“Wood is universally beautiful to man. It is the most humanly intimate of all materials.”

Our species has evolved alongside wood and worked it into our lives from the start. Along with stone, clay and animal parts, wood was one of the first materials to be explored and manipulated by early humans, shaping our world as we shaped it.

‘CMYK Chair’ by FAB9 workshop technician Morgan Doty

At FAB9, we’re fascinated with all methods of woodworking — as excited about creating the most traditional of objects as we are about exploring ways to blend the old with the new.

Our dedicated Timber shop, which is full of high-end machines and tools, has been designed to encourage different makers to learn new skills, hone existing techniques, try new things, and share ideas. This is a space where you can be trained in the latest CAD (Computer Aided Design) software, shown how to use a chisel, or learn the art of joinery. A space where furniture makers can fashion shapely tables, architects can make models, lighting designers can realise sculptural fixtures, and jewellers can achieve fine detail in delicate pieces.

CNC routed table by FAB9 workshop technician Jack Halls

The FAB9 Timber shop
If a work space is to be effective, it needs good workflow. Good workflow doesn’t just allow for optimal use of the space and increase overall efficiency — it also boosts the quality of your output by making every part of your process traceable. Traceability is the key to understanding exactly how you achieved an outcome, and for troubleshooting if something goes astray — it’s much easier to pinpoint where an error occurred if you’ve followed a clear series of steps. Then, once it is corrected and the process refined, you can repeat it, and scale it, with far greater ease.

Along with the way we have arranged the layout of the Timber shop, we’ve facilitated optimal workflow between our different woodworking spaces by locating them near each other — the Timber shop is adjacent to the Assembly area, where all our power, pneumatic and hand tools are kept, and the CNC lab.

Architectural graduate, designer, maker and FAB9 workshop technician Morgan Doty knows the importance of workflow.

“Being able to move freely from one piece of equipment to another, from the physical realm to the digital realm and back again, enables you to really take the quality of your work to new heights,” says Morgan. “In my experience, a streamlined process like this helps make you a better designer, maker and thinker.”

FAB9 Timber shop floor plan

Woodworking machines and tools
Every piece of equipment at FAB9 — from the most complex machine, to the simplest hand tool — has been selected with great care. We live by the adage, ‘if a job is worth doing, it’s worth doing well’, so whenever there’s a choice between types of machines and tools, we consult experts, like John Madden of Wood Dust Australia, to be sure we’re getting the right one for our members.

Woodworker, educator and FAB9 workshop manager Sam Muratore can’t wait to see people using the space.

“The layout is fantastic, and the equipment is of such a high quality. Everything is so professionally presented. But for me, the really great thing will be seeing real human beings operating in here! As an educator, working with people and helping them develop their skills is what gets me out of bed in the morning. So getting to see FAB9 members have an idea, work it into a design and then turn it into a reality — that will be the real buzz.”

Having been the workshop manager at VCA’s School of Art workshop for almost 25 years, Sam decided to come out of semi-retirement to work at FAB9 after a visit to the makerspace. FAB9’s high-end machines, logical layout and emphasis on empowerment through education and community convinced Sam to join the team.

When asked to name the most capable and impressive of the woodworking (and almost-everything-else-working) machines at FAB9, Sam’s answer is resounding.

“The Multicam Trident CNC router, for sure,” he says. “It does just about everything! From engraving, to carving, to sculpting, to milling, its possibilities are as limitless as the user’s imagination.”

CNC routed ‘Flow table’ by Bingquan Zhang

The Sawstop table saw is next on Sam’s list of favourite woodworking machines.

“It’s just capable of so many techniques and processes, able to do almost any kind of cutting,” he says.

And because this table saw is a Sawstop, you won’t ever have to risk your fingers to use it — if the blade comes into contact with anything conductive, like your finger, a special cartridge inside the table stops the mechanism dead. The inventor of Sawstop, Steve Gass, believes in his product so much, he was even willing to put his own finger on the line to prove it.

You’ve got our vote of confidence, Sawstop Steve.

For makers working with solid timber, furniture designer, maker and FAB9 workshop technician Christina Bricknell says that the Timber shop’s Minimax thicknesser — a machine that trims wooden boards to a consistent thickness throughout their length and on either side — will be an asset.

‘Olio chair’ by FAB9 workshop technician Christina Bricknell

“Our thicknesser is huge — its table dimensions are 410mm x 755mm, and the height of its processing area is 240mm. So it’ll be especially good for anyone working on larger projects. It also has a digital dial, which means you can achieve greater accuracy while saving time. Instead of having to adjust your measurements manually, you can enter a desired thickness, and the machine takes care of the rest.”

And when it comes to working on large, wooden projects, Christina has plenty of personal experience to inform her thoughts on ideal pieces of equipment. The Canberra native is a graduate of the prestigious Australian National University Furniture design major, has worked with renowned furniture designer Tom Skeehan, and has herself exhibited in A.G.M by Friends and associates 2018, and Denfair Front & Centre 2018. Most recently, Christina appeared alongside other luminaries such as Adam Goodrum and Adam Cornish to guest speak at HOME.GROWN. // Discovering Australian Design as part of Design Canberra Festival.

Used to make crosscuts and miters (a kind of diagonal cut), the Timber shop’s Festool miter saw (also known as a ‘drop saw’, due to the way its mounted cutting tool moves in a downward motion) is a piece of equipment that Christina thinks will really serve model makers like architects, and others who want to cut smaller, more detailed projects

“This particular model has a nice, smooth docking process — you can change its angle quickly and easily, which makes it ideal for repetitive cutting.”

Architectural concept model by Chris Precht

When it comes to versatility, Christina rates FAB9’s Kreg table router, a machine with a vertically oriented spindle that spins through its table at great speeds to process wood, as one of the most versatile machines in the Timber Shop.

“You can do heaps of different jobs on this model — from creating particular grooves, chamfers (bevelled edges) and decorative details, to using it as a plunge router to make holes on the inside of timber pieces without having to make relief cuts (cuts from the outside of the wood). It’ll be ideal for making things like wooden kitchenware, picture frames, and all sorts of other tools, objects and decorative pieces.”

And this is just a taster of the woodworking equipment available for you to use at FAB9…

Joinery detail of ‘ AOD-TR’ by made by Made by Morgen

Integrating the physical with the digital
We’re all about experimentation and pushing the boundaries. So while we know our members will get very excited when they see the particular machines they’ve been keen to use, we’ll be encouraging everyone to give less familiar pieces of equipment a try, too.

Maybe you’re a skilled woodworker who has no idea how to model using CAD. Or it could be that you’ve only ever created designs digitally, and want to learn the art of crafting an object by hand.

“It goes without saying that computer and digital tools can be extremely useful. But they can also be limiting if you only work in the virtual realm and don’t test your design physically,” says Morgan. “Of course, it It goes both ways. Just as computers can’t always understand what our hands and eyes tell us, sometimes we can’t comprehend a visual or a dimension in our minds like a computer can.”

CNC routed ‘Taller stool’ & ‘Shorter stool’, by Softer studio

Morgan knows a thing or two about integrating the physical with the digital. Her CMYK chair, which used a combination of CNC router to make a mould and traditional woodworking techniques, won two awards at the Melbourne Fringe Festival in 2017 and was exhibited at Salone del Mobile Milano in 2018.

FAB9 is here to enhance the practice of every kind of woodworker, from traditional box-makers to those thinking, well, outside the box. Maybe you’ve always dreamt of combining a wooden piece with something else — something more traditional, like upholstery, which could be achieved with the use of our sewing machine.

Or perhaps your dream wooden project involves a newer technology, like a 3D-printed element, or a digital process. “You could draw up an intricate design on Adobe Illustrator on FAB9’s computers, engrave the design into the surfaces of pieces of timber with the laser cutter, and then use the Festool domino to bring the pieces together,” says Morgan. “Or you could use the CNC router to mill out a void in a piece of solid timber to sit a 3D-printed component inside it.”

