IED Istituto Europeo di Design
IED歐洲設計學院馬德里校區的Fab Lab正式成為MIT麻省理工學院2009年推動的Fab Foundation基金會成員之一。IED以下是歐洲設計學院馬德里校區Fab Lab數位領域負責人Ignacio Prieto與Daniel García的訪談：
What opportunities does being part of this Fab Labs network offer?
The Fab Labs, by design, definition and philosophy, are participative work and research places. Belonging to the international Fab Labs network means being able to share problems and solutions with thousands of members throughout the world. In a Fab Lab one works with a multitude of processes, for which a knowledge of materials, hardware, software, intellectual property, etc. is critical. It is very difficult to dominate all these aspects alone, it is much simpler to work in a distributed way, creating an easily accessible documentation and knowledge base. That is the Fab Foundation network, the equivalent of a Wikipedia specializing in digital manufacturing processes. Then there are this network’s possibilities: there is a twenty years roadmap view of how the future transformation of these spaces will be posed, for a Fab Lab is not a static place, whose infrastructure and possibilities are anchored to the day of its inauguration. The same is true at the level of the teaching skills of these spaces, whose needs also change. For example, if you want to teach Fab Academy courses (you need staff who have previously obtained the Fab Academy diploma), if you want to give Fab Academy distance learning courses (2 years of experience giving classroom-based Fab Academy courses), if you want to take part in the programme “How to Grow Almost Anything” directed towards the hybridization of digital manufacturing and synthetic biology (knowledge and additional hardware) and a host of nuances that add value to the teaching institution.
What does complying with the Fab Lab Charter imply?
The main result of complying with the Charter is to facilitate access to tools and knowledge. This has a lot to do with the search for innovation: the MIT has embraced a constructionist approach in its teaching model and, through this, obtains great results in terms of innovation; the Fab Labs are test sites for this model worldwide, they aim to facilitate access to tools and knowledge, but not to lay out a strict learning/teaching path, for, on many occasions, innovation arises from the unexpected. The Charter ensures that this model is not corrupted. It is the same model that inspired Silicon Valley in the 1970s, with the Homebrew Computer Club, the same model that led to the publication of the Whole Earth Catalogue, which included the leitmotif “Access to Tools”, the same that Feynman used in his talks on nanotechnology in California communes. Ensuring access to knowledge increases the possibility of innovation. Times and techniques change, but important ideas remain.
What does an institution like the IED, with its 50 years of training experience as an international network and with schools in Spain, Brazil and Italy, contribute to the Fab Labs network?
In its 50 years of experience the IED has created one of the largest communities of designers in the world, promoting transformation processes and becoming a driving force for social and economic change. Now, it goes a step further by integrating itself in the productive system with this new space.
The experience accumulated in that time and the international expansion that the IED has undergone has allowed it to be a key player. The talent and skills of the people who have passed through the IED, whether as teachers, professionals or students, is one of the best contributions that the IED can make to the Fab Labs network. The IED is no stranger to working in the context of an international network, so the ability to pour all this talent into the Fab Labs network is a natural extension of its way of working and we are sure it will be of benefit.
What differential value does the Fab Lab IED Madrid have over similar options? What accounts for this new space?
Clearly, the link with design as a unifying element and its character when fusing traditional and digital manufacturing. The Fab Lab IED Madrid forms part of a new space of the IED Madrid that we have just opened in Oporto and has placed special emphasis on the fact that the Fab Lab is not an element “that has landed” in the school without being intrinsically linked with anything. It is a prolongation of the line that the IED Madrid has been tracing out during its 25 years of experience in the field of education and a natural prolongation of its work method and its teaching model based on “know how”. In fact, there is no distinction between machines, whether they are traditional or digital, only joint manufacturing processes in many different aspects: works with metals, plastics, fabrics and paper ordered according to the cleaning needs of each of the processes. In order to work with all these techniques, machinery, instrumentation and additional knowledge is also employed, which does not tend to be customary in Fab Labs. With the opening of this new space, the IED Madrid incorporates into its training processes a production system able to convert an idea into a real object.
To whom is it directed? What market niche does it cover?
All those that want to understand contemporary design and production processes. Obviously, by belonging to the IED Madrid the focus is mainly on teaching and student learning.
The second question has a twofold response. Any medium/large company that carries out research and development has equipment and software in its installations that is very similar or identical to that used here. To leave a superior training cycle, enter one of these companies and not feel outside of things, find you have the ability to understand, be able to communicate and “get your hands dirty” in the context of R+D in contemporary design, is of tremendous value and contributes an additional quality to the teaching experience, which, in my view, is essential.
Then there is a deeper consideration, which consists of searching for an answer to the question of what you would make if you, by yourself, could make almost anything. What are the limits of design if manual dexterity and precision in the repetition of the works are not factors that have to be taken into account when creating products, carrying out ideas. Would you have more objects? Less? “Yours”? Would you consume more or less natural resources in this way? What would be the entropic process of this new consumption method? What is the new “market” resulting from this scenario? So, in this second aspect, the answer to the question is not so much what is the market niche to be covered, but rather, what market niche it creates.
Who will be able to make use of Fab Lab IED Madrid?
The space will have a use strongly focused on the IED Madrid students, who will be able to use its installations within the centre’s study plans, but will also be open to participation by graduates and external professionals.
We offer different ways of taking part:
Working on a project in the space. These are projects for private clients although, should prototypes or manufacture be needed, they will be able to use the available infrastructure of workshops and Fab Lab to reach their objective.
Working through a sponsorship or residency in research.
Working freely by means of a subscription or hourly rental.
To access the sponsorship or residency programmes a project is presented in an open competition, in a format similar to that of art residencies, and the project is transparently assessed by a jury appointed for the occasion.
FAB LAB IED MADRID
Avenida Pedro Díez, 3.
28019 Madrid.
