action in a way that helps to create and develop third places. The project leads often expressed this requirement in terms of regulation, networking and financial and methodological support. With regard to methods, managers of coworking spaces and public actors appear to be insufficiently equipped to assess third places’ externalities. Studies on externalities are still based more on assumptions than on qualitative and quantitative data that could be used to evaluate and establish objective facts about observed phenomena. Moreover, it became clear that more is needed in terms of structuring networks for third places in order to pool resources and increase the visibility and attractiveness of coworking spaces. It seems essential to support the development of third places’ networks like <a href="http://www.cowocat.cat/">Cowocat</a> (Associació Coworking de Catalunya), <a href="https://arize-leze-europe.org/coworking-pyrenees-en-cours/">Cowopy</a> (Coworking Pyrénées) or the <a href="https://fr-fr.facebook.com/eucoworknet/">European Coworking Network</a>.</p>
<p>Lastly, the study demonstrated the need to make third places more firmly and deeply rooted in their territorial and innovation ecosystems. Performances of third places are, according to the economist <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-reseaux-2016-2-p-81.htm">Raphaël Suire</a>, heavily dependent on their capacity to become well embedded in territories. This view has to be taken into consideration along with the need to build mutually beneficial ties between territories and develop third places in low density areas (rural and outer-urban zones). With the exception of the PACA (Provence, Alpes, Côte d’Azur) region, third places in CoWorkmed regions are mostly (more than 80%) based in urban areas.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219735/original/file-20180521-14987-y5hpsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219735/original/file-20180521-14987-y5hpsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219735/original/file-20180521-14987-y5hpsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219735/original/file-20180521-14987-y5hpsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219735/original/file-20180521-14987-y5hpsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219735/original/file-20180521-14987-y5hpsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219735/original/file-20180521-14987-y5hpsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Conclusion of the COWORKMed project in Zagreb, April 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Paving the way for European public action</h2>
<p>Workshops were held in Zagreb, Florence, Marseille and Barcelona to pursue a third goal of the COWORKMed project: to design a European public policy conducive to third places. What public policy should be put in place to support multifunctional and intermediary spaces that often operate with horizontal organisational systems? Four main strands of action were identified:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Support the creation and development of coworking spaces in low-density territories (support with initiating projects, subsidise investment allocated after calls for proposals and on top of regional development support, etc.). The leverage effect that coworking spaces can have on development in these territories could be decisive, especially by cutting down commuting and by revitalising fringe areas and village centres (boosting local services by retaining/attracting independent workers, employees or new country dwellers to these territories).</p></li>
<li><p>Support the creation and development of networks of coworking spaces and third places across the Mediterranean so as to improve these spaces’ connections with each other and with their territorial and innovation ecosystems, make them better equipped (by pooling methods), better understood and more visible through combined and targeted publicity and, lastly, to stimulate demand through lobbying (e.g. raising employers’ awareness of the benefits of remote working). It may also be worth holding discussions at a later date about creating a “Mediterranean third places” label.</p></li>
<li><p>Use third places to support more agile European public policies that are closer to territories and citizens. third places can become special areas for jointly forming and testing new European public policies. Furthermore, discussions could be held about the staff of the European Union and its partners using coworking spaces in order to help inculcate a third places culture within EU administrations (collaborative work, horizontal government, digital culture, etc.).</p></li>
<li><p>Launch a European call for proposals for projects aimed at supporting coworking spaces and third places by directly impacting economic, digital, ecological, organisational and/or territorial transitions.</p></li>
</ul>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219737/original/file-20180521-14957-8srxk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219737/original/file-20180521-14957-8srxk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219737/original/file-20180521-14957-8srxk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219737/original/file-20180521-14957-8srxk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219737/original/file-20180521-14957-8srxk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219737/original/file-20180521-14957-8srxk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219737/original/file-20180521-14957-8srxk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Workshop organised in Marseille on February 20, 2018, at the Mars Medialab.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Obviously, the intention is for these strands to help shape a facilitating, non-prescriptive European public policy. The mindset of third places hardly seems compatible with a vertical, top-down public policy in which a public authority plays the central role as driver, coordinator, approver, financer and arbitrator. It is less about setting out a top-down planning policy for coworking spaces, more to do with introducing a public policy capable of creating conditions that encourage the emergence and development of coworking spaces, performing what Michael Foucault would call an “environmental-type intervention”. </p>
<p>Alongside this, issues of social and organisational innovation within the EU must be addressed, alongside those that the EU promotes in territories through public policies. With this in mind, the regular use of third places by EU staff could help the European Union to transform the positions it takes and the way it works.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98440/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Raphaël Besson is Director of the Villes Innovations agency, Associate researcher at the PACTE laboratory (University of Grenoble), Grenoble Alpes University</span></em></p>More than 320 coworking spaces were identified in the regions studied during the COWORKMed project.Raphaël Besson, Directeur de l'agence Villes Innovations, Chercheur associé au laboratoire PACTE (Université de Grenoble), Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/935092018-04-03T19:56:48Z2018-04-03T19:56:48ZThe hypothesis of cultural third places<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210777/original/file-20180316-104639-1e08qu1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C51%2C1495%2C938&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">At the Cent Quatre (104) cultural center in Paris.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.accelimage.fr/la-photographie-europeenne-au-centquatre-a-paris/">Accelimage</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The hypothesis of cultural third places was introduced during a seminar organised by L’Agence Régionale du livre PACA and titled “Bibliothèque, Sciences et numérique” (Gardanne, November 2017) (“Libraries, science and digital”). This article reports the main characteristics and interrogations gathered by the hypothesis of cultural third places</em>.</p>
<hr>
<h2>The transformation of cultural places: a global process</h2>
<p>Many cultural places are being transformed through the mutations of digital world, reduced public financing and the rise of the knowledge-based economy.</p>
<p>This is the case of <a href="https://www.sconul.ac.uk/sites/default/files/documents/3_18.pdf">third places libraries</a>, defined as places of sociability and encounter rather than areas strictly for book reading and learning. These libraries introduce additional uses not directly connected to knowledge, including public services, coworking spaces and even leisure activities – knitting, yoga, cooking… Like the <a href="http://www.bordeaux.fr/p54036">Mériadek Library in Bordeaux</a>, or <a href="https://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/auvergne-rhone-alpes/puy-de-dome/ouverture-lezoux-63-mediatheque-nouvelle-generation-1269389.html">Lezoux media library</a>, third places libraries are centred on users, and prioritise to digital tools and new learning patterns, such as serious games and collaborative platforms.</p>
<p>Cultural science centres, like <a href="https://www.medialab-prado.es/en">Medialab Prado</a> in Madrid (Spain), <a href="http://www.cap-sciences.net/">Cap Sciences</a> (Bordeaux, France) or <a href="http://www.quaidessavoirs.fr/en/">Quai des Savoirs</a> (Toulouse, France) are reinventing their mediation patterns ; they build them on collective intelligence methods (developed in <a href="http://www.openlivinglabs.eu/">living labs</a>) and fast prototyping tools (fab labs).</p>
<p>These new generation centres propose multiple spaces with different social and functional dimensions, including interactive exhibition rooms, knowledge café, workshops, creativity rooms, and test rooms for digital devices. At the opposite of the diffusion of culture and knowledge politics towards the “general public”, everything is designed so the visitors can build in an active and ascendant way new knowledge, culture or creative devices.</p>