“Having programs like Rhino (Rhinoceros — a commercial 3D computer graphics and CAD application software) available at FAB9 can really streamline the design and manufacturing process,” says Christina.“Once you’ve designed your lighting fixture, timber frame, upholstered piece, or whatever you’re making, you’ve got all of your ideas and information in one accessible place. This is a particularly useful thing if you’re collaborating with others, because you can just share the file and all the information you need is there.”

Assegai Pendant light, dining table ‘Fred’ & chair ‘Fela’ by Adam Markowitz

Prize-winning local architect and furniture designer Adam Markowitz is a vocal supporter of holistic approaches to woodworking. In an interview with Australian Wood Review, Adam stressed the importance of woodworkers learning — and valuing — a broader scope of tools and processes.

“I think that CNC (Computer Numerical Control) is totally part of the woodworker’s tool set and needs to be… [but] I think the mistake a lot of schools make is they focus too much on the digital and not enough on the traditional”.

When asked if he thinks new technologies like CNCs and 3D printers will replace human makers one day, Bryan Cush — founder and director of Sawdust Bureau — thinks not.

“I think it’s best to have the two working harmoniously together. There are certain things that CNC machines can do that I could never do! But, in terms of dealing with a live, natural material like timber — that responds differently every time it’s cut — I still think you need a human interface. Plus, leaving human marks on things, like pencil marks and score marks, it shows that a person has made it, and I think that makes it a more valuable object.”

We’ve really woven this idea of human/machine harmony into the way FAB9 operates, making it our priority to host a generous offering of analog, digital, traditional and contemporary tools and machines, with corresponding classes.

Wooden spoons by Carol Russell

Woodworking inductions
To get you ready for using the woodworking machines at FAB9, we have developed as series Timber shop inductions that show you the FAB9 way, and best practices, of operating our machines.

Led by FAB9’s experienced workshop technicians, our inductions will give you a solid foundation to build your skills upon, while ensuring you know the safest ways to use our labs, machines and tools.

The inductions are:

• Wood prep — where you’ll learn about the jointer, thicknesser, domino, and router table
• Saws — where you’ll learn about the table saw, miter saw, band saw and scroll saw
• Power tools, hand tools & finishing — where you’ll learn about the the oscillating belt sander, drill press and an array of drills and hand tools
• Lathe

The main thing we want to emphasise about woodworking at FAB9?
Experience is everything.

While you might feel trepidation about learning to use an unfamiliar machine or tool, or simply have a preferred way of doing something, there are so many different ways you can arrive at an outcome. FAB9 is all about open-mindedness and giving our members the chance to up-skill in all the ways they possibly can.

Accessibility, comfort, experimentation and personal empowerment through trying, testing, failing, learning and succeeding are critical to us at FAB9. Whether you’re a seasoned professional making a prototype, someone giving woodworking a try for the first time, or anything in between, our Timber shop and our woodworking classes have been carefully devised to support you and your process.

So we say: expand your horizon! Diversify your skill-set! Try a new approach, a new tool, or a new class, and see where it takes you.

Tours are the best way to experience FAB9. FAB9 will be running tours. Book a tour today

Article authored by Genevieve Callaghan from research conducted by Ying Zhang, for FAB9.

What did you think of it? Got anything to add? We’d love to hear from you. Send us your thoughts, questions, facts, frustrations, feelings and / or anything else — hello@fab9.com.au

For as long as human beings have been, we have made.

Made tools. Made objects. Made things that keep us alive. Things that are beautiful to us. Things that get us around. Things that help us to express ourselves.

But never before has the rate of human making been so rapid and widespread as it has since the advent of The Internet — the most powerful, expressive and proletarian tool of all.

Access to the internet is access to the world. And if your ideas are strong enough, it doesn’t matter how isolated, inexperienced or unfunded you are — the internet’s billions-strong global community will inevitably slot you and your ideas where they belong in its meritorical order. It’s a powerful notion for a species that has, in one shape or another, always been inclined towards organising itself within fixed, top-down power structures. Such an increase in the free dissemination of ideas has brought us truly into The Age of Information — a time where anyone can learn, and make, just about anything.

Among myriad other resources, open-source learning kits, electronic development kits and digital fabrication technologies like 3D printing have enabled millions to become makers of not just traditional, everyday tools and objects, but of products that were previously reserved for big industry production only. The shift has created an entirely new global paradigm — what is now known as ‘the maker movement’.

Today, we can have almost any product on the planet delivered to our door within hours, without ever having to know much about it at all — including its origin. We have reached the point where a huge portion of the human population are so conceptually disconnected from most of the things we use everyday, that often we have no idea about how our possessions were made, or even how they actually work.

The maker movement seeks to change this — to put the power of understanding, conceptualising and making back into the hands of the consumer and user, be they designer, artist, inventor or tinkerer.

The rise of the makerspace

But a movement isn’t a movement unless individuals come together. One of the defining aspects of the maker movement is the way it speaks to our species’ primal urge to be social. Armed with this unprecedented access to information and equipment, makers of all kinds across the world have been gravitating to one another, creating spaces where their collective learnings, skills, passions and tools can be shared and developed.

Over the last thirty-odd years, hundreds of these new creative spaces have cropped up around the world, allowing more people than ever before to design, prototype and make their own products. The fact that companies like Arduino and Raspberry Pi are providing enthusiasts with open-source hardware and software at low cost means that getting the tools you need has never been easier. What started as a kind of ad-hoc, grass-roots smattering of collectives has now, in 2018, become a movement that doesn’t just promise to bring about huge economic changes and benefits, but to revolutionise the way citizens think about themselves as students, educators, creatives and consumers.

But what is a ‘makerspace’, exactly? And how does it differ from a ‘hackerspace’, or a ‘Fab Lab’?

Hackerspaces

Born in Europe in the mid 1990’s, hackerspaces began as places where computer programmers and software hackers could come together to socialise, pool resources and share skills.

One of the first was c-base, a German organisation that began in 1995, and that is still going today. American visitors to c-base took the idea back to the US and three significant hackerspaces popped about around the country — NYC Resistor, HacDV and Noisebridge.

c-base

As the idea spread, it evolved. Moving beyond programming and traditional hacking practices, hackerspaces began to encompass electronic circuit design, classes, training, prototyping, manufacturing, repurposing hardware and doing other kinds of physical, electronic work. And though hackerspaces generally sprang (and continue to spring) from a political angle — often collectivist, radically democratic or even anarchic in nature — the spaces have also sought to distance themselves from some of the traditional, largely negative associations with the word ‘hacker’ by allowing their definition of the word to change over time.

Where the rest of the world might still think of the word ‘hacker’ as being a rather exclusionary one, relating specifically to pirate-y types who mess with computers, most hackerspace members think of themselves as individuals who undertake “a specific subset of activities that involve making existing objects do something unexpected”. Think ‘Ikea hacking’ and ‘life hacking’ — terms we use when referring to clever adjustments someone makes to ordinary, everyday things, usually to make those things work in a way that wasn’t originally intended by the manufacturer.

These days, most hackerspaces charge a membership fee, if only to keep the spaces functioning, but the true force that powers them is their very niche community. By centering on the skills of their particular groups, without being attached to any industrial or academic bodies, hackerspaces are fuelled by the connections formed between their very specific kinds of members.

Makerspaces

The term ‘makerspace’ didn’t really exist in the public sphere until 2005 or so, and its usage is largely attributed to the launch of Make: magazine — a publication aimed at actively empowering and rallying makers of all kinds by coupling its informative content with events where makers meet and learn in person.

