Throughout the years, research initiatives related to the global Fab Lab network emerged by addre... more Throughout the years, research initiatives related to the global Fab Lab network emerged by addressing several issues with scientific articles and popular books, among the many publications. However, there are still many issues in the Fab Lab network that should be addressed by future research, specially regarding the impact of Fab Labs on society. This short contribution aims at proposing a set of research questions and methods for the Fab Lab network, that should be considered more as notes shared among members of the community than as a structured research proposal. The notes presented in this article reflect upon this topic and emerged from working in a Horizon 2020 research and innovation project of the European Union, MAKE-IT, that is specifically oriented at understanding and improving the social impact of Makers and therefore also of Fab Labs. Understanding the impact of the Fab Lab network on society is one of the most strategic directions for improving the network and its ...
The importance of innovation through university-industry cooperation has rarely been more acute t... more The importance of innovation through university-industry cooperation has rarely been more acute than it is today. Over the last 18 months of COVID-19 pandemic, we have experienced unprecedented circumstances in our lifetime that have demonstrated the critical role of knowledge creation and transmission across industries and disciplines. Identifying, developing and scaling-up breakthrough technologies, and converting them into incremental, radical or disruptive innovations that are widely accepted by, and available to beneficiaries, users, customers and communities is of paramount importance. However, turning research outputs into novelties for the benefits of wider society seldom occurs spontaneously. Numerous mechanisms – such as stakeholder engagement and co-creation processes – can assist in creating framework conditions to foster the development and adoption of novelties that address current and future societal needs. The European funded OpenInnoTrain project precisely aims to e...
What is the resilience of a city regarding its manufacturing, distribution and consumption of goo... more What is the resilience of a city regarding its manufacturing, distribution and consumption of goods? What is the role of citizens in changing the existing networks with open, distributed and collaborative projects and making activities in the city? The Fab City Dashboard project aims at developing a visualisation tool for Fab Cities that show the relation between urban spaces and their networks of design, production and consumption by highlighting their supply chains, resilience and impact. Such a tool can help cities and citizens to understand how citizens design and produce in urban spaces within networks of suppliers, manufacturers, craftsmen, fab labs, makerspaces, hackerspaces, and so on.<br> <br> The Fab City Dashboard project was selected for the Visualizar'16 International Workshop, titled Ciudades abiertas, Open Cities - September 26th to October 5th. During ten days, eight multidisciplinary teams developed eight projects dealing with city data. The selected...
The interactive <strong>Technology Radar</strong> (also called <strong>TechRada... more The interactive <strong>Technology Radar</strong> (also called <strong>TechRadar</strong>) describes future technology developments or trends that will impact how makers will create, communicate, organize and might even do business. Its purpose is to provide state-of-the-art overviews of both: 1) Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and related applications developed and/or used by The results of this research will help to understand the uses and impacts of <strong>CAPS</strong> in different contexts, as well as of the Maker movement itself., and 2) maker technology developed and/or used by makers. This will include the relationships and mutual complementary of the two. In this way, it developes forward scenarios and a watching brief of these two technology areas and how they are used by The results of this research will help to understand the uses and impacts of <strong>CAPS</strong> in different contexts, as well as of the ...
This book is an introduction of the work done during 2016 and 2017 within the <strong>MAKE-... more This book is an introduction of the work done during 2016 and 2017 within the <strong>MAKE-IT</strong> project. The scope of this book is to present: a small snapshot of the project as of December 2017; an introduction to the most interesting contents and where to find them online and in the deliverables; contents and guidelines for the life of <strong>MAKE-IT</strong> even after the official end of the project, both in terms of exploitation by stakeholders and of further innovation and research work done by the members of the consortium. In section 2 the book introduces the <strong>Maker movement</strong> and the <strong>MAKE-IT</strong> project in section 3. In section 4 a short presentation of the ten cases studied is presented, and in section 5 the main results of all the work packages (WP) of the project are introduced. In section 6 we reflect upon the project with specific articles and interviews, and in section 7 we propose scen...