<figure>
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/111055900" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Museums such as the <a href="http://madparis.fr/en">Arts Décoratifs</a> in Paris or the <a href="http://www.museegalloromain.grandlyon.com/en">Musée Gallo-Romain</a> in Lyon have transformed themselves into genuine laboratories for real-time experimentation during <a href="http://www.museomix.org/en/">Museomix</a> events. These three-day meetings have been held over the past years, bringing together hundreds of participants (coders, cultural mediators, curators, designers, amateurs, hackers) who were in charge of inventing new exhibition forms and developing possible interaction with artworks.</p>
<p>Former industrial sites such as the <a href="http://www.lafriche.org/en/">Friche Belle de Mai</a> in Marseille (France), the <a href="http://www.104.fr/en/">104</a> in Paris (France) or <a href="http://www.caue-nord.com/fr/portail/41/observatoire/1615/emscher-park.html">Emsherpark Park</a> in the Ruhr region of Germany, stand up for a dynamic vision of their cultural heritage. These urban brownfields now open up culture to experimentation and coproduction, some for more than 20 years now.</p>
<p>This concern is shared by university campuses, which consider themselves as spaces that open up to their surrounding regions. That’s why we’re witnessing the introduction of residential and commercial buildings, cafeterias, cultural, sports and leisure facilities, as well as the areas that enhance the economic development of knowledge – business incubators, coworking spaces and more. One such example is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%98restad_Gymnasium">Ørestad College</a> in Copenhagen, which promotes collective learning, based on “doing”.</p>
<p>Ephemeral events and cultural venues have also developed within the cities in the past years. Examples include events like <a href="https://www.levoyageanantes.fr/">Le Voyage à Nantes</a> or <a href="http://www.uneteauhavre2017.fr/en">Un Eté au Havre</a> and <a href="https://lesgrandsvoisins.org/">Les Grands Voisins</a> in Paris. Other initiatives encourage experimentation and coproduction in cities’ public spaces, like <a href="https://www.nantesmetropole.fr/actualite/l-actualite-thematique/nantes-city-lab-le-laboratoire-de-toutes-les-innovations-nantaises-emploi-economie-92892.kjsp">Nantes City Lab</a>, Madrid’s <a href="https://www.experimentadistrito.net/tag/laboratorios-ciudadanos/">Laboratorios Ciudadanos</a>, or the <a href="http://journals.openedition.org/rge/3804">“spaces for dreaming”</a> in Leipzig (Germany).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208920/original/file-20180305-146691-1islf9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208920/original/file-20180305-146691-1islf9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208920/original/file-20180305-146691-1islf9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208920/original/file-20180305-146691-1islf9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208920/original/file-20180305-146691-1islf9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208920/original/file-20180305-146691-1islf9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208920/original/file-20180305-146691-1islf9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Voyage à Nantes, l’arbre a basket.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Voyage_%C3%A0_Nantes_-_L%27arbre_%C3%A0_basket.jpg">Wikipédia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The hypothesis of cultural third places</h2>
<p>These third places share a common belief in the importance of moving away from an elitist and diffusionist vision of culture to take interest in informal actors and in everyday social spaces. They seek to interconnect the written, digital and technical cultures of knowledge and other forms, whether they be academic, practical, expert or profane.</p>
<p>Beyond these characteristics, it seems essential to better define these cultural places as well as the current transformations. That’s why we rely on the concept of the “third place” developed by American sociologist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Oldenburg">Ray Oldenburg</a>. He hypothesized of an increasing development of open and hybrid spaces (between the residence and workplace) that facilitate the meeting between heterogeneous actors and multiple resources. This is the case, for example of third places of activity and coworking spaces, that are specialized in the creation of shared and collaborative workspaces. Then there are fab labs or living labs, which seek to stimulate innovation through collective intelligence, experiment and prototyping. Social third places and spaces of public innovation pursue clear social objectives on important issues facing our society, in citizen participation and public action policy.</p>
<p>Our hypothesis is that we are seeing the emergence of a new category – the cultural third place. We define them as hybrid and open spaces of knowledge and culture sharing, where the user (a visitor, reader, student, spectator…), finds his or her place at the heart of the learning, production and dissemination processes of cultures and knowledge. The cultural third places are embedded throughout their territory and position themselves between lofty cultural institutions and on-the-ground residents. Cultural third places promote a culture of experimentation, staging and coproduction of knowledges and cultures.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208922/original/file-20180305-146675-n04ttt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208922/original/file-20180305-146675-n04ttt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208922/original/file-20180305-146675-n04ttt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208922/original/file-20180305-146675-n04ttt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208922/original/file-20180305-146675-n04ttt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208922/original/file-20180305-146675-n04ttt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208922/original/file-20180305-146675-n04ttt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Medialab Prado in Madrid.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.medialab-prado.es/medialab">Medialab</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Many issues</h2>
<p>The hypothesis of the cultural third places is valid only if cultural places are precisely observed and if the following problems are investigated:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>To what extent do cultural third places play a key role in social life? Do they succeed in embedding socially both knowledge and culture? Do they manage making technical and digital innovations a real social learning?</p></li>
<li><p>How do cultural third places regulate the tensions and to overtake structuring antagonisms between science and knowledge, digital technology and written culture, abstract approach and experimental approach, space for reflection and space for sociability, institutional site and alternative places, knowledge society (the commons) and knowledge based economy (the market)?</p></li>
<li><p>Does the bringing together of knowledge, cultures and of multiple actors with potential or actual differing interests, allow to improve the mechanisms of production and distribution of knowledge? And consequently, what are the positive and negative externalities (identity-related tensions, increase of the social distance, etc.)?</p></li>
<li><p>What are long-term risks of this generalised movement of despecialisation of cultural centres? Are we about to witness the emergence of generic spaces, invalidating the attempts to differentiate libraries, museums, incubators or public service organizations?</p></li>
<li><p>Are cultural skills and traditional occupations satisfactory enough to take into account the risks of the new stakes inherent to cultural third places?</p></li>
<li><p>Finally, are cultural third places an omen of new forms of producing and disseminating knowledge? Or are they only “aesthetic screens” hiding the reality of budget restrictions and the decline of some cultural and knowledge venues?</p></li>
</ul>
<p>It is toward this complex of issues that we will direct our attention in a next article, that will present a critical reading of cultural third places.</p>
<p>This text was translated by Sarah Marcelly Fernandez.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93509/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Raphaël Besson ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Cultural venues are changing as a result of digital progress, reduced public finances and the strategic nature of knowledge in a knowledge-based economy.Raphaël Besson, Directeur de l'agence Villes Innovations, Chercheur associé au laboratoire PACTE (Université de Grenoble), Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/896702018-01-14T20:43:44Z2018-01-14T20:43:44ZIs the future of work necessarily glamorous? Digital nomads and ‘van life’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201005/original/file-20180105-26160-471bia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">On the road again...</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://www.konbini.com/fr/tendances-2/digital-nomad-les-cles-pour-passer-du-mythe-a-la-realite/">Digital nomadism</a> continues its steady rise in most western countries. It consists of a mobile lifestyle that encompasses corporate remote workers, freelancers and entrepreneurs. Laptops, smartphones, wi-fi connections, coworking spaces, coffee shops and public libraries are some of the key components of this new work culture.</p>