The greatest distinction between makerspaces and hackerspaces is openness — where hackerspaces exist to bring like-skilled people with a particular interest in software and electronics together, makerspaces seek to cater for designers and makers with many different skills, from a diverse range of backgrounds. Unlike the more politically inclined hackerspaces, makerspaces are structured like traditional businesses, with the proceeds of their membership fees paying for equipment, energy usage, staff, training and other expenses. But even though there is no set political agenda at the heart of the makerspace, they are dedicated to democratic ideals, prizing accessibility, egalitarianism and all that is open-source. It’s this attitude of openness and social welfare that attracts institutions like schools, governments and corporations to associate with makerspaces, if not become involved with them directly.

The main objective of a makerspace is to give more people an opportunity to make — whatever shape that making might take. The spaces themselves are usually very intentionally laid out, with carefully considered offerings to cater for professionals, hobbyists and everyone in between. To keep things as organised and efficient as possible, a makerspace needs to have a proper floor plan, with different areas allocated to different making processes — fitted out with everything from traditional hand tools and woodworking, metalworking and sewing machinery, to computer controlled, digital equipment like 3D printers, CNC routers and laser cutters. Because of the power requirements of the machines, makerspaces need to have high voltage electricity, and with so many different kinds of makers in the space, they also need to have proper ventilation, fume extraction and robust safety protocols and procedures.

Because they are inherently community-serving institutions, sharing is essential to the functioning and prosperity of makerspaces — the sharing of tools, ideas, skills, knowledge, space and equipment.

Fab Labs

Though you may have occasionally heard a hackerspace or a makerspace referred to as a Fab Lab, a space only qualifies as a Fab Lab if it is part of the Fab Lab network.

Started by MIT professor Neil Gershenfeld around 2005, Fab Labs refer specifically to a network of spaces which subscribe to a common Fab Lab charter. The Fab Lab charter outlines the specific machines that the space must have such as digital fabrication tools, milling machines, cutters, CNC machines, etc as well as the common processes. The idea is if someone makes something in a Russian Fab Lab, they should be able to send the files and documentation to a Japanese Fab Lab, and reproduce it there, fairly painlessly. You should be able to do the same things in Nairobi as you could in a Cape Town, Delhi, Amsterdam or Bangkok. Beyond common tools and process, every Fab Lab is required to have free and open access to the public, and it must be an active participant in the network.

Today, there are over 1000 Fab Labs in existence, and they are having a significant impact. From devices that help farmers monitor the quality of milk, to food dehydrators that preserve perishable food, to ‘vein finder’ tools for doctors, the inventions coming out of Fab Labs are inspiring examples of what can be achieved when information and equipment are made available to more people.

The power of making

The maker movement is about changing our relationship with production. Penetrating the fog of exclusivity that has formed around industry, and reclaiming the right to make the things we use and enjoy. It’s a reclamation that carries so much promise — promise to engage citizens, create jobs, reduce waste, unlock growth, transform city landscapes and revolutionise economies.

And on a deeper, social level, this movement promises to bolster and energise communities in a way that speaks to a very deep desire in us — the desire to belong. Belonging to one of these organisations — or any other kind of space where people come together in a spirit of open-mindedness to share and create — means connecting with others in a way that is empowering, uplifting and life-affirming. Be it in a hackerspace, a makerspace, a Fab Lab, or any of the other kind of the creative spaces rising to prominence, the maker movement is about celebrating diversity, while championing the fact that we are stronger together.

Article authored by Genevieve Callaghan, edited by Ying Zhang, with research conducted by Ying Zhang

What do you think of when you think of a workshop?

Something between a hardware store and a shed, full of worn benches and noisy machines? Sawdust, metal shavings and sparks flying through the air? People bustling about, focussed intently on whatever it is that they’re making?

There’s a rustic charm to spaces like that. They’re imbued with the hearty, earnest, fuss-free spirit of getting things done. But where do such spaces leave designers, engineers and makers who want a more refined making experience? One connected to a deeper level of enquiry, artistry and precision?

Unlike traditional workshops, which tend to be open-plan, garage-like spaces, makerspaces have well-defined floor plans with different areas allocated to different making processes. They’re also equipped with adequate ventilation, fume extraction and robust safety protocols and procedures, as well as high voltage electricity that is suitable for industrial grade machinery and equipment.

At FAB9, we’ve surveyed the makerspace phenomenon as it’s happened around the world, identifying all that is effective about different makerspaces, while looking into ways those models could be improved.

Now, on the cusp of opening to the public in March 2019, we have completed turning the physical space of FAB9 into a material embodiment of our philosophies. By weaving functional flow and literal transparency into the architectural design of the space, FAB9 welcomes the people of Melbourne to engage with making in a way that is inviting and sophisticated, while setting a new standard for the nascent, ever-evolving makerspace.

Embodying ideals in a physical space

From the beginning, architects Jas Johnston of Ample studio (and workshop manager of University of Melbourne’s MSD makerspace) and Alex Lake of Therefore worked closely with FAB9’s CEO Hans Chang and Creative director Ying Zhang to ensure that the company’s values were translated into the physical shape and functionality of the makerspace.

First and foremost, FAB9 had to be accessible — both functionally, and ideologically. By employing certain visual and spatial principles, we’ve aimed to make members’ on-site experience a kind of metaphor for the aspirational goals of a makerspace — the practical empowerment of makers, the personal growth of individuals and the development of strong, collaborative communities.

Light, space, air

When you first set foot inside FAB9, you immediately notice that it is light, spacious and airy.

Along with the building’s numerous exterior windows, the large, internal windows allow generous levels of natural light to spread throughout the space. It’s not standard practice for workspaces to have windows internally — most would consider this feature an unnecessary expense. But the use of interior windows is very intentional at FAB9, not just for the diffusion of light, but they allow members to see the making that is happening all around them and be inspired to try new pieces of equipment, like the CNC router, for example.

The star of FAB9, the large format 1.2m x 2.4m flatbed Trident CNC router by Multicam is housed in its own room for safety reasons, but because it is an incredible piece of machinery (and the routing process so is mesmerising to watch) we have fitted the room with large windows.

The visual transparency not only embodies our ideals, it allows members to see FAB9’s technology, tools and processes in action — an excellent way to educate and inspire our members about what is possible. Beyond representing these ideals, the interior windows also serve the very practical purpose of enhancing visibility, making it easier for our staff to monitor the space.

Inclusivity

While catering to experienced makers, FAB9 is also a space that’s designed for people with little or no making experience, who may have felt curious but unsure about using some of the pieces of equipment that will be available for use at FAB9.

The concept of standardisation assumes that all human beings are the same — an assumption we actively reject by accommodating as many different types of people as we can at FAB9. Starting with an elegant DDA (Disability Discrimination Act) compliant ramp (which has integrated seating so it can transform into an indoor / outdoor congregational area) at the main entrance on Parker Street, FAB9 is fitted out to suit the needs of a broad range of members.

Ramp access from the Parker street

Our custom-designed workbenches are of varying heights to ensure they’re comfortable for people of different sizes, with hooks underneath so members can conveniently store their bags out of the way, and avoid creating a tripping hazard. The workbenches come in both fixed and movable types to suit different projects — lighter workbenches are on castors (wheels) for flexibility, and heavier gauge metal frames for heavy-duty projects where stability is crucial.

We have male, female and gender-neutral bathrooms, and have used gender-neutral signage, symbols and colour coding around the makerspace to cater to people for whom English is not a first language.

Materiality

One of the values we have at FAB9 is to ‘embrace failure, share learnings’.

We want to create an environment where failure is considered as useful as success, and where unexpected outcomes are appreciated. This active thinking, continuous iteration, and adaptation forms the foundation for progress and the clarification of ideas. We believe in a process of test, trial, failure and repeat. Our emphasis is on process, exploration, and unrestricted making.

We’ve woven this anticipation of imperfection into FAB9 by using a building materials palette that is robust and durable, by having refreshable, repairable elements throughout the space, like our plywood walls and the tops of our workbenches.

Aside from coming in a range of heights, the workbenches at FAB9 are fitted with three different kinds of surfaces to support different types of making, including raw plywood for messier, rougher work, vinyl for finer work like jewellery making, sketching or electronics assembly, and self-healing rubber for work that requires the use of sharp tools.

