Samenvatting

While Making is often seen as a hedonistic pass-time activity, is it attracting growing interest in many industries. Globally, big players have started to fund Fab Lab on a substantial scale. Schlumberger is supporting the development of Fab Labs in Russia, Aramco sponsored the first Fab Lab in Dhahran (Saudi Arabia), and Chevron promised support fort setting up Fab Labs in US communities where it is active. Ford in the US and BMW in Germany are partnering with Techshop to provide their employees with access to digital manufacturing technology for tinkering outside working hours. More interesting, however, are small-scale but high-tech developments, certainly from a perspective of emerging socio-technical production paradigms. The Dutch order of Inventors was a key partner for setting up the Fab Lab in Utrecht. The Swiss clean tech accelerator Blue Lion in Zurich is setting up a Fab Lab for its companies. The incubator Dnamo in Rotterdam
decided to refocus its activities as ‘RDM Maker Space’. Barcelona is pronouncing itself proudly as ‘Fab City’ and aims to develop neighbourhood Fab Labs in every city district. In Rotterdam, there are more players who are actively working on combining real estate development and Making: urban developer Stipo Rotterdam together with the city council and Techshop are planning to convert the Zomerhofkwartier to the making neighbourhood (‘maakkwartier’) of Rotterdam. Another property developer is looking into the possibility of adding a maker space facility to a block of. Other initiatives include the Platform Digital Manufacturing, de Bende with its plans to make crafts-based making accessible, the 3D Print Academy, and ‘De Makers van Rotterdam’, an initiative of social enterprises centered around Making.