<p>Increasingly at the heart of this new way of living and working is “van life”, which is an aesthetic in itself – as demonstrated by the high use of the hashtag <a href="https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/vanlife/">#vanlife on Instagram</a>. The website <a href="https://nomadlist.com/">Nomad List</a>, which has more than 10,000 members, is one platform among many that helps users locate fellow digital nomads and to get a glimpse of the digital-nomad community of a given city. Facebook also hosts numerous groups of digital nomads who use the platform to share events and practices. Digital nomadism has then become a form of culture on its own, with individuals clearly identifying themselves as digital nomads, actively participating in the digital-nomad life of the cities where they temporarily reside.</p>
<p>Beyond these collective platforms, many nomads broadcast their lives on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Medium and other social networks. In that sense, they are as much bloggers as they are entrepreneurs. Combining work with enticing sceneries – white sandy beaches in Bali, a sunset in the Death Valley, a coworking space in Berlin – is absolutely central to how they portray their daily lives. TV reports or documentaries (such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjf8Qxo_tXk"><em>I tried living as a digital nomad</em></a> on CNBC) showcase mobile work, nomad entrepreneurs and these new connected ways of life.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201011/original/file-20180105-26172-1arqn13.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201011/original/file-20180105-26172-1arqn13.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201011/original/file-20180105-26172-1arqn13.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201011/original/file-20180105-26172-1arqn13.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201011/original/file-20180105-26172-1arqn13.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201011/original/file-20180105-26172-1arqn13.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201011/original/file-20180105-26172-1arqn13.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Working in a hacker space.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/blgrssby/10936703806/in/photolist-2LwVFi-2LwZJP-4WNYx6-6wP6e8-7qtezt-7nrgw9-e6d4SM-2LwSLv-nPA4pn-2LBBjo-2Lxh16-6BpgXM-agDDuR-5pDTj2-axdou4-dhHcsx-4TvVsS-56mLrA-7qxcf3-bVkjqi-2LwXat-6BtszU-6Bphoc-2LBhzS-dhHc1Q-hErt1J-5Go3Si-nMwCwf-4WTfK9-ecyipV-8LAUNK-2LBvVu-8LDYsb-giMVxd-2LByzb-nx4J4Z-8LDYw3-agGs13-6Btrm9-7HEcWe-7HEcHT-eemV9i-2LBqFj-8NJet4-dhHd3C-6robm-hErQn9-8LAUKB-jACKYe-fYr3cd">blgrssby/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Entrepreneurship at large</h2>
<p>As academics, we are often surprised to notice that our own students dream more and more of “entrepreneurship at large”, and this mobile form of entrepreneurship seems particularly enticing and popular.</p>
<p>An on-going project by the research network <a href="https://collaborativespacesstudy.wordpress.com/a-propos/">RGCS</a> created an opportunity to travel all over the world and to meet many young entrepreneurs and digital nomads. Most of these encounters occurred in Paris, Berlin, San Francisco, New York, Barcelona, London, Singapore, Tel Aviv, Tokyo and Montreal during residence period and visits of coworking spaces, maker spaces, hacker spaces and incubators.</p>
<p>These young entrepreneurs and digital nomads were often involved in all sorts of digital ventures. When opportunities for discussions arose, many confessed that their activity was (until now) not really profitable, with their activities being financed through personal savings, family support or gift exchanges. Furthermore, it also appeared that few countries have a legal status for nomads and nomadism – and once a company is “anchored” somewhere, it is really difficult to change its location. We were also surprised to hear that some nomad workers spend a large proportion of their earnings (or savings) on clothes and accessories. Blogging not only requires showing beautiful and exotic settings, but also broadcasting a trendy and desirable image of oneself. Designer clothes, fancy equipment and a “hipster” style clearly have a cost.</p>
<p>In our exploration of digital platforms, we were also surprised to discover that many of the people registered on digital-nomad platforms were still in the development phase of their entrepreneurial lives (even those having long-time registrations), were unemployed or were regular employees (e.g. <a href="https://theconversation.com/leconomie-numerique-va-t-elle-nous-transformer-en-slashers-71728">slashers</a>). As such, they were not quite digital nomads. The reality might thus be quite different from the glamorous portrayals of digital nomads’ lives. While a minority may manage to achieve this sort of life, for many this remains an illusion or a far-away dream.</p>
<h2>Adventures and experiments</h2>
<p>This is not necessarily an issue for many young people interested in digital nomadism. Many highlighted how this constitutes a great one-year adventure, a transition between university life and the job market, an opportunity for self-discovery or simply a fun and enjoyable experience. Some mentioned that this is an occasion to experiment with something different before joining a large corporation and being simply “one of many”. In other words, being a digital nomad even for a short period can be seen as a way of highlighting one’s individuality and an attempt to “stray from the herd”. Philosophical works stressing the importance of embodiment and inter-corporeity (e.g., <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Merleau-Ponty">Merleau-Ponty</a>) and movements or nomadism (for example, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_Deleuze">Gilles Deleuze</a>) could be an opportunity to better understand these phenomena.</p>
<p>Beyond the case of digital nomadism itself, an important dimension of new work practices is their aesthetic. Freelancing, coworking, do-it-yourself (DIY) movements, mobile work, working at home and hacking appear as glamorous undertakings. Certaintly, the visions that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Winslow_Taylor">Frederick Taylor</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford">Henry Ford</a> had of work were very different from these new practices, which break through the idea that there are codes devoted to work and others to home. They’re clearly interpenetrated by the logic of “third places”, as elaborated by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Oldenburg">Ray Oldenburg</a> in 1989. They create a sense of something emotionally between home and work; it is as fun as leisure and as personal and potentially self-fulfilling as private life and home activities, while also being as economic, utilitarian and public-space-oriented as work.</p>
<p>Should we advise university and high-school students to become digital nomads? As part of the apprenticeship of the new world of work, probably yes. As part of a transition period before the world of work? Definitely.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89670/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>François-Xavier de Vaujany is the president of the academic network and think tank RGCS (<a href="https://collaborativespacesstudy.wordpress.com/">https://collaborativespacesstudy.wordpress.com/</a>). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeremy Aroles ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Digital nomadism and van life lie at the heart of today’s work aesthetics. These trends may create liminal experiences within job marketsFrançois-Xavier de Vaujany, Professeur en management & théories des organisations, Université Paris Dauphine – PSLJeremy Aroles, Assistant professor in organisation studies, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/867922017-11-22T05:07:38Z2017-11-22T05:07:38ZProductive cities: toward a new biopolitics of cities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193245/original/file-20171103-1020-11qcol9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Helsinki s City Wall, a collaborative social space.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The idea of the productive city emerged with the development of industrial capitalism. In this way, the productive model imposed its own logic on cities, which came to be regarded as passive receptacles harbouring economic activities. Cities were supposed to furnish enterprises with basic resources such as transportation networks, reasonably priced property, affordable labour, or sites separated into monofunctional segments. At this time, the city was still largely absent from economic thought, or at least it was marginalised and eclipsed by the interest given to national and regional economies.</p>
<p>With the rise of the “knowledge-based economy”, economists came to look more closely at urban situations. In this new economy, knowledge appears to be replacing natural resources and physical effort as the tool for economic development. But knowledge that creates value is not codified or computerised, it’s that which is tacit, living and happening. Under these conditions, production methods change. It’s no longer a question of producing what we know we can do, but rather of organising conditions in which collective intelligence can develop and thrive. These mutations are particularly affecting the importance of externalities and are taking production out of enterprises. Cognitive capitalism has a fundamental need to multiply contact points with society and with living activity.</p>
