A Participatory Design Approach to Sustaining Makerspace Initiatives

This chapter proposes a framework consisting of six steps for sustaining makerspace initiatives by use of infrastructures developed through a participatory process. Our framework derives from eleven cases in which we have supported the initial stage of a makerspace initiative for eleven Danish municipalities and a private foundation. The aim of this work was to create sustainable infrastructures around the initiatives and to provide the makerspace initiatives with a shared vision for development in accordance with the individual ambitions and circumstances of the municipality. In this chapter we condense our experience into a six-step framework to inspire future makerspace initiatives globally. The six-step framework is based on current research in Participatory Design (PD) and draws on principles of stakeholder involvement, infrastructuring and vertical and horizontal alignment. Here we exemplify how this work may lead to more sustainable and robust makerspace initiatives.