Open Design City

Lately we've been playing a lot with the Foam Cutter and @christophevaillant CNC setup to cut Styrofoam. @christophevaillant showed me how to use this clever fusion of machinery, and yesterday we tried out some black soft PU foam (the one you find in some packagings, mattresses and chair seats). It's meant to be part of a packaging prototype I'm working on.  Here is the result! It works really well. Maybe a hint for further experiments?

A form of publication adequate to its topic: the Open Design City as a perfect example of this new social, economical and political behavior: the co-working.

I propose to start the project of an open book, a book in process which will grow progressively by the gathering of different materials. First on line, then through regular micro “objectations” : a publication not under the form of a booklet or magazine but under the form of objects, able to awake curiosity of people towards the Betabook on line, the future  Betabook offline and the different “rendez-vous” it will impulse in ODC.

I start it with the tool, the machine I put in ODC since one week: the philosophical approach and its production of concepts but I AM CALLING FOR PARTICIPATION other knowledge, other approaches and modalities of expression needed in such a betabook process.

If you want to join it by a work of photographer, video maker, spontaneous interviewer or of analyst also interested in these problematic that you can observe in the world: please contact me: louiscamille@kompost.me

Read here the 1stODCphilosophicaltext

one week later

The Open Design City Open Materials Lab is an ongoing exploration into Open Materials and processes generated by Christopher Doering and Jay Cousins.

Open Design for us is as much about accessibility as it is about permission to duplicate. Therefore the Open Materials Lab is focussed on creating materials and processes which are accessible in use, production and sourcing.  Because the production processes are open it is easy to modify material properties, and to assess the sustainability of the process as a whole. Whilst most of our processes are home focussed, we see this as a stepping stone towards more industrial open production. We want to give people the opportunity to produce their own products, and to engage in the joy of making.

Our initial material explorations have been focussed on Starch Plastic (fka bioplastic) and creating a community and incentives to solve some of the problems associated with the material. Through this we have developed deep insights into the material properties (which we must document better), and a line of open products.

It was our forays into Starch Plastic, which brought us together with a community, which then formed to create a larger event, and create Open Design City.

Everything we have done so far has been for free. However we need your support to continue our work. You can support us by buying our products through our shop, attending workshops (published on Open Design City), hiring us to do a workshop, adopting our processes and supporting the cause with a donation from profits, sponsor us or simply donate. Contact Jay Cousins, or Chris Doering for details.