<p>Metropolitan territories, with their production and research sites, density, amenities and social and functional diversity, are becoming production centres. All city material and immaterial resources are activated. Communities are furnishing laboratory zones where full-scale innovations can be produced and tested: creation and innovation zones, technology districts, urban cognitive systems. Progressively, production is infusing urban society. The co-working spaces, hacker spaces, fab labs, city labs and other living labs are making the social productive. Residents, tourists, businessmen – the “users” – are invited to act upon the fabric of the city itself and to participate in testing, evaluating and co-producing innovations, services and urban data.</p>
<p>This is among the intentions of the <a href="http://lameva.barcelona.cat/bcnmetropolis/en/dossier/dels-fab-labs-a-les-fab-cities/">Fab City project in Barcelona</a>, the objective being that Barcelonans produce their own “energy, food, goods and knowledge in self-sufficient neighbourhoods” (Tomas Diez, director of the Barcelona Fab Lab). The project, supported by the Barcelona Fab Lab, the <a href="https://iaac.net/">Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia</a> (IAAC) and the city of Barcelona, foresees the creation of approximately 15 microfactories, self-managed by local groups. Other dispositions, like Barcelona’s <a href="http://fablabbcn.org/0000/01/06/smart-citizen.html">Smart Citizen Kit</a> or Shanghai’s Airwaves and Noisetube projects, intend to supply all inhabitants with sensors giving them real-time access to urban data like pollution, humidity, temperature, traffic, luminosity and airwaves. Via these experiments, the citizen’s activity is not only registered, but the citizen himself plays a proactive role by being a sensor of his environment.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193024/original/file-20171102-26432-1ijxiqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193024/original/file-20171102-26432-1ijxiqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193024/original/file-20171102-26432-1ijxiqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193024/original/file-20171102-26432-1ijxiqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193024/original/file-20171102-26432-1ijxiqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193024/original/file-20171102-26432-1ijxiqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193024/original/file-20171102-26432-1ijxiqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Valldaura Self Sufficient Labs, Barcelona.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Quentin Chevrier for Makery</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Areas related to culture and knowledge figure in the dynamics of productive cities. These spaces, historically considered as places of retreat and protective shelter, are called upon to open up and participate. Thus, libraries, museums, theatres, universities and centres for science and culture become “third places”, progressively integrating leisure, diversion, public service or entrepreneurial functions. They become open, relational spaces, able to stimulate informal encounters among a wide variety of actors (artists, residents, scientists) while ultimately being able to valorise knowledge produced.</p>
<p>The infrastructures themselves are rendered productive. Smart grids, intelligent urban furnishings, and strategies of infrastructure reversibility or temporary management of vacant spaces, contribute to the same political optimism and activation of global city resources. The <a href="https://lesgrandsvoisins.org/">“Grands Voisins”</a> experience in Paris is the French incarnation of temporary urbanism possibilities. While awaiting the conversion of the former Saint-Vincent-de-Paul hospital into an eco-quarter, the associations Aurore, Yes We Camp and Plateau Urbain banded together to animate and manage the space. Today the site houses 600 persons in reinsertion (250 migrant workers and 350 emergency shelters for Aurore), and 180 structures (associations, artists, tradespeople and social entrepreneurs), which employ more than 1,000 people on a daily basis.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193025/original/file-20171102-26432-35ztlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193025/original/file-20171102-26432-35ztlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193025/original/file-20171102-26432-35ztlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193025/original/file-20171102-26432-35ztlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193025/original/file-20171102-26432-35ztlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193025/original/file-20171102-26432-35ztlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193025/original/file-20171102-26432-35ztlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Grands Voisins, Paris.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Luc Legay</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This dynamic concerns the very nature of the city. The French projects Productive Landscape or Positive Biodiversity, enhance natural resources in cities working toward self-sufficiency in food and energy. Other examples exist in the <a href="http://valldaura.net/">Valldaura Self-sufficient Labs</a> in Barcelona’s Collserola Park, a 130-hectar nature reserve with remarkable flora and fauna. Located in the centre of Barcelona, Valldaura was acquired by the IAAC in 2010 with the objective of using its natural potential to co-produce prototypes related to city self-sufficiency. Activity is structured around three labs: the Energy Lab (energy production), the Green Fab Lab (production of goods) and the Food Lab (food production), and is financed by the Spanish government, the Polytechnic University of Catalonia and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Valldaura prototypes under development include bio-batteries, micro-bio architectures, bio-photovoltaic panels, solar ovens, and connected beehives among others, and will be tested in the city of Barcelona.</p>
<p>This short review of contemporary thought in productive cities, calls for a hypothesis of a new biopolitics of cities. Beyond economic institutions, production spreads to urban morphology and infrastructures as well as social and cultural organisations, places of knowledge and natural and vacant spaces. All actors and other aspects the city have become productive. In this integrated urbanism, vacant lots and passages, third places or collaborative digital platforms become new production sites. These intermediary spaces, essentially unstable and subject to friction, are proving themselves well adapted for experiments, for creation and for inventing new life styles, new forms of organisation and ways of doing things. These areas are not unlike the “biological layers” described by the landscape architect, botanist and author <a href="http://www.gillesclement.com/">Gilles Clément</a> when he wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The limits – interfaces, canopies, edges, outskirts and borders – are in themselves biological layers. Their richness is often greater than that of the environment they delineate”.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Consequently, all urban vitality is mobilised in production. The pitfalls of the productive city, in that it produces, transforms and valorises the living, are therefore potentially numerous. How can production coming from intermediary spaces or from freely developed and shared collaborative, digital platforms be evaluated in economic terms? Everyone’s productions can hardly be reduced to the status of merchandise. They are similar to public property and the danger would be in establishing measures to harness and privatise these free cognitive resources. Another hazard of the productive city resides in the tendency to overstimulate contacts among residents.</p>
<p>No vacant area, abandoned lot or alley seems able to resist this movement of creating hyper-relational spaces. But aren’t these intermediary spaces the last shelters of protection from an urban society in constant acceleration? Aren’t they community belongings to be preserved rather than be transformed into third places or something else like “digital space 3.0”? A final risk of the productive city is in the mass distribution of sensors. These would collect and analyse considerable amounts of data produced by individuals. While intended to optimise city function and management, it’s also subject to questions about threats to personal liberty.</p>
<p>One understands the necessity to regulate the potential drifts of productive cities by defining urban policies related to city life itself, be it social, cultural, vegetal or proper to spaces with “biological layers”. The stakes reside in mobilising all the productive and creative forces for the benefit of cities’ democratic and ecological organisation, and less to a “technified productionist” oriented logic.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86792/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Raphaël Besson ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>With the rise of the knowledge-based economy, fab labs, maker spaces and more, cities are being transformed into production centres. This dynamic movement is ripe with promise, but also has risks.Raphaël Besson, Directeur de l'agence Villes Innovations, Chercheur associé au laboratoire PACTE (Université de Grenoble), Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/818912017-08-28T23:02:15Z2017-08-28T23:02:15ZHow to help kids innovate from an early age<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183481/original/file-20170825-19955-1lhhhfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In school makerspaces, students problem-solve with traditional craft materials alongside
digital technologies such as 3D printing, virtual reality, programmable robots and video work. </span> </figcaption></figure><p>As community <a href="http://spaces.makerspace.com/">makerspaces</a> begin to take root in <a href="http://janettehughes.ca/lab/">Ontario’s elementary schools</a>, students are behaving better. They are also getting higher grades.</p>
