SPACE10’s mission to investigate new models of circular societies and enable a better life for the many people led us to explore more sustainable alternatives for production and consumption.
Inspired by recent developments in digital fabrication, the rise of the maker movement and the vision of self-sufficient cities, we joined forces with the Fab City Research Laboratory and IKEA to conduct an ambitious experiment in Barcelona. Together we created the largest Fab City prototype to date.
We turned the Poblenou district into a one-square-kilometre testbed to explore the potential of making and remaking products collectively, self-sufficiently and within a productive ecosystem of people, places, machines and materials.
The vision of the Fab City prototype is to promote the development of locally productive and globally connected cities, in which the production and recycling of materials is concentrated in the cities using new technology. Imports and exports should increasingly be centred on data (information, knowledge and design) instead of physical products and materials. The ambition is to create resilient cities that reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions while drastically increasing entrepreneurship, local production and economic growth.