Datasets from a scientific publication for the Design for Next conference (and published in The D... more Datasets from a scientific publication for the Design for Next conference (and published in The Design Journal) and a software library that try to answer to this research question: <em>how could the analysis of social interactions over time on such platforms improve the understanding of design-related collaborative processes? </em>The dataset includes social network analysis of three cases of Maker initiatives developed in GitHub repositories. See also http://make-it.io/open-data-api/
The purpose of this research study is to understand better the Fablabs.io users and how the platf... more The purpose of this research study is to understand better the Fablabs.io users and how the platform could be improved for them. Fablabs.io is the online social network of the international Fab Lab community and the current official list of Fab Labs that share same principles, tools, and philosophy around the future of technology and its role in society. This survey/questionnaire asked users about them, their usage of Fablabs.io, their expectations about it and how Fablabs.io could support the global Fab Lab network and the Maker movement. You can find the questions here. You can read more in D4.1 here. See also: http://make-it.io/open-data-api/
As a <em>younger</em> twin of the TechRadar developed in <strong>WP5</strong... more As a <em>younger</em> twin of the TechRadar developed in <strong>WP5</strong>, <strong>WP7</strong> produceda simple dashboard that shows some analytics about the makerspaces: the MakerSpacesRadar, that shows where they are distributed and the different kinds of labs. This dashboard is completely data-driven, and it is an example application of the makerlabs library (a Python module for retrieving data from several Maker CAPS); it could be interested for any stakeholder interested in having an overview of the makerspaces without the need for developing software or research. The dataset shows the distribution of <strong>Fab Labs</strong>, <strong>Hackerspaces</strong> and <strong>DIYBio</strong> Lab globally, by continent, by country and by city. You can read more in D7.3 here and in the Visualisations page here. See also: http://make-it.io/open-data-api/
The version used for writing the paper "A data-driven approach for understanding social inte... more The version used for writing the paper "A data-driven approach for understanding social interactions in collaborative processes within the field of Design on GitHub" for the EAD12|2017 Design for Next conference: http://www.designfornext.org/
Beside addressing the emergency, design practice and research could focus on how COVID19 is influ... more Beside addressing the emergency, design practice and research could focus on how COVID19 is influencing existing trends in order to strategically plan for a post-pandemic phase where the “new normality” means living in ecological and socio-economic crises. This article focuses on what the pandemic crisis teaches us on the issue of local communities and related digital technologies. How can we design for and with the new kind of communities emerging because of COVID-19? The background of this research is the experimentation and research at the intersection of two themes (as they were before the COVID-19 crisis): the construction of communities related to the place where they are located (community of place), and the design of enabling platforms of re-localizing processes (place-making infrastructure). The article draws an overview of the changes that the pandemic has brought to communities, the emerging hybrid communities of the new normality (i.e., communities before, during and aft...
The Maker Movement emerged in the last decades through a mix of both bottom-up and top-down initi... more The Maker Movement emerged in the last decades through a mix of both bottom-up and top-down initiatives, promotions, communities and companies, informal experimentations and rigorous research projects. The result is a global system of design and making actors localized in community places of Maker Laboratories such as Fab Labs, Makerspaces, Hackerspaces, DIYBio Labs, Repair Cafes and so on. This contribution explores the first maps of the Maker Movement in terms of geographical distribution and of architecture of social networks of its Maker Laboratories and proposes a specific data analysis for each of these two directions. This article draws an overview of the social, local and global nature of the Maker Movement and of its laboratories, with the overall aim to provide spaces for democracy, participation and citizenship.
Fix a bug that caused all the outgoing and incoming edges to be confused and added together Add l... more Fix a bug that caused all the outgoing and incoming edges to be confused and added together Add location data to each Twitter account
Throughout the years, research initiatives related to the global Fab Lab network emerged by addre... more Throughout the years, research initiatives related to the global Fab Lab network emerged by addressing several issues with scientific articles and popular books, among the many publications. However, there are still many issues in the Fab Lab network that should be addressed by future research, specially regarding the impact of Fab Labs on society. This short contribution aims at proposing a set of research questions and methods for the Fab Lab network, that should be considered more as notes shared among members of the community than as a structured research proposal. The notes presented in this article reflect upon this topic and emerged from working in a Horizon 2020 research and innovation project of the European Union, MAKE-IT, that is specifically oriented at understanding and improving the social impact of Makers and therefore also of Fab Labs. Understanding the impact of the Fab Lab network on society is one of the most strategic directions for improving the network and its ...