<p>What are makerspaces? They’re creative spaces where students can gather to explore, tinker, discover and create, and they’re making students more enthusiastic about school. </p>
<p>In these spaces students are learning how to tinker collaboratively with a problem and keep trying until they find a solution. They are learning to be thinkers, innovators and problem-solvers rather than mere consumers of information. And these are just some of the benefits teachers are reporting. </p>
<p>Makerspaces <a href="http://teacherlibrarian.com/2014/06/18/educational-makerspaces/">support hands-on exploration and learning</a>. They are most often associated with STEM education (science, technology, engineering and math). But really, they’re interdisciplinary, promoting important educational principles such as inquiry, play, imagination, innovation, <a href="https://www.learntechlib.org/p/154441/">critical thinking</a>, problem solving and passion-based learning. </p>
<p>They arise from the wider <a href="http://time.com/104210/maker-faire-maker-movement/">maker movement</a> and they are emerging now in <a href="http://hepg.org/her-home/issues/harvard-educational-review-volume-84-number-4/herarticle/the-maker-movement-in-education">formal education settings</a> globally.</p>
<p>As the founder of MAKE magazine Dale Dougherty states in his 2011 TED Talk: “<a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/dale_dougherty_we_are_makers">We are all makers.</a>”</p>
<h2>Makerspaces in Ontario schools</h2>
<p>In partnership with the Ontario Ministry of Education, the Council of Ontario Directors of Education and the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, I am leading a team of researchers to put makerspaces into elementary schools in 20 Ontario school boards. My research explores how teachers work together to explore news ways of teaching and learning through makerspaces.</p>
<p>Our project began by introducing teachers to a number of innovative ideas and practices in makerspace teaching and learning. </p>
<p>Teachers attended a two-day professional learning session, where they explored digital technologies such as digital circuits, 3D printing, augmented and virtual reality, e-textiles, programmable robots, coding and green screen video work. They had opportunities to collaborate, plan lessons with colleagues and do their own making. </p>
<p>We then gave funding to each of the first 11 school boards — to purchase equipment and supplies for participating schools. Researchers then followed teachers to track their use of tools and technologies and their promotion of student inquiry, creativity, design and critical thinking.</p>
<p>To date, they have created more than 100 maker-focused lesson plans for students in Grades 1 to Grade 8 in both English and French Immersion programs. Nine more school boards have joined for the second year of the project. </p>
<h2>Teaching perseverence</h2>
<p>Teachers in all participating schools stated that their students are more engaged and more motivated when they are learning in a makerspace environment. </p>
<p>They also noticed a reduction in discipline problems. And they recorded improvements in academic achievement, particularly among students with learning disabilities and those who struggle in a traditional classroom setting. </p>
<p>Giving students the freedom to pursue projects that are authentic, meaningful and based on their own “wonderings” or passions has provided opportunities for a more personalized and inclusive learning experience for all students. </p>
<p>Teachers also observed that a variety of 21st-century skills and competencies were developed as a result of the makerspaces, such as problem-solving, communication, collaboration and the development of perseverance. Collaboration was one of the most highly reported competencies developed across all schools. </p>
<p>“In the beginning they were nervous,” said one teacher. </p>
<p>“They wanted me to help them all the time. But once they got the hang of just trying it, figuring it out, knowing that I’m not going to fix the problem for them, then they would persevere.” </p>
<p>What’s particularly noteworthy is that the increase in collaboration emerged not just among the students, but the teachers and staff, as well. Inter-generational and bi-directional learning occurred between students and teachers, peers and students of different ages. </p>
<h2>A maker mindset</h2>
<p>It can be a challenge to implement a makerspace — to motivate and train staff, outfit and maintain equipment and the space, and to build a true maker culture in a school. The benefits, however, outweigh the costs and effort. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/inspire/research/meaningful_making.html">Having a maker mindset is key</a>. In order for schools to establish a true makerspace, there must be buy-in and a commitment from staff, students and the wider community — to establish a culture of innovation, trial-and-error, problem-solving, persevering through difficult tasks, learning from mistakes and taking risks. </p>
<p>A makerspace is so much more than a space that houses equipment. A maker culture fosters 21st-century skills such as communication, collaboration and creativity. It offers opportunities for students to share their learning at local and global community levels through Maker Faires and websites such as <a href="http://www.instructables.com">www.instructables.com</a>, <a href="http://www.thingiverse.com">www.thingiverse.com</a> and <a href="http://www.thingiverse.com">www.DIY.org</a>. </p>
<p>In Ontario, we expect significant and sustainable ongoing benefits in teacher practice when the imaginative, integrated and innovative inquiry-based projects are developed, implemented and shared throughout the province.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81891/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Janette Hughes receives funding from Ontario Ministry of Education through Council of Ontario Directors of Education and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p>Creative makerspaces in Ontario schools weave passion with digital technologies to teach 21st century skills.Janette Hughes, Canada Research Chair in Technology and Pedagogy, Ontario Tech UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/804992017-07-06T19:39:16Z2017-07-06T19:39:16ZFrom communities to territories: towards a Mediterranean coworking network<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176778/original/file-20170704-23217-ish9o3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Coworking space Make it Marseille.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Studiolartisan</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article was written with Léonard Lévêque, director of the Pôle Coopération of <a href="http://avitem.org/">AVITEM</a> and Charlotte Yelnik, a consultant for <a href="http://adhocverbis.com/">AdHocVerbis</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>In the last few years there has been a growing number of what are known as “coworking” spaces in the world. While they first appeared in the United States, half are now located in Europe. Given the growth of freelancers and teleworking practices, their emergence corresponds to a certain need. Beyond a transformation of the world of work, with fewer salaried employees and localized businesses, they also show another form of management, an alternative production, territory and governance management model – even a new economic and democratic model.</p>
<p>That is the context of the European project <a href="https://ied.eu/what-we-do/projects/coworkmed/">CoWorkMed</a> led by the Agency for Sustainable Mediterranean Cities and Territories (AVITEM). Co-financed by the <a href="https://interreg-med.eu/">Interreg MED</a> programme, the project involves French, Greek, Italian, Croatian and Spanish partners. It aims at providing an inventory of coworking spaces in these five partner countries and at creating tools adapted to cross-border networking between these third places.</p>
<p>A first study carried out in the framework of this project enables us to examine the emergence of these new ways of working and social construction methods. What do these new places tell us about the transformations of our professional, social and political world? What are they witnessing? How can we turn them into springboards for territorial development?</p>
<h2>The community</h2>
<p>The first coworking spaces started out in 2006 in the United States and were directly related to the development of knowledge-based and digital economy – they were created for freelancers who wanted to share a workplace in a community of needs, constraints and values, as well as through the will to create an active network to trigger professional opportunities. The first principle of coworking is therefore a place and a community, a network of shared skills and assets, often animated by social events whose aim is forging links between coworkers on both the social and professional aspect. It is a direct emanation of the concept of the “third place”, between private and public place, home and work, with an informal meeting place that creates opportunities.</p>
<p>Over the following decade, the concept spread to other sectors, resulting in the creation of collaborative production sites, in particular in innovation and research sectors, especially with “fab labs” (for <em>fabrication laboratories</em>). Then the social, cultural and public-service sectors seized them, producing shared spaces adapted to their needs, with a desire to involve stakeholders and users to develop services through a co-construction logic. Fifteen years later, there is a strong and direct impact on the territories.</p>
<h2>The territory</h2>