Heritage

FAB9 has the unique privilege of being located on the factory floor of a former rubber plant, built at the turn of the last century. The building is heritage-listed, which means adapting it for our intended use has come with a host of challenges. From the outset, we’ve worked with great care to respect and protect this significant piece of Melbourne’s industrial history, while meeting the stringent code requirements of a makerspace.

Safety

As Melbourne’s newest makerspace, we want FAB9 to be an exemplar of OH&S excellence. Safety considerations and procedures have been at the forefront of all our decisions, and integrated into every aspect of our design, from our facial recognition software, to our gradated access system, where access to certain labs or machines is tied to each member’s training records. Traditionally, workshop spaces have been designed using a binary model where access is either permitted or not. This model exposes users to all the tools and equipment within the space, regardless of their experience level or familiarity with the machine, and places much of the onus on the user to not hurt or injure themselves. As a result, many workshops have to set their entry level at a hauntingly high standard — a potentially discouraging barrier for beginner makers.

Map of the OH&S risk level

FAB9 has adopted a gradated access system which allows users to gain access to the space incrementally. Each making process and its associated equipment is analysed and categorised into one of three risk levels — low, medium or high. The low risk area of FAB9 is accessible to the general public, with no safety training required.

The medium risk area is restricted to FAB9 members who have completed safety training and on-site orientation. High risks areas such as the timber shop and CNC lab are completely enclosed and physically separated from the low and medium risks areas, accessible only to FAB9 members who have completed not only the initial safety training and on-site orientation but also the safety and induction training specific to those areas.

This system means that FAB9 members with little making or machine operation experience can access and use the low risks areas relatively easily, whilst being protected from the high-risk equipment.

The FAB9 space has then been shaped around keeping the movement of materials out of public areas, isolating dust, fumes and sounds. From its heightened position on the mezzanine floor, the staff room has a clear view of each lab — a critical safety factor that operates alongside the cameras positioned around FAB9 to ensure everyone in our makerspace feels secure at all times. There are also a number of emergency stop buttons around FAB9 that will cut off power to relevant machines when necessary.

The big, custom-made, automatic, glass doors on the CNC lab and timber shop came strongly recommended by Jas Johnston, who worked on the new MSD workshop in the John Wardle designed building, and now wishes they had allowed for this feature. Jas’s reasoning? Often, when entering these spaces, users are carrying materials or work pieces, and automatic doors allow for safer, more seamless entry and exit.

Workflow

The spatial layout and adjacencies at FAB9 facilitate a logical, safe and natural workflow — our generous thoroughfares and spacious labs mean members can move in and around each area with comfort and ease.

Each of our labs are set up to accommodate similar processes and technologies, which is this is why the electronics lab and digital lab are side-by-side, and why the timber shop and CNC lab are in close proximity to each other. There are many instances where this layout will be beneficial to FAB9’s members, for example, if you designed something on one of the high-powered computers in the electronics lab, you could then produce the design on one of the 3D printers in the digi fab next door, or if you have routed a timber piece on the CNC router, you could continue post-production in the timber shop immediately across the corridor.

We’ve followed the same principle of optimised workflow within the labs, too, putting complimentary machines next to each other, such as the thicknesser and the planer in the timber shop, for example.

The FAB9 dream

Like the space, our message at FAB9 is clear: we prize transparency, personal development and community. With enough curiosity, training, persistence and work, anyone can use anything we have on offer, and be the maker they have always wanted to be.

Article authored by Genevieve Callaghan, edited by Ying Zhang, from research conducted by Ying Zhang

While you could argue that blending our bodies with technology began the first time an early human sharpened one rock against another, let’s take a slightly more fashion-focused approach to our species’ innovational history and skip ahead a few million years to 1805 — the year Joseph Marie Jacquard patented his mechanical loom in Lyon, France. Thanks to the backing of a rather distinguished patron — Napoleon Bonaparte — Jacquard built upon earlier attempts to mechanise the weaving process by creating a loom that was capable of ‘remembering’ fabric designs via a punch card. Jacquard’s iteration of the loom was not just the most successful effort to automate and refine the precision of garment manufacturing — it has often been thought of as an early version of a computer.

We’ve come a long way, baby

World shaking as Jacquard’s loom was, it’s unlikely the inventor could have imagined the developments mechanised garment manufacturing would take in the centuries following his punch card system.

Fast forward to 1983 — the year American engineer Chuck Hull invented the 3D printer. A form of ‘additive manufacturing’ — that is, making something out of nothing by adding successive layers of materials on top of each other until an object is created — 3D printing has become one of the most important developments in the manufacturing world. Its impact across sectors from automotive production, to medical hardware, to food is absolutely unprecedented. But 3D printing isn’t just serving our practical pursuits in life — it’s also revolutionising the way we express ourselves through fashion.

Prior to 2009, Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) 3D printers were used primarily in industrial applications — not surprising, since the printers would cost upwards of $20,000. The expiration of the patent meant 3D printers became accessible by the consumer, with a much more appealing price tag (think $500 — $2000).

Bring on the experiments!

Since 3D printing became widely available, we’ve seen fashion designers and makers adopt the technology in garment creation and fabrication that would put the Jetsons to shame.

Take the work of Iris van Herpen, the Amsterdam-based Dutch designer at the vanguard of high tech couture. Her pioneering work, crafted using a combination of age-old techniques and cutting-edge technology, saw her become the first designer to ever present a 3D printed dress on a runway (the piece was subsequently named one of 2011’s best inventions by Time magazine). 3D printing makes it possible to create shapes without a mould, which has in turn made it possible for van Herpen to achieve incredibly intricate and complex geometries in her garments — one of the defining characteristic of her work.

Enter threeASFOUR

Founded in 2014 by Palestinian-Lebanese designer Gabi Asfour, Tajikistani-German Angela Donhauser, and Israeli-German Adi Gil, the New York-based studio has become known for creating pieces that are fiercely geometric and stunningly ethereal. Coming from a mix of mechanical engineering, architectural and fashion backgrounds, the trio is particularly interested in the way technology can be used to manipulate the internal geometry of textiles.

“3D printing has allowed us to create a new textile that does not exist,” says Asfour. The textile has a similar appearance to chain mail except each unit of the weave also has the added capability of what Asfour calls a ‘four-dimensional stretch’. Each component can stretch up, down, forward and backward in a way that has not been possible in a textile before, as seen in their painstakingly constructed Pangolin dress, which took 500 hours to assemble.

Because of the rigidity of existing 3D printing materials, the process is still better suited to the creation of Integral pieces — that is, garments made from constituent parts. This means 3D printed clothing, for the time being, is reserved almost exclusively for couture shows, galas and museums. The Bahai dress from threeASFOUR’s 2013 collection MER KA BA was so fragile that the model wearing it couldn’t sit down, or it would shatter — not an ideal scenario for ready-to-wear clothing.

But this is just the beginning. When design and manufacturing thresholds like these are being crossed, it’s not hard to imagine the ways 3D printing could expand fashion creation beyond what’s currently possible. A world where textiles aren’t just remarkably flexible, but bulletproof, fireproof, pressure-resistant and able to trap heat or cold is just on the horizon.

Ready-to-wear, ready-to-print

Tel Aviv-based designer Danit Peleg has begun to address the rigidity constraints of printed garments by creating the world’s first 3D printed ready-to-wear collection with lacelike mesh systems. Because of this structuring, Peleg’s printed garments move beautifully.

The first collection required nine months of research, and each piece took 40 hours to print — an impressive feat that ushers in a whole new way of thinking about personal clothing collections. As the technology develops and proliferates, the possibilities of spontaneous garment production are endless — think printing a jacket if you are suddenly cold and left yours at home, or never needing to travel with luggage again because you can print clothes from your hotel room.