The importance of innovation through university-industry cooperation has rarely been more acute t... more The importance of innovation through university-industry cooperation has rarely been more acute than it is today. Over the last 18 months of COVID-19 pandemic, we have experienced unprecedented circumstances in our lifetime that have demonstrated the critical role of knowledge creation and transmission across industries and disciplines. Identifying, developing and scaling-up breakthrough technologies, and converting them into incremental, radical or disruptive innovations that are widely accepted by, and available to beneficiaries, users, customers and communities is of paramount importance. However, turning research outputs into novelties for the benefits of wider society seldom occurs spontaneously. Numerous mechanisms – such as stakeholder engagement and co-creation processes – can assist in creating framework conditions to foster the development and adoption of novelties that address current and future societal needs. The European funded OpenInnoTrain project precisely aims to e...
What is the resilience of a city regarding its manufacturing, distribution and consumption of goo... more What is the resilience of a city regarding its manufacturing, distribution and consumption of goods? What is the role of citizens in changing the existing networks with open, distributed and collaborative projects and making activities in the city? The Fab City Dashboard project aims at developing a visualisation tool for Fab Cities that show the relation between urban spaces and their networks of design, production and consumption by highlighting their supply chains, resilience and impact. Such a tool can help cities and citizens to understand how citizens design and produce in urban spaces within networks of suppliers, manufacturers, craftsmen, fab labs, makerspaces, hackerspaces, and so on.<br> <br> The Fab City Dashboard project was selected for the Visualizar'16 International Workshop, titled Ciudades abiertas, Open Cities - September 26th to October 5th. During ten days, eight multidisciplinary teams developed eight projects dealing with city data. The selected...
The interactive <strong>Technology Radar</strong> (also called <strong>TechRada... more The interactive <strong>Technology Radar</strong> (also called <strong>TechRadar</strong>) describes future technology developments or trends that will impact how makers will create, communicate, organize and might even do business. Its purpose is to provide state-of-the-art overviews of both: 1) Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and related applications developed and/or used by The results of this research will help to understand the uses and impacts of <strong>CAPS</strong> in different contexts, as well as of the Maker movement itself., and 2) maker technology developed and/or used by makers. This will include the relationships and mutual complementary of the two. In this way, it developes forward scenarios and a watching brief of these two technology areas and how they are used by The results of this research will help to understand the uses and impacts of <strong>CAPS</strong> in different contexts, as well as of the ...
This book is an introduction of the work done during 2016 and 2017 within the <strong>MAKE-... more This book is an introduction of the work done during 2016 and 2017 within the <strong>MAKE-IT</strong> project. The scope of this book is to present: a small snapshot of the project as of December 2017; an introduction to the most interesting contents and where to find them online and in the deliverables; contents and guidelines for the life of <strong>MAKE-IT</strong> even after the official end of the project, both in terms of exploitation by stakeholders and of further innovation and research work done by the members of the consortium. In section 2 the book introduces the <strong>Maker movement</strong> and the <strong>MAKE-IT</strong> project in section 3. In section 4 a short presentation of the ten cases studied is presented, and in section 5 the main results of all the work packages (WP) of the project are introduced. In section 6 we reflect upon the project with specific articles and interviews, and in section 7 we propose scen...
