Distributed Design Academy 2020

Week 2 – Scaling Production

Every year, Fab Lab Barcelona at The Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia organises and runs an academy as a form of knowledge exchange. The topics are based around a series of projects that are carried out by Distributed Design Platform members in line with distributed design principles.

This year the academy is divided into five online modules with a module each week. The academy is made up of private exclusive training for the academy students, plus free and open to the public talks by experts in their field. This is one of those free talks. 

Week 2 module, Scaling Production will have Katrine Hesseldal, PhD student at  Burberry Material Futures Research Group and product designer, giving an overview of the key ways in which new distributed methods of production are changing the industry of design.

Manufacturing technologies, completely different from conventional mass production, are enabling new methods of production. This changes the conventional ‘rules’ of who can participate in production; at what scale, where, and when production takes place. In this talk we will explore how on-demand local forms of production affect the relationship between producers and consumers, how it is changing the role of designers and how, if designers learn to use it wisely, might offer more sustainable alternatives to conventional mass production.