<p>Following the logic of pollination, acceleration, incubation and other processes of transformation of ideas involving a community, these places have become true hubs of local innovation. Bringing together a range of actors in a spontaneous way, they’re epicenters of creativity at the scale of a territory, a city or a city center. Thus they activate local economic dynamics and combine them with the unique features of a territory, creating a genuine regenerative ecosystem.</p>
<p>In addition to the direct effects of economic growth, coworking spaces also have indirect impacts on land management. For example, users of these places place an emphasis on proximity between living places and work, they influence mobility and transport. They thus act against urban congestion, reducing commuting and decreasing the environmental and economic costs linked to transport.</p>
<p>These meeting and interaction points between professionals and users also contribute to restoring the wealth of a territory in its geographical coherence. By creating a concrete and driving network between the inhabitants, citizens, users, workers, who are concerned by the same issues, especially local ones, they value the territory as an integral capital, converging its strengths towards common objectives.</p>
<h2>The governance</h2>
<p>These third places were designed as spaces for sharing knowledge and building collective dynamics. They are built on values of sustainable development, including in terms of management and governance. Through the development of teleworking, big companies improved their employees’ working and living conditions, giving them more autonomy and making them more creative and productive. Entrepreneurs can boost their territories through related projects. Communities are inspired by this trend, seeking to revitalize declining territories through the impulse of third places in the social and public-service sectors.</p>
<p>Groups and stakeholders that were formerly less open are now creating links. Indeed, from the first “coworking spaces” where professionals from various sectors formed “opportunistic” partnerships (optimising the opportunities offered by the circumstances) to the new forms of innovative, social and cultural third places, real public-private-citizens partnerships are being formed. Through more or less informal places that help people meet each other, civil society and popular democracy reinvent themselves.</p>
<p>After 18 months of implementation, the CoWorkMed project will provide a global vision of these networks in the partner territories (France, Italy, Spain, Greece and Croatia) to promote their institutional recognition and their transnational structuring as a lever of innovation in the Mediterranean. Through the study of new models, it will provide the basis for the creation of a Mediterranean coworking network.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80499/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Raphaël Besson ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>What do these new places tell us about the transformations of our professional, social and political world? And how to turn them into springboards for territorial development?Raphaël Besson, Directeur de l'agence Villes Innovations, Chercheur associé au laboratoire PACTE (Université de Grenoble), Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/782582017-06-11T20:30:41Z2017-06-11T20:30:41ZCreative city, smart city … whose city is it?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172600/original/file-20170607-3668-1wymt6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">When the smart city looks inhuman: a robot police officer from Dubai greets guests at last November's Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ramon Costa/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2007 US creative cities “guru” <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Creative-Class-Transforming-Community/dp/1491576766">Richard Florida</a> was flown up to Noosa to tell the local city council how they, too, could become a creative city. </p>
<p>Noosa was one of a long line of cities across the globe queuing up to pay big bucks to the US-based academic-entrepreneur. “Being creative” had become an almost universal aspiration. Who would not want to be a creative city? </p>
<p>And so Creative [insert name of city here] signs sprang up in the most unlikely places, along with stock shots of creative young things hunched over laptops in cafes.</p>
<p>Ten years later, different gurus are being flown around and the signs have been replaced by Smart [insert name of city here]. The stock shots are much the same, but now the young things are being innovative, disruptive and above all “smart”. That’s the trouble with fast policy: here today, gone tomorrow.</p>
<p>Below the surface more tectonic shifts can be felt. In its first outing in the mid-1990s the “creative city”, associated with thinkers such as <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Creative-City-Toolkit-Urban-Innovators/dp/1844075982/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1496259774&sr=1-1&keywords=charles+landry+the+creative+city">Charles Landry</a>, was an energising vision of a new role for cultural creativity in our cities.</p>
<p>Now expanded in democratic fashion beyond the world of “high art” to embrace popular, everyday creativity, culture would be a key resource for the 21st-century city. </p>
<p>Culture could re-activate the decayed industrial zones of the inner city, breathing new life into the dead infrastructures of factories and power stations, dockyards and tram depots, schools, barracks and banks. Culture could renew stale urban identities, catalyse new aspirations and stamp a different global brand on long-dormant cities. </p>
<p>And with the creative industries – culture plus all things design and digital – all that was needed were some creative people and a bit of entrepreneurial flair. Then we would have one of the industries of the future. </p>
<p>Creativity broke cities away from the old bureaucratic top-down planning silos of the industrial city and let them approach the future holistically. Culture would be what cities do best, earning a living and enjoying it at the same time. </p>
<p>By the time Florida had left Noosa the discontent was growing. Big investments in photogenic CBD developments seemed more intended for the creative class than local citizens, generating massive real estate profits while the suburbs languished unloved. </p>
<p>Creative industries turned out not to be so inclusive after all. They failed to soak up all those unemployed dirty industry workers and were reliant on educated workers willing to work their way up on low pay and high debt.</p>
<h2>The turn of the smart city</h2>
<p>Since the global financial crisis the energising vision has been around social justice, citizenship and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/will-habitat-iii-defend-the-human-right-to-the-city-57576">right to the city</a>, with a return of community and activist-focused arts activities. Creatives are now less Californian start-ups and more counter-cultural “post-capitalists”.</p>
<p>Enter the <a href="https://theconversation.com/while-governments-talk-about-smart-cities-its-citizens-who-create-them-59230">Smart City</a>, creativity without all those messy cultural bits. The tech start-ups were just as cool, the fab labs and hacker spaces just as disruptive, but now slotted onto a very different agenda.</p>
<p>This too promised a re-invention of the city, not now a cultural re-imagining but a complete re-tooling of the social and governmental infrastructure of the city. Courtesy of some very big global tech companies, a new digital infrastructure could be rolled out, applying sensors, data-capture devices and large-scale computing power to urban life.</p>
<p>Smart cities are data cities, promising efficient management of transport and utilities, security, and customised commerce. If the early Creative City embraced the messiness of city life, viewing it not as chaos but creative fecundity, the Smart City give us a clean utopian picture of the perfectly transparent city. </p>
<p>It’s messy on the surface, but with a big data back-room providing bespoke information for almost any aspect of urban living your care to ask for. What’s not to like?</p>
<h2>A corporate taming of creativity</h2>
<p>That the brains of the Smart City – as envisioned by its corporate promoters – are increasingly embedded in its walls rather than its inhabitants reveals much about the trajectory of the digital economy so closely tied to Florida’s conception of the Creative City and its industries. </p>
<p>Internet scholar <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Future-Internet-How-Stop/dp/0300151241/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1496259831&sr=1-1&keywords=jonathan+zittrain">Jonathan Zittrain</a> has described the rise of “app” culture as a betrayal of the creative potential unleashed by the mainstreaming of the internet. If the open internet was messy and chaotic, Zittrain argues that it was correspondingly “generative”, promoting experimentation and creativity. </p>
<p>By contrast, the “app” represents the pacification and domestication of the internet: its transformation from a productive medium to an infrastructure for consumption and marketing. Apps sort our music and photos for us, tell us where to eat, how to get there, and what to watch afterwards. The price of the newfound convenience that renders smart phones so addictive is a shift in the balance of control away from the end user. </p>
<p>For Zittrain, the “applified” world is “one of sterile appliances tethered to a network of control” – which is not a bad description of the corporate blueprint for the Smart City. </p>
<p>As urbanist <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Against-smart-city-here-Book-ebook/dp/B00FHQ5DBS/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1496259876&sr=1-3&keywords=adam+greenfield">Adam Greenfield</a> has observed, the corporate world has taken the lead in both envisioning and promoting its version of the “informated” city. It looks suspiciously like the commercial internet projected out into physical space. </p>