The creation of ornaments that can be added to an outfit is another way 3D printing is being used for ready-to-wear fashion. Also hailing from Israel, Noa Raviv is a fashion designer who integrates 2D graphics and 3D elements into her garments to create eye-popping ornamental objects that defy comparison. Her collection ‘Hard Copy’ was influenced by distorted digital drawings, the lines and grids of each piece evoking impressions of corrupted 3D images. “I’ve translated those lines into textiles that creates this sort of optical illusion,” Raviv says, employing a multi material 3D printer to print each design as a ribbed polymer piece — a kind of hyper-real, ‘jewel-like’ adornment.

From exquisite ornament, to exceptional equipment

Beyond avant-garde couture and experimental ready-to-wear, 3D printing technology had begun to find its way into mass apparel production in the shape of a collaboration between Adidas and Silicon Valley startup, Carbon. Launched in 2015, Carbon’s 3D printer uses digital light synthesis technology to create 3D objects. In a spectacle akin to something from Terminator 2, the Carbon 3D printer mixes light and oxygen to create perfectly customised soles that rise from a pool of resin. The availability of this technology, which is said to be 100 times faster than traditional 3D printing, means Adidas could eventually experiment with mass customisation — a future where you can go into a store, have the sales assistant scan your feet, record the particular points of pressured caused as each foot hits the ground, develop a midsole cushioning profile personalised for you and have the sole sent to be 3D printed via cloud-based software.

We’re not quite there yet, but Adidas do plan to ship 100,000 pairs of the the Carbon printed Futurecraft 4D shoes to stores by the end of 2018.

Holy laser-cut materials, Batman!

From additive manufacturing, to subtractive, the laser cutter is another cutting-edge piece of technology transforming the way we create fashion. Unlike 3D printing, which creates something out of nothing, laser cutting uses a laser controlled by computer numerical control or G-code to take away elements of a piece. Of the different types of lasers available, the CO2 gas laser, which produces an infrared light, is the preferred option for those looking to cut wearable fabrics such as neoprene, silk, leather, nylon, cotton, and polyester. This is is because the infrared light is better absorbed by organic materials.

One of the main advantages of laser cutting is that it allows fashion designers and makers to create incredibly intricate patterns with a precision far better than anything that can be achieved by the human hand. The immaculate work of a laser cutter can be seen in the exquisite dress from American label Marchesa’s 2011 Spring Summer ready-to-wear collection, pictured above.

Unsurprisingly, Iris van Herpen has frequently incorporated laser cutting into her process; from weaving laser cut wool with leather in her ‘Syntopic’ coats, to cutting mylar, cotton, organza and transparent acrylic to create her ‘Mimesis’ corset dresses. Van Herpen has also used laser cutting to create computationally distorted parametric patterns in her collection ‘Data Dust’. The technology adds a whole other dimension of uncanny perfection to her otherworldly creations.

Another designer, known for his innovative user of laser cutting, is Rotterdam-based Martijn van Strien, who launched his fashion company — ‘The Post-Couture Collective’ in 2015. Post-Couture allows consumers to download, personalise, produce and assemble clothing designs, all on their own. Each piece from the collection can be customised to the wearer’s measurements, the design is then downloaded which can either be laser cut at a local makerspace, or delivered as a kit for the consumer to self-assemble. The garments, with seams that slot into one another, are designed so they can be made without the need for a sewing machine. The company exemplifies van Strien’s belief that digital fabrication technologies can give designers greater scope to make bespoke patterns or “custom garments …. [that] exactly fit the consumer’s size and demands”. Van Strien has also taken the opportunity to make the process eco-friendly — the collection is made using Spacer Fabric, which is a 3D-knitted material made from recycled PET bottles, similar to neoprene. All this is a step in the direction of van Strien’s dream to have retail stores fitted with intelligent systems capable of producing perfectly fitted, custom-made garments for shoppers, laser cut on the spot. “Offering people a chance to influence and be part of the design and production process of their garments will create much more attractive products than the current mass-manufacturing industry does.”

Where to from here?

The ways that advancements in technology could affect the fashion industry are as immeasurable as the advancements themselves. In part two of our exploration of the latest frontiers being crossed by tech-focussed designers, we’ll be looking at the rise of ‘wearables’ — garments and accessories that are integrated with technological elements, from LED lighting, to intelligent devices, and beyond.

Article authored by Genevieve Callaghan, edited by Ying Zhang, from research conducted by Ying Zhang

Something exciting is happening on the ground floor of The Dream Factory.

There’s been a shroud of secrecy around the Footscray site for months, though if you’ve passed by recently, you may have caught a glimpse of some serious works underway.

Excavators clawing. Jackhammers smashing. Clouds of dust rising to the 6-metre-high ceilings as concrete is poured and forms emerge. It’s a space in a state of total activation, populated by machines ploughing, flashing, beeping, arranging.

The works are probably the most action the former rubber factory (and Lonely Planet headquarters) has had since it was built in the early 1900’s, and they are all in preparation for FAB9 — Melbourne’s newest makerspace.

But what is a ‘makerspace’, exactly?

The term ‘makerspace’ didn’t really exist in the public sphere until 2005. It refers to an open-access space that is purpose built for designing and creating — a space open to the community that offers shared access to high-end prototyping equipment.

Put simply, makerspaces are places where people can turn their ideas into tangible objects. They welcome anyone who wants to access design tools, technology and training to create, make and prototype products.

The rise of the maker movement speaks of a huge ideological shift happening in the world. In an age where much of what we use is manufactured elsewhere, more people are seeking to take making back into their own hands. The Internet has enabled people of all backgrounds, knowledge-bases and skill-sets to learn anything they want about making. But information alone is not enough if you can’t access the tools you need to turn theory into
practice.

Whether you are an emerging or established designer, technologist, entrepreneur, artist or craftsperson, you are welcome to come and try all of the tools at FAB9, from the wood-working equipment to the sewing machine, the CNC router to the laser cutters, the pick and place machine to the 3D printers, and more.

In concert with high-end machinery, the other critical component of a makerspace is community — ideas, equipment, materials,
skills and knowledge aren’t just the means for creation, but for connection. FAB9’s mission is to become a makerspace that encourages people from different disciplines to come together, share their resources and take part in creating world-changing products.

Two of the driving forces behind FAB9 are CEO Hans Chang and Creative Director Ying Zhang. From the space’s inception, to its actualisation, Hans, Ying and their ever-growing team have aligned their manifold skill-sets, passions and influences to create a space that will compel — and propel — every maker who ventures through FAB9’s doors.

What was your trajectory into the world of the makerspace, Hans?

Hans:​ I started my career in radio frequency engineering in Wellington, New Zealand, and after a few years, decided I wanted to learn more about entrepreneurship. LA seemed like a fun place to live, so I made the move there to get my MBA at UCLA. During the MBA, I spent a summer working with chipset (wireless) company Qualcomm, based in San Diego. From
there, I worked for SanDisk, the flash memory company in Milpitas, Silicon Valley. One of my first projects at SanDisk was launching the Playstation Vita game card, replacing the old magnetic drive. Later, I launched embedded flash memory, which is now used in smartphones.

While I was in the valley, I discovered the maker movement. Seeing how it worked and how it empowered people, I thought, “Hey, you know, I could do something like this.” I’d caught the maker-bug and I wanted to share it!
The next thoughts were more practical. I wondered, ‘Where would be the best place to do this?’ and, ‘How do you even start a makerspace?’. I began to do some research, and discovered that Melbourne, Australia, was the perfect location.

Firstly, the manufacturing sector in Australia has been in transition for a while. There are factories closing down across the country, leaving a surplus of highly skilled people in their wake. The demise of car-manufacturing plants around Melbourne is a perfect example of this. Secondly, the advent of advanced manufacturing, with the latest innovations in automation, digital fabrication technologies and new materials means the manufacturing sector is no longer a basic industry powered by low-skilled workers, but something much broader, with so much more socio-economic growth potential. Australia’s highly skilled but under-utilised labour workforce, coupled with its broader, well-educated population, means the country is perfectly primed for greater knowledge-intensive research, and the developing of high-value products.

