FabPlatz is a physical working environment, that allows for digital designs to be transformed into physical design solutions. This will be a workshop environment where models, prototypes and tangible objects can be quickly built and constructed.
Above all, FabPlatz is a social space of knowledge-sharing and collaborations, open to the city, its residents, schools, inventors, companies, professionals within the creative arts sector, craftsmen, as well as to the students and faculties of Unibz. Most importantly, FabPlatz has been designed to cater to anybody who is interested in manufacturing well-defined objects.
Furthermore, the activities and projects organised by FabPlatz aim to support and spread a culture of making, through the use of innovative and traditional machines and technologies. There will also be a key focus on encouraging users to discover their own, personal design process that work best for them, in order to achieve their desired final design solutions.Users of FabPlatz will have the opportunity to learn how to design and produce a wide range of new design solutions (including intelligent objects), whilst also being able to share their passion for manufacturing and product repairs, with other FabPlatz visitors.
The FabPlatz promotes a deeper and wider awareness of the Do-It-Yourself culture, by encouraging voluntary initiatives by communities of producers. These communities will be able to organise workshops, where people will be introduced and educated about: production processes and their own personal interactions with tools and objects throughout history - from daily life of the past, present and into the future.
In conclusion, FabPlatz is therefore a project that will have a positive impact on the second and third institutional mission of Unibz. With its aim of becoming a notable resource for teaching and encouraging the birth of personal design processes, twinned with the distribution of valuable knowledge, FabPlatz will not only benefit life outside of the university but will benefit the university overall, as a useful, lifelong, educational, instrument of design.