Crowdcrafting as a new manufacturing model: the experience of Berto Salotti (original) (raw)
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The Social Fabric - exploring the social value of craftsmanship for service design
2013
This paper addresses the social component of craftsmanship in relation to service design. The transferal of crafting skills and knowledge can be considered a service that is co-created between master and apprentice. The social aspects of learning craftsmanship will be discussed in the light of how they could benefit designers in the development of Product Service Systems. Workshops in bobbin-lace making that took place as part of a research project about smart-textile Product Service Systems serve as the foundation of this analysis. A group of designers assumed the role of apprentices in these workshops. The aim was not only to apprehend the basics of this historical craft, but also to get an understanding of the concept of craftsmanship. In this paper we discuss our observations and reflections on being designers as apprentices and how the insights gained can apply to service design.
This paper analyzes some self-production and craft processes which can contribute to social innovation. Object of this research is the concept of self-production, considered as a humancentered design process held by a designer-maker who, working within a community of artisans or a platform of digital fabrication, manages the entire process, from design, to production, distribution and communication. This research covers a broad spectrum of material that relates to the changing landscape within the design world and beyond, drawing the heterogeneity and complexity of self-production. Diverse approaches developed in the contemporary design scene have been mapped, defining new relationships and highlighting peculiarities, strengths and weaknesses. Linking these diverse approaches is the new role of the designer, who embraces wider areas and acts as catalyst of social innovation, actively involving diverse actors in the design process. Such a figure embodies both the designer’s knowledge and the maker’s know-how, implementing either artisan productions or digital fabrications, shared within a close relationship with craft communities or virtual platforms for Do-It-Yourself. Self-production seems to be not an anachronistic situation, but an interesting opportunity, which addresses the increasing demand for flexible and diversified productions, able to connect local realities with global markets. Such an approach seems to provide young designers with a viable opportunity to start from the bottom, opening up new start-ups on their own to counter the current crisis of the work world. Design can be a key guide for transforming the current scenario into an advanced craftsmanship. It has to rescue its social and economic relevance and foster local innovative initiatives that seek social innovation and sustainable development of a territory.
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IJCAS (International Journal of Creative and Arts Studies), 2017
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Peer production has emerged as a new and relevant way of organising the work of distributed and autonomous individuals in the production and distribution of digital content. Increasingly, the adoption of peer production is taking place not only in the development of digital and immaterial content, but also in the design, manufacturing and distribution of physical goods. Furthermore, Open Design and Open Hardware projects are developed, discussed, manufactured and distributed thanks to digital fabrication technologies, digital communication technologies, advanced funding initiatives (like crowdfunding platforms and hardware incubators) and globally integrated supply chains. This new systemic dimension of work is possible, among other factors, thanks to local facilities like Fab Labs, Makerspaces and Hackerspaces (that can be generally called Maker laboratories), where individuals can gather and form communities with other people, designing and manufacturing together. Generally, these people are referred to as Makers and, while their existence is still an emergent phenomenon, it is widely acknowledged that they could exemplify a new modality of work. We investigated the knowledge, values and working dimensions of Makers in Italy with the Makers' Inquiry, a survey that focused on Makers, Indie Designers and managers of Maker laboratories. This research generated a rst overview of the phenomenon in Italy, improving the knowledge of the proles of Makers; an important step because Makers are usually dened in a very broad way. Furthermore, we investigated their proles regarding their values and motivations, in order to understand how much Makers engage in peer production or in traditional businesses and whether their working condition is sustainable or not. Finally, we compared these proles with data regarding traditional designers and businesses and the national context. Given the recent nature of the Maker movement, the focus of this article is on providing a rst overview of the phenomenon in Italy with an exploratory analysis and with comparison with existing related literature or national data, rather than contextualising the Maker movement in sociological and political contributions. Far from happening in a void, Italian Makers have a strong relationship with their localities and established industry. Therefore, this is a recent evolution, where Makers work with a broader palette of projects and strategies: With both non-commercial and commercial activities, both peer production and traditional approaches. The activity of making is still a secondary working activity that partially covers the Makers' income, who are mostly self-employed working at home, in a craft workshop or in a Fab Lab in self-funded or non-commercial initiatives, where technology is not the only critical issue. As a conclusion, we identied current patterns in the working condition of Italian Makers. The data gathered shows some interesting information that, however, could be applicable only to an Italian context. Nevertheless, the survey could be a starting point to compare the same phenomenon in dierent countries. Therefore, we released the survey les, software and data as open source in order to facilitate the adoption, modication, verication and replication of the survey. INTRODUCTION The development and adoption of digital technologies in the past few decades has introduced new working conditions and modied some of the existing ones. New forms of organisation and new forms of distribution of resources have been enabled (or old forms have been modied or rendered obsolete) especially thanks to infrastructures such as the Internet (a global network of devices and technologies) and the World Wide Web (a global network of information and documents). Furthermore, there are also protocols and softwares that manage the interaction between both of these networks. Digital technologies have always been in part digital and immaterial with data and software, and physical and material with hardware and connections. This ecosystem has enabled the emerging of new forms of work, organisation, business and economic activity in many elds such as music, biotechnology, movies, science, art and so on, including design. Free Software, Open Source, Peer-to-Peer, Crowdsourcing, Sharing Economy, Diuse, Distributed and Decentralised Systems are some of the many new denitions created in order to understand better the new phenomena of organisation of work emerged from the adoption of digital technologies, and especially the Internet and the World Wide Web. The concept of peer production emerged as a framework that aims at identifying the common traits in all these denitions regarding a new and relevant way of organising the work of distributed and autonomous individuals
2015
Regional industrial design education aims to reinvent itself and adapt to local realities, such as the demands of industry and society, while providing object-oriented solutions. Artisan craftsmanship is one particular social demand. The present study therefore aims to better understand the role of industrial design in the production of artisan crafts. The User-Centred Design Workshop (UCD) for third-year industrial design students at the Universidad del Bio-Bio in Concepcion, Chile established a collaborative alliance between the “Fundacion Trabajo para un Hermano” (TPH) Concepcion1 (“Foundation Working in Fraternity, Concepcion”), the Universidad del Bio-Bio and artisans affiliated with the group “Comercio Justo Manos” (“Fair Trade Hands”). Together participants worked to identify opportunities and potential setbacks related to the micro-production of artisan crafts, from creation to exhibition of jewellery, wooden handicrafts, woven goods, felted products and handmade soap. Solut...