So as a potential site for a makerspace, Melbourne looked great on paper! And then when I actually moved here in 2015, I began to learn all about the city’s large, tight-knit community of designers and makers. The spirit of creativity is such an integral part of Melbourne’s culture and identity. Seeing that first hand really reinforced my choice to make it the home of FAB9. I applied for LaunchVic Round 1 funding, and luckily, my application was successful!

How about you, Ying?

Ying:​ I’m trained as an architect but had a previous life working as a project manager in branding and graphics. Before that, I worked in publishing. I’ve always been attracted to design — my first job was at a boutique publishing house called POL Publications, they produced a beautiful coffee table magazine called POL oxygen which explored the intersection of design art and architecture.

What brought you both together to work on FAB9?

Hans: ​Initially, I thought I could do everything on my own! I had a go at writing an architectural brief, but it didn’t get a very good response. I realised I didn’t really know how to articulate everything I wanted for this project in a way that architects could understand, so I sought out an architect friend’s advice. When I asked him how much his company would charge for a feasibility study, the figure he gave me was astronomical! So, he was like, “Ok, Hans, I have this colleague who recently left and you should get in touch with her.” That colleague was Ying.

Ying: ​When Hans and I first connected, ​FAB9 had just received the LaunchVic grant. Hans needed someone to help him write an architectural brief in order to find an architect practice to design the space. Most entrepreneurs try to write their own briefs, or don’t have one at all. Hans knew that a good brief forms the foundations of a good project and wanted to do things
right from the start.

We met over a coffee at CIBI, a beautiful space in Melbourne, always frequented by designers. Our second meeting was at RMIT Design Hub, I gave Hans a tour of the Design Hub workshop, which is basically the university’s equivalent of a makerspace .

University of Melbourne’s FabLab.

We then visited the FabLab at the University of Melbourne’s (then) new architecture building, where I introduced Hans to Jas Johnston, a friend of mine from architecture school who was the Fabrication workshop manager at FabLab.

Hans and I discussed the things we thought were working well at the University of Melbourne’s FabLab, and the things that could be improved at Design Hub’s makerspace. This really aligned our vision for FAB9, and the collaboration developed from there.

What are your respective roles within FAB9?

Ying: ​My role grew organically. It started off with writing the architectural brief. Then, I drafted up a shortlist of firms I thought FAB9 should contact with an Expression of Interest. Once we received responses to our Expression of Interest, I assisted Hans in selecting the firm best suited to FAB9’s needs.

When the architecture design process started, it was pretty clear that it could not be managed by one person. Architectural projects are inherently complex, but a project like this, where a new typology is inserted within a beautiful but highly protected heritage building, means the project is even more challenging than usual.

One of the main parts of my role as Creative Director is to attend design meetings with the architects, and give clear, consolidated client feedback. There is a particular way you need to deliver feedback to designers — you need to convey client intent, aspiration and reasoning without being prescriptive. The direction has to be clear, considered and unambiguous, but
respectful of the designers’ agency within the project.

Another of my roles at FAB9 is to keep the project moving — to ensure that we are on track for the timeline we’ve set. In addition to the architectural design, I manage the work we do with our branding agency U-P, and with our copywriters, The Good Copy.

Shortly after beginning the spatial design, it was universally agreed that we needed to revisit our branding and graphic identity. It made sense that I would manage this too, because of my background in branding.

More than the practicalities, I think of my role as Hans’ collaborator, adviser, co-conspirator, devil’s advocate and, sometimes, taskmaster.

How do you align your skill set with Hans’?

Ying: ​Hans and I have very different skills and temperaments, but often
quite complementary. Hans tends to be more spontaneous — he jumps into things and figures them out later. Whereas I tend to be a bit more of a mull-it-over-and-work-it-out-first type, considering all the implications before acting on something.

The thing we both share is that we can be a little impatient and sometimes reactive, which can lead to misunderstandings. But we’re getting better at understanding each other and developing a shorthand, listening first and reacting second, which makes the process so much more enjoyable. It’s easy to overcome the arguments and frustration when we share a common goal, which is making FAB9 a roaring success.

Specifically within FAB9, Hans looks after the technical, business, financial, legal, and operational side. I’m the one driving FAB9’s design, branding and culture — deciding how FAB9 should look and sound, how best to express its’ personality and DNA.

Having never lived in Melbourne before moving here in 2015, Hans is an outsider, without the inherited hang ups and restrictions of someone who is local. I am pretty much a born and bred Melburnian, so I’m more familiar with the local cultural context and landscape. But I am also interested in looking outwards. I’m wary of Melbourne being too insular, as it’s so far from everything.

Hans: ​I think the insight I had when I was in Silicon Valley was that a lot of great products should not be made by engineers. Let’s take Apple as an example, right? Steve Jobs was never the engineer, Steve Wozniak was the engineer. But Jobs had the vision about how things should look beautiful.

Design is a culture, and Steve Jobs prioritised it in every aspect of Apple. He knew that it’s not just the outside of the product, the parts that you can see and touch, but also everything else hidden inside it. If you rip the product apart, you’ll find the most beautifully designed piece of PCB (printed circuit board). A lot of people would say, ‘Why bother to make it beautiful when we can’t see it?’. But from the company’s point of view, the whole product matters, and so the whole product should be beautiful. I think that type of discipline and care inspires greatness.

So, essentially you’re saying Ying is your Steve Jobs?

Hans:​ ​Basically. (laughs)

Ying: ​(laughs) I think Hans engaging with me as an architect, and someone who knows the inherent value of design, shows his appreciation and respect for design. Having an engineer work with a number of architects and graphic designers creates this interesting tension — a tension that embodies the greater collaborative dynamic FAB9 is trying to achieve from the inside out.

What were your hopes for FAB9 from the outset?

Hans: ​When we first put our brief together, we knew diversity and inclusion were some of our key objectives and that they couldn’t just be a marketing slogan. A company’s goals have to be built into its DNA. And, again, coming from an engineering background, I think that products and companies must function with intent. All of those buttons on your laptop have been considered, they’re not an afterthought.

For us at FAB9, diversity is very important, personally. And then from a business point of view, having a more diverse membership means that we’ll have a bigger market! So, it’s actually good for business to make diversity a priority. It’s not just talk — being open and inclusive is a fundamentally powerful part of how we operate.

Who is FAB9 designed for? Who do you envision coming into the space?

Hans:​ We really want this to be a hub for design, technology, art and training.

Ying:​ In a nutshell, FAB9 is a place for hardware entrepreneurs, designers, artists, tinkerers, craftspeople and anyone who wants experiment and explore through the making of physical objects.

Tell us about who else you’re collaborating with on FAB9?

Ying: ​The space itself is a collaboration between Therefore, an emerging Melbourne architecture and interior practice led by Alex Lake, and Ample, an architecture studio founded by Jas Johnston and his wife Cassandra Chin.

Our website, and graphic identity is by U-P, an ideas-led creative consultancy led by Paul Marcus Fuog and Uriah Gray. Paul is trained as a sculptor, so he really appreciates the craft of making. That was one of the reasons we wanted to work with him. In addition to U-P, Paul runs Field Experiments, a nomadic design collective that explores traditional crafts by engaging in making with local craftspeople in regions around the world.

We worked with The Good Copy on FAB9’s brand articulation and language style guide, because we not only admired their work with the likes of MPavilion, Design Hub, and ACMI but also their multifaceted approach of being a writing school, a communication consultancy practice and a retail store. We knew it would help them understand our mission of being a school, a makerspace and a place of connection.

How have you found working with so many stakeholders and suppliers? Can you offer any advice around navigating these kinds of relationships?

Ying: ​As a start-up, we need to be very lean! So when we’re looking for collaborators, we go through a rigorous selection process. We prefer the relationships to be an ongoing partnership that evolves over time rather than simply transactional.

