Sustainability

Sustainability

The basis on which a Hackspace/Hackerspace/Makerspace works is to do things. Not to plan, or create a structure first, but to get on with DOING things. Yes, some things need careful thought, like Health and Safety, and to 'do' a Hackspace in certain ways there might be a legal need for Directors, and somewhere like a bank account to store Hackspace money, but we did not start by arguing about the shape of the table around which we'd sit, so as to agree how we'd run the next meeting, so as to..., etcetera, etcetera.

This will upset some people, as they see working together like that as chaotic, they want a Leader, to make Decisions. But, leaders can emerge on a per-project basis, maybe as the person who wants to push the initial idea. Most projects are based around the magic number of five people, plus or minus two, and if there's more people tend to break-down into sub-projects. We just need to take a little care about things like discrimination. There's a good reason to only use the term 'director' externally, and call them 'trustees' internally; less directing, more trusting people to get on with the hacking!

You might like to look at a Hackspace design pattern.

Sustaining The World

Bet you thought this'd be the subject of the page? Well, to be fair, the Hackspace is concerned about these sorts of issues. A consumer view of the world is you buy stuff, it breaks or wears-out, you buy a new one. This is not a sustainable way of working, and for example Restart helps people repair things they'd otherwise have to replace. We do 3d printing, which can allow you to make parts that are no longer available. You might have heard about 'upcycling', the creative reuse of stuff. And, there's of course recycling, as many things thrown-away, like milk 'bottles', are made of reusable materials like HDPE, or contain useful electronic parts.

None of this is perfect. Thermodynamics might make you think we're just delaying things. But, we don't live in a 'closed system', we get energy from The Sun, and sustainable energy is already making a lot of difference, which is one reason we're interested in things like electric vehicles.

Summary

So, whether you're interested in sustaining a Hackspace, or the World, we hope this page was of use to you.