Datasets from a scientific publication for the Design for Next conference (and published in The D... more Datasets from a scientific publication for the Design for Next conference (and published in The Design Journal) and a software library that try to answer to this research question: <em>how could the analysis of social interactions over time on such platforms improve the understanding of design-related collaborative processes? </em>The dataset includes social network analysis of three cases of Maker initiatives developed in GitHub repositories. See also http://make-it.io/open-data-api/
The purpose of this research study is to understand better the Fablabs.io users and how the platf... more The purpose of this research study is to understand better the Fablabs.io users and how the platform could be improved for them. Fablabs.io is the online social network of the international Fab Lab community and the current official list of Fab Labs that share same principles, tools, and philosophy around the future of technology and its role in society. This survey/questionnaire asked users about them, their usage of Fablabs.io, their expectations about it and how Fablabs.io could support the global Fab Lab network and the Maker movement. You can find the questions here. You can read more in D4.1 here. See also: http://make-it.io/open-data-api/
As a <em>younger</em> twin of the TechRadar developed in <strong>WP5</strong... more As a <em>younger</em> twin of the TechRadar developed in <strong>WP5</strong>, <strong>WP7</strong> produceda simple dashboard that shows some analytics about the makerspaces: the MakerSpacesRadar, that shows where they are distributed and the different kinds of labs. This dashboard is completely data-driven, and it is an example application of the makerlabs library (a Python module for retrieving data from several Maker CAPS); it could be interested for any stakeholder interested in having an overview of the makerspaces without the need for developing software or research. The dataset shows the distribution of <strong>Fab Labs</strong>, <strong>Hackerspaces</strong> and <strong>DIYBio</strong> Lab globally, by continent, by country and by city. You can read more in D7.3 here and in the Visualisations page here. See also: http://make-it.io/open-data-api/
The version used for writing the paper "A data-driven approach for understanding social inte... more The version used for writing the paper "A data-driven approach for understanding social interactions in collaborative processes within the field of Design on GitHub" for the EAD12|2017 Design for Next conference: http://www.designfornext.org/
Beside addressing the emergency, design practice and research could focus on how COVID19 is influ... more Beside addressing the emergency, design practice and research could focus on how COVID19 is influencing existing trends in order to strategically plan for a post-pandemic phase where the “new normality” means living in ecological and socio-economic crises. This article focuses on what the pandemic crisis teaches us on the issue of local communities and related digital technologies. How can we design for and with the new kind of communities emerging because of COVID-19? The background of this research is the experimentation and research at the intersection of two themes (as they were before the COVID-19 crisis): the construction of communities related to the place where they are located (community of place), and the design of enabling platforms of re-localizing processes (place-making infrastructure). The article draws an overview of the changes that the pandemic has brought to communities, the emerging hybrid communities of the new normality (i.e., communities before, during and aft...
The Maker Movement emerged in the last decades through a mix of both bottom-up and top-down initi... more The Maker Movement emerged in the last decades through a mix of both bottom-up and top-down initiatives, promotions, communities and companies, informal experimentations and rigorous research projects. The result is a global system of design and making actors localized in community places of Maker Laboratories such as Fab Labs, Makerspaces, Hackerspaces, DIYBio Labs, Repair Cafes and so on. This contribution explores the first maps of the Maker Movement in terms of geographical distribution and of architecture of social networks of its Maker Laboratories and proposes a specific data analysis for each of these two directions. This article draws an overview of the social, local and global nature of the Maker Movement and of its laboratories, with the overall aim to provide spaces for democracy, participation and citizenship.
Fix a bug that caused all the outgoing and incoming edges to be confused and added together Add l... more Fix a bug that caused all the outgoing and incoming edges to be confused and added together Add location data to each Twitter account
¿Qué es lo maker y cómo se define? ¿Por qué y para qué se fabrica? ¿Existe una identidad en el ha... more ¿Qué es lo maker y cómo se define? ¿Por qué y para qué se fabrica? ¿Existe una identidad en el hacer? ¿Qué supone estar involucrado en la fabricación digital? ¿Podemos hablar de una ética maker? ¿Es realmente un movimiento? ¿Supera el fervor gig? ¿Responde a las necesidades de un territorio o colectivo? ¿Hay política en estas prácticas? Lo maker ¿empodera? Para responder estas y otras preguntas, Maker Convent y Trànsit Projectes reúnen a los agentes y colectivos que están generando las ideas de valor alrededor del así llamado movimiento maker en España y Europa. El formato elegido es un interrogatorio al que quizá es el más emblemático de los textos asociados a él, el Maker Movement Manifesto de Mark Hatch. Las reflexiones de Massimo Menichinelli, Efraín Foglia, Elisabet Roselló, Colectivo En torno a la silla, Elena Jurado, Susanna Tesconi, Paco González, César García Sáez, David Gómez Fontanills, Núria Martínez Vernis y César Reyes, se unen a los comentarios de Òscar Martínez, Jordi Fàbregas, David Ribes Lladós, Àngel Mestres y Mario Hinojos; y se completan con los apuntes-entrevistas a Evi Swinnen, Wolf Kuühr, Tangencial y Makerspace Madrid. El resultado es una auténtica Deconstrucción del Manifiesto Maker que plantea además de una visión alternativa y critica sobre las prácticas de los hacedores, toda una reformulación de los conceptos fundacionales de la fabricación digital.