It’s important for us to respect the knowledge and expertise of everyone we work with. Sometimes it can be hard, especially when you’re in the thick of things, with time and budget constraints. But we have to remind ourselves why we chose our collaborators in the first place — because they have valuable insight and experience that we don’t have, and that they are, of course, good at what they do. It’s about respecting their guidance while still giving clear directions around our vision for FAB9, so that our collaborators can help us interpret, translate and execute this vision. For example, because they designed the space, we wanted our architects to have input into the branding studio we would work with. It was important that FAB9’s graphic identity would sit cohesively with the architect’s vision of the space.

Hans:​ We have three pillars; community, access to machinery, and education, which comes through workshops and classes. The school side of things is a very similar model to General Assembly, where a third party instructor delivers the content. That in itself is an innovation because, again, from a business point of view, we don’t have these people on the payroll. And from a community point of view, it’s powerful because people who are passionate about teaching usually bring their own community with them. They don’t want to be owning or operating a fabrication lab, which would be a very difficult to do, so it’s a win-win for everyone.

So how far along in the development process is FAB9?

Hans:​ We are currently in tender, and once we work through it with the builder, we hope that construction will commence in mid 2018.

Ying: ​We launched our website awhile back, and started an Instagram account to build a digital presence and community. We are also hosting events with Open House Melbourne and Academy Xi (pronounced ‘ex-eye’) to generate awareness and build up FAB9’s profile before we open.

What has been the biggest challenge so far?

Hans:​ I think like any new business or start-up, fundraising has been incredibly difficult. I met our co-founder Evan in early 2015, I flew to Philadelphia to talk to him about starting a makerspace, and I sold the idea of Melbourne as a location even though I’d never lived here! I knew that Melbourne had many designers and makers, and though it might not have as many engineers, I always felt like the two disciplines should meet and co-create. So even though there are some big challenges, I think we’re in the right place at the right time. There is nothing like FAB9 in Melbourne, and that’s what makes the venture so exciting.

Who and/or what have been your biggest influences on this project?

Ying: ​NewLab in Brooklyn, New York. A former ship building factory that has been converted into an interdisciplinary collaborative workspace for entrepreneurs working in emerging technology and human experience. It’s a beautifully designed space with an incredible machine list — a real landmark.

A/D/O in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York. A former warehouse, renovated into a space that seeks to promote design to the wider general public. They have incredible programming — a real commitment to culture and events — and they have a small digital fabrication space within the workspace.

MPavilion, in the botanical gardens in Melbourne. In terms of its civic presence in Melbourne, MPavillion is a real success, as an events hub, a meeting place and a cultural laboratory of experimentation and experience.

Hans:​ One of my key influences is TechShop, a network of membership makerspace based in the US, where one of the co-founders of Twitter, Jack Dorsay, invented the payment system Square. When I lived in the States, I was a member of the Bay area Techshop, so I had direct experience from the member’s perspective. I know that a membership model can work because I’ve seen it in action at TechShop. In terms of a bigger, personal inspiration for this project, Evan himself has been a huge influence. He’s been building makerspaces for years, and now has three on the East Coast of America. He has also been involved with humanitarian, philanthropic projects in Jordan
and Greece. It’s interesting because in some places where they have many refugees from Syria, they don’t have schools, there’s no formal education, so a makerspace is an alternative for people to stay engaged and gain skills. It also encourages positive social-economic development.

Ying: ​Evan, is working with Refugee Open Ware, which seeks to use technology and innovation to alleviate repercussions stemming from the refugee crisis in the Levant. One of the many initiatives undertaken by Refugee Open Ware is National Syrian Project for Prosthetic Limbs, which is creating prosthetics for as many as 200,000 Syrian amputees victimized by the war.

Where do you see yourselves and FAB9 heading in the future?

Ying:​ As the architecture design phase wraps up, I’m shifting my focus towards developing strategic relationships with creative and cultural partners, and really embed FAB9 as a destination in Melbourne for design, art, technology and making.

Hans:​ We’re excited about this beta version of FAB9 at The Dream Factory. If it goes well, we could expand. I really think we can become an exemplar of a makerspace, so when people think about design, prototyping and experimentation, they will think of FAB9. Giving entrepreneurs affordable access to powerful machinery is going to bring some very interesting start-ups into the space.

Ying:​ We want to be accessible and approachable — to democratise access to machines and technology. We want to deliver on our manifesto and encourage people to get their hands on tools. We want making to be fun for everyone who walks through our doors and we want our visitors to know that at FAB9 we embrace failure! Because failure, is not something to be embarrassed about or ashamed of, but to be cherished, as it’s an integral part of the learning and experimentation process, no true creativity can be achieved without it.

Any final thoughts?

Hans:​ To me, technology has always been about empowering people. A makerspace like FAB9 will allow more people to have access to technology, to make it themselves and engage with it however they want. The relationship between the consumer and the producer has well and truly shifted.

Article authored by Genevieve Callaghan, with interview material conducted by Emma Forster for FAB9, edited by Ying Zhang

As the who’s who of the day descend upon that legendary red carpet in dazzling interpretations of the theme — chrome-coloured gowns with metallic components, flesh-tone fabrics that move like fish scales, laser-cut skirts, studded bodices, gleaming breastplates with a look of the robotic about them — the air crackles with electricity. Figuratively speaking, of course.

Claire Danes’ Met Gala Gown by Zac Posen

Until Claire Danes arrives.

At first, it seems the Hollywood luminary has made quite a traditional style choice for a theme centred on exploring the bold, the new, the futuristic. While undeniably beautiful, her pale blue organza dress, by American designer Zac Posen, looks like it would be better suited to a 1950’s Oscar’s red carpet than this, contemporary fashion’s night of nights.

But this dress has a hidden superpower. Dim the lights or take it into shadow, and it shows itself to be one of the most on-theme garments of the evening.

“I’m interested in that place where the past and future meet,” Zac said in an interview with Good Morning America, and the place Zac spoke of revealed itself the moment Claire’s dress lit up the room — literally.

The secret? “It’s made from fibre optic fibres,” explains Zac. “There are about 30 battery packs inside!”

Though definitely making the biggest splash on the red carpet that evening, Zac’s design was not alone in augmenting the appearance of an attendee’s garment with electronics. Designers Georgina Chapman and Keren Craig of Marchesa partnered with IBM to also use electronic components in a dress worn by model Karolína Kurková — and in a way that was arguably more interesting, if not quite so eye-catching.

“We worked with [IBM’s] computer, ‘Watson’,” said Georgina Chapman, when interviewed by New York Live. “Watson aggregated all the tweets from Marchesa fans and came up with a colour story of emotions, and then we came up with the idea of doing this dress with all the flowers that would change colour. They linked that in with their technology, so whenever someone tweets about The Met, [the dress] will change colour.”

And change colour, it did. Shifting from white, to lilac, to blue — indicative of the Twittersphere’s shock, awe, delight and general excitement, according to Kurková — the dress responded to human input throughout the evening. So while the lighting elements of Zac Posen’s and Marchesa’s dresses might have been visually similar, it was this interactivity that made the Marchesa gown the more advanced piece, technologically speaking.

The difference between the dresses was more than a functional one. It was a marker of the moment where technology goes from being a static element in a garment — essentially no different to a bauble or any other kind of passive, decorative detail — to being something that directly interacts with humans to affect the way a garment functions.

In part one of this article, we took a look at the way technology has developed over time to change and improve the ways fashion is manufactured — from textiles woven on the Jacquard loom, to ready-to-wear couture that is 3D printed.

But what’s beyond simply using new technologies to make garments? How can technology help us to engage in a real dialogue with our clothes? How can it help us to make our clothes ‘smart’?

‘Who would we want to be, if we could wear our own desires?’

