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Open Design City

About six months ago, I went to a two-day open design event during Social Media Week. The event's theme was food and it was held at Betahaus, which is a cool workshare/cafe in Kreuzberg.



At this event, I collaborated with a bunch of strangers to build a table for six, where everyone's forks, spoons, and glasses were connected to another diner's fork, spoon, or glass by strings under the table. At the performance/demonstration of the project, you found yourself puzzling over whose what was connected to your which and then how to behave. Cooperate? Overpower? Prank?



This is a project I am eager to recreate. The prototype was made of cardboard and was discarded at the end of the event, but the proof of concept is solid and survives.

There were a lot of great people at the event and a lot of cool projects. You can see lots of pictures on Flickr as well as an excellent documentary by Gabriel Shalom which he shot and edited during the event and screened at our closing party.



Since that event, several enterprising people, including Jay Cousins, have started a project to build an open makerspace behind Betahaus. The space is called Open Design City and it is a very cool work in progress.

I haven't been able to be as involved as I would have liked, with my new full-time job and my family who wants to see me on evenings at dinnertime, but I did manage to participate at the DMY Maker Lab, which was a really cool event. I still hope to put together a paper documentation for it. Yet another work in progress...



Last weekend I did a little screenprinting workshop at the ODC, based on my Instructable Screenprinting: Cheap, Dirty, and At Home. I almost had to cancel due to lack of sunlight, but we got a lucky break in the thunderstorm and were able to go ahead. I can imagine doing some of this kind of thing regularly. I do love to spread the Word of cheap and awesome printing.

screenprinting workshop

I have an electronics project I hope to get working on at their Monday night open sessions. I need some help and encouragement on that one, and I think the ODC is probably just the place to get it.

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