DRAFT VERSION IN ENGLISH (CC BY-SA):
The final version in Spanish can be accessed and cited as:
M... more DRAFT VERSION IN ENGLISH (CC BY-SA): The final version in Spanish can be accessed and cited as: Menichinelli, M. (2017). Deconstruyendo y rehaciendo las identidades de los Makers. In O. Martinez, A. Mestres, & M. Hinojos (Eds.), Deconstruyendo el Manifiesto Maker (pp. 18–33). Barcelona: Transit Projectes - MakerConvent.
This paper explores how the approach, logic and tools of Service Design could support the develop... more This paper explores how the approach, logic and tools of Service Design could support the development of a digital platform that enable the collaborative design of open and collaborative design processes. By integrating Service Design, Activity Theory and Meta-Design, such platform could foster community building and management providing concepts and visualizations that help users in the conscious and reflexive design of the activities constituting their community-based collaborative design processes. How could Service Design enable the meta-design of collaborative design processes on digital platforms? This paper elaborates a proposal for integrating Service Design concepts and tools into a meta-design digital platform for the design and management of collaborative design processes, by providing 1) a reflection on the theoretical connections between Service Design, Activity Theory and Meta-Design, 2) a proposal of a meta-design platform that represents a proof of concept of such connections and 3) a proposal of evaluation strategies for validating such platform.
Bio Massimo Menichinelli is a designer and researcher who works on open, collaborative, and co-de... more Bio Massimo Menichinelli is a designer and researcher who works on open, collaborative, and co-design projects and the systems that enable them since 2005. Massimo has published several books and scientific articles about Fab Labs, the Maker movement, Open Design and collaborative design processes; furthermore, he has given lectures and workshops in various countries including Italy, Spain, Finland, Germany, United Kingdom, Mexico, Colombia, South Korea and Singapore. He worked on the development of several Fab Labs including the Aalto Fab Lab (Helsinki), the MUSE Fab Lab (Trento) and Opendot (Milan), and has facilitated more while working as a Director at Make In Italy Italian Fablab & Makers CDB Foundation where he researched and facilitated Fab Labs and Makers in Italy. He lectured on Digital Fabrication and Open Design at Aalto University, SUPSI (Lugano) and at the Fab Academy edition at WeMake and Opendot (Milan). He currently works as a project manager for research projects at IAAC | Fab City Research Lab (a design and make think tank launched by Fab Lab Barcelona), especially in the MAKE-IT Horizon 2020 European project and as project manager of Fablabs.io, the official and open source platform for the global Fab Lab Network. Abstract Throughout the years, research initiatives related to the global Fab Lab network emerged by addressing several issues with scientific articles and popular books, among the many publications. However, there are still many issues in the Fab Lab network that should be addressed by future research, specially regarding the impact of Fab Labs on society. This short contribution aims at proposing a set of research questions and methods for the Fab Lab network, that should be considered more as notes shared among members of the community than as a structured research proposal. The notes presented in this article reflect upon this topic and emerged from working in a Horizon 2020 research and innovation project of the European Union, MAKE-IT, that is specifically oriented at understanding and improving the social impact of Makers and therefore also of Fab Labs. Understanding the impact of the Fab Lab network on society is one of the most strategic directions for improving the network and its role in society. This short contribution proposes a framework, a list of research questions for moving forward in this direction, in order to start a discussion, research initiatives and potential collaborations in them.