Falling somewhere between Zac Posen’s statically illuminated gown and Marchesa’s data-responsive gown is Tae Gon Kim’s 2009 work Dresses of Memory. Also made from fibre-optic LEDs, this series of four dress-shaped sculptures was inspired by the French philosopher Roland Barthes’ seminal text, A Lover’s Discourse.

“When we love someone deeply, sometimes we want to be them,” says the Strasbourg-based draughtsman, designer and artist. “This work thus leads us to imagine that we become the people we love. Dresses and materials transport us inside the image, as if we were wearing our desires. This set of images is also intended to evolve according to our desires.”

Appearing at exhibitions and events around the world, including Lumiere London, Fête des Lumières Paris, and White Night Melbourne, Dresses of Memory is not composed of real garments, per se. But in imitating something worn by humans, the work explores the intimacy of garments; the way they represent human relationships, feelings and memories, and how those things change over time.

Recent explorations in wearable technology — or ‘wearables’ — have the potential to give some quite literal answers to the philosophical questions raised by Tae Gon Kim’s work. This idea of ‘wearing our desires’ is something that many different kinds of designers are incorporating into all manner of objects worn on the body, across fashion, product development, and beyond.

One such designer is Australian science fiction artist and body architect Lucy McCrae. Working with Philips Electronics in their Far Future Design Research Lab, Lucy developed dresses that responded directly to their contact with the human body. One in particular, the Blush dress, consisted of inner layers of biometric sensors that could track the wearer’s emotions as expressed through their physiological state. The data collected was then converted into coloured light, and projected onto an outer textile layer, causing the whole garment to “blush and shiver with light” — a veritable ‘mood dress’.

Blush Dress is a Dress that shines by sensing the emotions of its owner, by Lucy McCrae

“I use the body as a conceptual space to explore biotechnology, and the future of human evolution,” says Lucy. When it comes to wondering just where that evolution is going, Lucy feels the answer is as open-ended as the question.

“The future is up for grabs.”

Interpreting gestures and reading the body

Up for grabs, swipes, and all manner of other physical indicators, it seems.

By now, tech companies the world over are in the throes of developing textiles and garments that respond to the wearer, and, of course, the giants are at the fore. Beyond step counting and heart rate monitoring devices, the usual suspects like Google and Apple are working on wearables that interact more intimately with the body, taking commands, supplying information, and collecting data through passive wearing and active gesturing.

While Apple is keeping quiet on the details of their recently lodged smart fabric patents, Google has been a little more forthcoming about their progress in the field. Paying homage to the man who invented the first mechanised, punch-card loom, Project Jacquard is one of Google’s latest explorations in smart textiles. The project, in conjunction with Levis, aims to turn any type of fabric into a gesture-controlled surface, just like a tablet or smartphone. Along with a cuff that is linked to a smartphone via bluetooth, the jacket’s left sleeve features 15 conductive threads that match different gestures to different commands, like playing music, asking for the weather, or answering the phone.

H1 Heated Jacket by Madison Maxey x Loomia / © Marta Molina Gómez

But it’s not just the tech leviathans who are doing really exciting things in the realm of wearables. Another much smaller company rending garments into objects that respond to and assist the human body is Loomia. Helmed by American designer Madison Maxey, Loomia has just launched its H1 Heated Jacket — a thin wool garment that heats up with the use of the company’s patented LEL (Loomia Electronic Layer). Maxey was first granted the opportunity to develop the LEL when she won the Thiel Fellowship, which awards USD $100,000 to ‘young people who want to build things instead of sitting in a classroom’. Since winning the highly coveted prize, the former Parsons NY student seems unstoppable. Her LEL — a thin, wire-free, hand-washable circuit board that can be integrated into textiles — is now being marketed to all kinds of garment manufacturers, who can use the invention to enhance existing designs without having to develop similar circuitry themselves. At this stage, the LEL is capable of heating, lighting, touch-sensing, and data-transmitting, so Loomia’s potential market is a considerable one. And while smart fabrics across the board aren’t without their issues — delicacy, reliability, washability, and even uncertainty around the safety of a piece as the fabric deteriorates over time like a ‘normal’ garment — the current capabilities of Loomia’s product already opens up an unquantifiable scope of possibilities for clothing companies that want to ‘smarten’ up their product.

“How can these new technologies become a companion?”

‘Smart’. It was a loaded word before it came to denote a human-made object imbued with artificial intelligence. A synonym for words like ‘clever’, ‘brainy’, and ‘knowledgeable’. But in a time where we are only just coming to truly appreciate the value of emotional intelligence in every aspect of our lives, the word ‘smart’ is being reworked again. We don’t just want our intelligent devices to know how to do things, we want them to do those things in a way that feels ‘human’ — with warmth, sensitivity, and humour. If our technology is going to become such an intimate part of our daily life, we want it to act like a kind of companion. ‘Smart’ now needs to encompass wearable technology’s ability to perceive and address human feelings with emotional intelligence — by doing things like easing loneliness, or enhancing social interactions. This could mean acting like a pet and comforting us in times of solitude, or intervening in social situations when we need extra help.

These considerations are what compel the hi-tech fashion designer Anouk Wipprecht’s explorations in adornment.

“For me, fashion is about expression. It’s about communication… how can these new technologies become a companion?.. How can [they] help you emote, or express yourself?”

Spider Dress 2.0 by Anouk Wipprecht

Addressing questions around the ways clothing could act on its wearer’s behalf, the Dutch innovator has designed a collection of over forty garments that respond to different social situations. Acknowledging that the appropriateness of different behaviours can vary dramatically between cultures, individuals, and even moods, Wipprecht integrates her dresses with microcontrollers and sensors to create pieces that behave accordingly. The dresses are based on a scale from public, to social, to personal, to intimate. At the social / playful end of the spectrum, her Cocktail Dress is a spectacle of light, action, and literal social-lubrication — at the press of a button, its central chest piece pours and mixes cocktails. Her Smoke Dress is significantly less inviting of human company, emitting plumes of obscuring smoke when others are in its immediate vicinity. And then there’s Wipprecht’s robotic, 3D-printed Spider Dress, enhanced with proximity sensors, which goes even further to discourage anyone from getting too close by spreading out a threatening collar of pointed legs when a certain distance is breached.

Caress of the Gaze by Behnaz Ferahi

Designer and creative technologist Behnaz Ferahi takes Wipprecht’s notion of a garment that is inviting or defensive a step further with her interactive, 3D-printed piece Caress of the Gaze. Something between a top, a shrug, and a bolero, Caress of the Gaze goes beyond responding to another’s physical proximity — it detects, interprets, and reacts to their gaze via a camera. Depending on the way it reads the expression of that person, the garment’s covering of quills either entice the gazer with coy ripples, or repels them with a more sudden, ferocious porcupine-like display. Ferahi, whose training as an architect, and studies in media arts and practices, have drawn her into different realms of interactive design, says she is primarily interested in the idea of designing emotion into a static object. Her work Synapse — a helmet that moves over and off the wearer’s face according to levels of brain activity — was another project dedicated to investigating the ever-deepening relationship between the human body and technology.

“The idea behind this project was, for me really to think about how we blur the boundaries of our body. How we can really claim that something outside our body has become an extension of the human body.”

And this is just the tip of the iceberg of explorations being conducted in the name of removing what separates humanity and worn technology — of bringing us together so completely that we blend. Beyond Ferahi, Wipprecht, Loomia, and McCrae, countless designers and companies are breaking new ground everyday by creating wearables that augment and enhance the human experience.

Footnotes on fashion

It’s May 7th, 2019. The Met Gala Ball. The theme is ‘Camp: Notes on Fashion’.

As the who’s who of the day descend upon that legendary red carpet in dazzling interpretations of the theme, the air crackles with electricity.

Because — in a pale blue, Cinderella-style, fibre-optic-lined gown by Tommy Hilfiger — Zendaya has arrived…

Zendaya in Tommy Hilfiger

Article authored by Genevieve Callaghan from FAB9 with research conducted by Ying Zhang