Peer Production has emerged has a new and relevant way of organizing the work of distributed and autonomous individuals in the production and distribution of digital content. Increasingly, the adoption of Peer Production is taking place not only in the development of digital and immaterial content, but also in the design, manufacturing and distribution of physical goods. Furthermore, Open Design and Open Hardware projects are developed, discussed, manufactured and distributed thanks to digital fabrication technologies, digital communication technologies, advanced funding initiatives (like crowdfunding platforms and hardware incubators) and globally integrated supply chains. This new systemic dimension of work is possible, among other factors, thanks to local facilities like Fab Labs, Makerspaces, Hackerspaces (that can be generally called Maker laboratories), where individuals can gather and form communities with other people, designing and manufacturing together. Generally, these p...
Peer production has emerged as a new and relevant way of organizing the work of distributed and autonomous individuals in the production and distribution of digital content. Increasingly, the adoption of peer production is taking place not only in the development of digital and immaterial content, but also in the design, manufacturing and distribution of physical goods. Furthermore, Open Design and Open Hardware projects are developed, discussed, manufactured and distributed thanks to digital fabrication technologies, digital communication technologies, advanced funding initiatives (like crowdfunding platforms and hardware incubators) and globally integrated supply chains. This new systemic dimension of work is possible, among other factors, thanks to local facilities like Fab Labs, Makerspaces, Hackerspaces (that can be generally called Maker laboratories), where individuals can gather and form communities with other people, designing and manufacturing together. Generally, these people are referred to as Makers, and, while their existence is still an emergent phenomenon, it is widely acknowledged that they could exemplify a new modality of work. We investigated the knowledge, values and working dimensions of Makers in Italy with the Makers' Inquiry, a survey that focused on Makers, Indie Designers and managers of Maker laboratories. This research generated a first overview of the phenomenon in Italy, improving the knowledge of the profiles of Makers; an important step because Makers are usually defined in a very broad way. Furthermore, we investigated their profiles regarding their values and motivations, in order to understand how much Makers engage in peer production or in traditional businesses and whether their working condition is sustainable or not. Finally, we compared these profiles with data regarding traditional designers and businesses and the national context. Given the recent nature of the Maker movement, the focus of this article is on providing a first overview of the phenomenon in Italy with an exploratory analysis and with comparison with existing related literature or national data, rather than contextualizing the Maker movement in sociological and political contributions. Far from happening in a void, Italian Makers have a strong relationship with their localities and established industry. Therefore, this is a recent evolution, where Makers work with a broader palette of projects and strategies: with both non-commercial and commercial activities, both peer production and traditional approaches. The activity of making is still a secondary working activity that partially covers the Makers' income, who are mostly self-employed working at home, in a craft workshop or in a Fab Lab in self-funded or non-commercial initiatives, where technology is not the only critical issue. As a conclusion, we identified current patterns in the working condition of Italian Makers. The data gathered shows some interesting information that, however, could be applicable only to an Italian context. Nevertheless, the survey could be a starting point to compare the same phenomenon in different countries. Therefore, we released the survey files, software and data as open source in order to facilitate the adoption, modification, verification and replication of the survey.
It is possible to create a synergy between industrial designers and artisan groups to stimulate the development and preservation of a local craft in a sustainable and commercially viable way. This study aims to explore how designers may collaborate with artisans to unearth new opportunities for a local craft and how designers can make contributions to the artisan community. Rush-weaving is a traditional local handcraft practiced by generations of Taiwanese artisans using indigenous materials to make functional and decorative items. To research the possibilities of a craft-design collaboration, a monitored project was conducted, where local rush weavers and design students worked together to create new product concepts. As a result of the collaboration, seven design concepts were proposed to expand this traditional craft into contemporary markets. Drawing from the collaborative experience, this study proposes a craft-design collaboration process to form the basis of an approach for local craft development and sustainability. Knowledge gained through this activity suggests that the concept of craft product design is embodied by combining what is desirable in craft with what is possible through design. This study reveals that designers can play a catalytic role in facilitating the propagation of local craft knowledge into other industries. This can cultivate the local craft industry and empower artisans to further their own innovations. This paper highlights the value of the alliance between craft and design as a mutual learning mechanism, where both sides can exchange knowledge and enhance their professional capabilities.