L’esperienza del Free Software ha esplicitato nuovi modelli organizzativi basati sull’idea di com... more L’esperienza del Free Software ha esplicitato nuovi modelli organizzativi basati sull’idea di comunità e sulle pratiche della condivisione e del fare comune. La diffusione di strumenti informatici e di forme organizzative comunitarie ha contribuito al crescere della sensibilità che la società e gli individui oggi hanno verso l’idea di rete, come infrastruttura e tecnologia, e di connettività, come attributo di sempre maggiore rilevanza nel proprio agire quotidiano.
L’opportunità di traslare l’esperienza organizzativa del Free Software e interpretarla in altri ambiti sociali e disciplinari è una delle eredità culturali del mondo digitale. Le comunità del Free Software sono cresciute grazie alla loro capacità di sviluppare autonomamente strumenti di auto-organizzazione della comunità stessa. Questa competenza ha attirato l'interesse di ricerca da parte di altre discipline, che ne hanno individuato e apprezzato i principi organizzativi fino a considerarli non solo replicabili ma anche in parte
pre-esistenti all'esperienza del Free Software stesso. Ci sono già molti esempi di comunità che sfruttano a proprio vantaggio la distribuzione delle risorse (partecipanti, informazioni, beni materiali) attraverso la costruzione di reti collaborative aperte e paritarie per svolgere una attività specifica.
La comunità è un caso interessante di come sia possibile affrontare la complessità senza ridurla, facendo leva sulla propria complessità organizzativa. Rappresenta quindi un modello di rottura con la modernità che basa il suo essere nella riduzione della complessità e della diversità e nello sfruttamento del già noto.
Questa capacità di generare strumenti e forme auto-organizzative in grado di risolvere problemi complessi ha incontrato gli interessi di ricerca del mondo del design.
Disciplina tradizionalmente orientata al problem solving, il design si trova ad affrontare la complessità interrogandosi su quali siano gli strumenti concettuali e operativi ad essa adeguati. Per affrontare le emergenze della sostenibilità (ambientale, sociale, economica) caratterizzate da un alto grado di complessità, il design sta rivolgendo il suo interesse al Free Software e alle comunità; non solo replicandone le forme organizzative caratteristiche come risultato, ma adottandone le pratiche e facendole proprie all'interno del
processo progettuale. Il design tenta quindi di replicare reti comunitarie generatrici di soluzioni sostenibili interpretandone al contempo gli strumenti e il modello organizzativo. Si ha una trasformazione del progettista da un ruolo di server ad uno di enabler, dalla fornitura di soluzioni alla progettazione di strumenti per una autonoma costruzione di soluzioni. Nel ruolo di mediatore e facilitatore di relazioni nei processi creativi e nei contesti strategici si esprime la capacità dei progettisti di intervenire a supporto delle comunità
e di costruire con esse pratiche di socializzazione e condivisione delle attività di sapere.
Le comunità a cui il design si interessa usano saperi vivi, il saper fare e le competenze come fonti delle loro ricchezze operative; grazie alla propria natura organizzativa, la comunità gestisce in maniera più efficace informazioni e conoscenza, valorizzate come proprietà collettive fondanti. Apprendere dalle comunità forme organizzative e assumerle all'interno della metodologia disciplinare significa per il design anche apprendere forme di gestione della conoscenza che rispettano l'idea di comunità.
Attraverso la facilitazione di relazioni di socialità e scambio, il design si configura come una disciplina della conoscenza; contribuisce all’accrescere del sapere disciplinare come patrimonio pubblico di risorse e all'expertise del progetto come esperienza di una comunità; nella prospettiva delle comunità sociali agisce come mediatore di relazioni orientate allo scambio, al sapere pubblico e ad una interazione ricca tra l'attore individuo e l'attore collettivo.
Uploads
Papers by Massimo Menichinelli
Para responder estas y otras preguntas, Maker Convent y Trànsit Projectes reúnen a los agentes y colectivos que están generando las ideas de valor alrededor del así llamado movimiento maker en España y Europa.
El formato elegido es un interrogatorio al que quizá es el más emblemático de los textos asociados a él, el Maker Movement Manifesto de Mark Hatch.