<p>The promise is one of efficiency, convenience and security: smart streets that adjust traffic flow in real time, walls that change images to suit our tastes (which have become indistinguishable from market preferences), even floors that cushion us when we fall. </p>
<p>For all the talk of disruption, the paradoxical promise of the smart city is one of data-driven efficiency and predictability. The promotional materials feature the same smart young things, freed up from the impositions of daily life (traffic, shopping, routine decision-making, even driving), to do … what? </p>
<h2>Whose city is it?</h2>
<p>There are surely possibilities here, but the version of smart city as automated city looks inhuman. It promises to serve people by rendering them increasingly efficient, perhaps to the point of their own redundancy. </p>
<p>To subject the future of the city to the corporate imaginary is to concede too much to the galloping privatisation of our cultural and informational infrastructure. </p>
<p>What if the right to the city were also a right to participate in shaping its information infrastructures and their implementation? Can we envision an alternative to centralised corporate control of the city’s data? And how might public priorities be redefined in ways that distinguish them from the private imperatives of the ruling tech giants? </p>
<p>These are the guiding questions for our <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/symposium-smart-city-creative-city-tickets-34763468470?utm_source=eb_email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=order_confirmation_email&utm_term=eventname&ref=eemailordconf">June 15 symposium</a> in Melbourne, which explores the possibility of another kind of urban culture beyond the tightly controlled formats of the Smart City/Creative City.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78258/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The corporate world has taken the lead in promoting various creative/smart city visions, which struggle to be inclusive, let alone entrust citizens with control over their lives.Justin O'Connor, Professor of Communications and Cultural Economy, Monash UniversityMark Andrejevic, Guest Lecturer, Monash University; Professor and Chair, Department of Media Studies, Pomona CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/460442015-08-24T03:43:18Z2015-08-24T03:43:18ZAfrican libraries that adapt can take the continent’s knowledge to the world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92687/original/image-20150821-31370-j0w036.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A woman visits the Scientific Institute in Cairo, Egypt. The role of libraries is changing but they are as relevant and important as ever.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South African librarians were shocked in 2013 when one of the top researchers at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology claimed that he <a href="http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1983&context=iatul">no longer needed</a> the library to do his research.</p>
<p>Professor Johannes Cronje’s paper echoed an increasingly common way of thinking. Why, after all, do we need libraries when the Internet does such a good job of providing us with information?</p>
<p>But libraries are not just collection points for information. The best ones also help create it - and those which embrace this role will flourish in a completely changed world. This is particularly true for African libraries: there is more of an opportunity than ever before to bring the continent’s knowledge to the world. </p>
<h2>A dual role</h2>
<p>Libraries collect information and make it available to a particular community or communities. Some, like <a href="http://www.ala.org/tools/libfactsheets/alalibraryfactsheet16#churchlibrary">church libraries</a>, specialise in collecting certain kinds of information.</p>
<p>The Internet can do exactly the same thing. Anyone can create a collection of information online and make it available to users. And who needs librarians when search engines like Google are on hand to help track down information?</p>
<p>Such technological advances mean that the traditional library is losing customers who just want to find information.</p>
<p>Libraries fulfil another crucial role, though. They help to create information. Modern libraries offer many services that help their users to put information online. Most academic libraries, for instance, have <a href="http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/conferences/confsandpreconfs/national/baltimore/papers/56.pdf">repository services</a> that collate a university’s research output and make it publicly available.</p>
<p>They are extending this service to research data, which will save future researchers from collecting the same data and taxpayers from paying for it again.</p>
<p>These services are becoming common in public libraries as well, through an innovation called <a href="http://library-maker-culture.weebly.com/what-are-they.html">makerspaces</a>. Here, users can make items of information. They can create music, produce items using 3D printers or engineer complex designs.</p>
<p>In makerspaces, librarians aren’t helping users to find information from the world. They are helping users to find information in themselves. Libraries should continue to develop services that help people create information.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bd0lIKVstJg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Eli Neiburger from the Ann Arbor District Library talks about what libraries can do to survive.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a way, these “new” developments really aren’t that different from what libraries have always done. Libraries curate and disseminate information. In the past, librarians curated information from foreign creators and disseminated it to a local community. Modern librarians curate local information and disseminate it to a foreign community. The flow of information has flipped.</p>
<h2>Opportunities for African libraries</h2>
<p>African libraries have been slow to embrace this evolution. There are twice as many repositories in Asia as there are in Africa, and <a href="http://www.opendoar.org/find.php?format=gmap">ten times</a> as many in Europe. But the continent is slowly gaining ground.</p>
<p>The University of Cape Town is the first in Africa to offer a <a href="http://www.lisc.uct.ac.za/digitalcuration_mphil">Masters</a> of Philosophy in Digital Curation. Early in 2015, the University of Pretoria <a href="http://www.up.ac.za/en/news/post_2062883-south-africas-first-library-makerspace-opens-at-the-university-of-pretoria-">opened</a> up a makerspace, the first educational one on the continent. </p>
<p>The altered role of libraries is a great opportunity to showcase African knowledge. Getting information into the world is easier and cheaper than ever. African libraries need to take up the responsibility of being partners in information creation. </p>
<p>This means that policies must be altered - and, of course, that budgets must be increased. University leaders, decision makers, governments and library users need to understand and support the changes that are reshaping libraries. </p>
<p>Librarians, too, must embrace these changes. They will require new skills to support the creation of information. Many library schools are already responding to these new needs by offering advanced degrees in digital curation.</p>
<p>It will be also be important to reconsider the very physical space of a library. Paper-and-glue book collections are shrinking and, in some libraries, disappearing. These collections have long been the symbol of quiet thinking. Will libraries still be silent spaces of learning without them? How will libraries retain their users’ trust if they are turned into cool <a href="http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/09593841011069158">cybercafés</a>? </p>
<p>These are some of the tough questions that librarians must answer if they expect their funding to continue and to rise - and if they want to remain relevant well into the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46044/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lara Skelly does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>African libraries have more of an opportunity than ever before to bring the continent’s knowledge to the world. They just need to adapt their traditional roles and functions.Lara Skelly, Librarian: Research Support, Cape Peninsula University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/99302012-11-29T03:31:28Z2012-11-29T03:31:28ZFour visions, three dimensions: the future of 3D printing<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18137/original/xcpfgjvk-1354150857.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">We have the technology … but have we discussed its possible impacts?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">fdecomite</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Chances are you’ve heard about <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-3d-printing-and-whats-it-for-9456">3D printing</a> – or additive manufacturing as it’s otherwise known: a process that turns computer-aided designs into three-dimensional, real-world objects with a range of uses, from a range of materials and on a range of scales.</p>
<p>But you’ve probably heard little in terms of the social impact that 3D printing and its associated technologies will likely have.</p>
<p>Those possible impacts are exactly what we’re investigating at Lancaster University and the University of Wollongong. We’ve identified four potential scenarios that could eventuate in a world that embraces 3D printing and, crucially, how those scenarios could affect everyday life.</p>
<h2>Where we’re at</h2>