Las reflexiones de Massimo Menichinelli, Efraín Foglia, Elisabet Roselló, Colectivo En torno a la silla, Elena
Jurado, Susanna Tesconi, Paco González, César García Sáez, David Gómez Fontanills, Núria Martínez Vernis
y César Reyes, se unen a los comentarios de Òscar Martínez, Jordi Fàbregas, David Ribes Lladós, Àngel Mestres y Mario Hinojos; y se completan con los apuntes-entrevistas a Evi Swinnen, Wolf Kuühr, Tangencial y Makerspace Madrid.
El resultado es una auténtica Deconstrucción del Manifiesto Maker que plantea además de una visión alternativa y critica sobre las prácticas de los hacedores, toda una reformulación de los conceptos fundacionales de la fabricación digital.
The final version in Spanish can be accessed and cited as:
Menichinelli, M. (2017). Deconstruyendo y rehaciendo las identidades de los Makers. In O. Martinez, A. Mestres, & M. Hinojos (Eds.), Deconstruyendo el Manifiesto Maker (pp. 18–33). Barcelona: Transit Projectes - MakerConvent.
L’opportunità di traslare l’esperienza organizzativa del Free Software e interpretarla in altri ambiti sociali e disciplinari è una delle eredità culturali del mondo digitale. Le comunità del Free Software sono cresciute grazie alla loro capacità di sviluppare autonomamente strumenti di auto-organizzazione della comunità stessa. Questa competenza ha attirato l'interesse di ricerca da parte di altre discipline, che ne hanno individuato e apprezzato i principi organizzativi fino a considerarli non solo replicabili ma anche in parte
pre-esistenti all'esperienza del Free Software stesso. Ci sono già molti esempi di comunità che sfruttano a proprio vantaggio la distribuzione delle risorse (partecipanti, informazioni, beni materiali) attraverso la costruzione di reti collaborative aperte e paritarie per svolgere una attività specifica.
La comunità è un caso interessante di come sia possibile affrontare la complessità senza ridurla, facendo leva sulla propria complessità organizzativa. Rappresenta quindi un modello di rottura con la modernità che basa il suo essere nella riduzione della complessità e della diversità e nello sfruttamento del già noto.
Questa capacità di generare strumenti e forme auto-organizzative in grado di risolvere problemi complessi ha incontrato gli interessi di ricerca del mondo del design.
Disciplina tradizionalmente orientata al problem solving, il design si trova ad affrontare la complessità interrogandosi su quali siano gli strumenti concettuali e operativi ad essa adeguati. Per affrontare le emergenze della sostenibilità (ambientale, sociale, economica) caratterizzate da un alto grado di complessità, il design sta rivolgendo il suo interesse al Free Software e alle comunità; non solo replicandone le forme organizzative caratteristiche come risultato, ma adottandone le pratiche e facendole proprie all'interno del
processo progettuale. Il design tenta quindi di replicare reti comunitarie generatrici di soluzioni sostenibili interpretandone al contempo gli strumenti e il modello organizzativo. Si ha una trasformazione del progettista da un ruolo di server ad uno di enabler, dalla fornitura di soluzioni alla progettazione di strumenti per una autonoma costruzione di soluzioni. Nel ruolo di mediatore e facilitatore di relazioni nei processi creativi e nei contesti strategici si esprime la capacità dei progettisti di intervenire a supporto delle comunità
e di costruire con esse pratiche di socializzazione e condivisione delle attività di sapere.
Le comunità a cui il design si interessa usano saperi vivi, il saper fare e le competenze come fonti delle loro ricchezze operative; grazie alla propria natura organizzativa, la comunità gestisce in maniera più efficace informazioni e conoscenza, valorizzate come proprietà collettive fondanti. Apprendere dalle comunità forme organizzative e assumerle all'interno della metodologia disciplinare significa per il design anche apprendere forme di gestione della conoscenza che rispettano l'idea di comunità.
Attraverso la facilitazione di relazioni di socialità e scambio, il design si configura come una disciplina della conoscenza; contribuisce all’accrescere del sapere disciplinare come patrimonio pubblico di risorse e all'expertise del progetto come esperienza di una comunità; nella prospettiva delle comunità sociali agisce come mediatore di relazioni orientate allo scambio, al sapere pubblico e ad una interazione ricca tra l'attore individuo e l'attore collettivo.