<p>Walking around the <a href="http://3dprintshow.com/">3D Printshow 2012</a> in London last month, the hype around 3D printing technology was palpable. </p>
<p>The first stall in view was <a href="http://www.makerbot.com/">MakerBot</a>’s, and the company’s CEO and founder Bre Pettis was busy spruiking their <a href="http://store.makerbot.com/replicator2.html">Replicator 2</a> – Time Magazine’s <a href="http://techland.time.com/2012/11/01/best-inventions-of-the-year-2012/slide/the-makerbot-replicator-2/">Best Invention of 2012</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18139/original/z9b94jy4-1354151371.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18139/original/z9b94jy4-1354151371.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18139/original/z9b94jy4-1354151371.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18139/original/z9b94jy4-1354151371.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18139/original/z9b94jy4-1354151371.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18139/original/z9b94jy4-1354151371.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18139/original/z9b94jy4-1354151371.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18139/original/z9b94jy4-1354151371.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Unboxing the MakerBot Replicator 2.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Creative Tools</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But it was in the other stalls out the back, populated by artists, entrepreneurs and researchers, where this innovation could be seen doing really interesting things. </p>
<p>In those stalls there were different intimations of the futures we have imagined in our project at Lancaster University. </p>
<p>In one corner there were a couple of children playing the game <a href="https://minecraft.net/">Minecraft</a>. Their mother explained that they were actually creating 3D designs within the game (in between foraging for food and fighting spiders). </p>
<p>The game players design objects from cube-shaped blocks in the same way they might design in-game houses and caves. </p>
<p>A clever piece of software called <a href="http://www.paulharter.com/printcraft/">Printcraft</a> uploads designs made in Minecraft to a server, which automatically converts the designs into 3D-printable files. Then the player simply prints the design out on an adjacent 3D printer, in this case a MakerBot.</p>
<p>At another company’s stall a salesperson (the inventor was her dad) claimed her printer could print different colours at the same time – something that hasn’t been possible with 3D printers until now.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18140/original/gxs7jkx9-1354151990.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18140/original/gxs7jkx9-1354151990.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18140/original/gxs7jkx9-1354151990.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18140/original/gxs7jkx9-1354151990.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18140/original/gxs7jkx9-1354151990.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18140/original/gxs7jkx9-1354151990.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18140/original/gxs7jkx9-1354151990.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18140/original/gxs7jkx9-1354151990.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Printing 3D models from Minecraft is child’s play.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">post-apocalyptic research institute</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Next to this one there was a 3D printer with a handle so it could be carried around – both printers drew on the open-source <a href="http://reprap.org/wiki/RepRap">Reprap</a> design.</p>
<p>An adjacent stall was a bit different in that it didn’t feature 3D printers. Instead, a team of designers and marketing gurus offered their 3D printing expertise for small product runs and trial inventions.</p>
<p>Further along there was a scale model of the <a href="http://www.urbee.net/home/">Urbee</a> 3D-printed car. There was also a chain-mail shirt made of tiny steel links, amazingly assembled by an expensive laser <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sintering">sintering</a> printer. </p>
<p>And most impressively there was a row of 3D-printed mummified animals from an archaeological project rendered in near-perfect detail down to the bandages, as per the photo below:</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/17570/original/zzsttxct-1352814836.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/17570/original/zzsttxct-1352814836.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/17570/original/zzsttxct-1352814836.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/17570/original/zzsttxct-1352814836.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/17570/original/zzsttxct-1352814836.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/17570/original/zzsttxct-1352814836.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/17570/original/zzsttxct-1352814836.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">3D prints of mummified animals at the 3D Printshow 2012.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Thomas Birtchnell</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Where we’re going</h2>
<p>Our <a href="http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/tnt">research</a> has seen us explore four different social futures around 3D printing.</p>
<p>They were shaped by how corporate this new industrial revolution will be and how much individuals will engage with the technology. In particular we were interested in how 3D printing might influence the transportation of objects and the travel of people. </p>
<p>In order to find out what futures might be, where 3D printing has significance (or not), we held a workshop with the <a href="http://thefuturescompany.com/">Futures Company</a> in London, and picked the brains of engineers, consultants, policymakers and designers. The four possible futures are below:</p>
<p><strong>1. Home factories</strong></p>
<p>Everyone has a 3D printer in their home sitting next to their paper printer and making plastic jewellery, kitchen utensils, toys, models, homework projects and non-critical replacement parts. </p>
<p>People in this future no longer derive as much satisfaction from shopping in the high street for cheap products and are printing much more “stuff”, mostly made of plastic or resin.</p>
<p><strong>2. Print shops</strong></p>
<p>Manufacturing has “returned” to places such as the UK, the US and Australia. </p>
<p>Companies are integrating high-end 3D printers that print all sorts of exotic materials – from steel and titanium to sandstone and carbon fibre – into their supply chains and retail outlets. </p>
<p>As a result there are efficiency gains in how objects are transported and where they are made. Aeroplane parts and car dashboards, for instance, are made locally and customised to order.</p>
<p><strong>3. Fab labs</strong></p>
<p>Groups of people work together on not-for-profit or subsidised printers provided with support services and technicians. </p>
<p>The main focus is not new markets but rather new communities that craft objects they intend to use for recreation or for trading and selling in specialist “maker fairs”.</p>
<p>These communities hinge on <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-the-open-movement-10308">open-source</a> technologies and co-production ethics, and generally people are still relying on a global production system for much of what they need.</p>
<p><strong>4. The 3D bubble</strong></p>
<p>The market bubble has burst as inflated expectations have caused 3D printing to be severely over-hyped. </p>
<p>Many small entrepreneurs have gone bust and multinational corporations have not renewed their product lines. Consumers are dissatisfied with the appearance and unreliability of 3D-printed objects and design software is too complicated to master. </p>
<p>In this fourth future, 3D printing is still being used by specialists for prototyping, preservation of collections and high-end bespoke accessories. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18141/original/yxqbshsh-1354152188.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18141/original/yxqbshsh-1354152188.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18141/original/yxqbshsh-1354152188.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18141/original/yxqbshsh-1354152188.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18141/original/yxqbshsh-1354152188.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18141/original/yxqbshsh-1354152188.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18141/original/yxqbshsh-1354152188.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18141/original/yxqbshsh-1354152188.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">TheresaBurger</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Will any of these futures happen? As always, time will tell. But we should be discussing the potential social impacts now, before the future arrives.</p>
<p>In the meantime, as the 3D Printshow 2012 ably demonstrated, there are already many exciting and inspiring uses of this technology.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/9930/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Research conducted at the Centre for Mobilities Research (CeMoRe) at Lancaster University was funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC Project ES/J007455/1). </span></em></p>Chances are you’ve heard about 3D printing – or additive manufacturing as it’s otherwise known: a process that turns computer-aided designs into three-dimensional, real-world objects with a range of uses…Thomas Birtchnell, Lecturer in Social Sciences, Media & Communication, University of WollongongJohn Urry, Distinguished Professor, Department of Sociology, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.