Sunnyside Artisans Construction Zone  - We build community

“What is my case? Simply that our most important task is to get off our present collision course. And who is there to tackle such a task? I think every one of us, whether old or young, powerful or powerless, rich or poor, influential or uninfluential. To talk about the future is useful only if it leads to action now. And what can we do now, while we are still in the position of ‘never having had it so good’? To say the least – which is already very much -we must thoroughly understand the problem and begin to see the possibility of evolving a new life-style, with new methods of production and new patterns of consumption: a life-style designed for permanence…” - E.F. Schumacher

Sunnyside Artisans Construction Zone is a fab lab and a good place to start.    There is much fascinating work to be done in a fab lab.    This is an environment where we can make things happen. This is a center of positive change. 

The Sunnyside Artisans Construction Zone is a space with tools and equipment to provide support for a variety of projects we will be developing.    Not only will we develop the systems and structures that support our long term objective of creating livelihoods that steward the earth, but what members create and learn here will benefit them personally for the remainder of their lives.

As members we share the cost of having the ability to use a variety of equipment unaffordable to any single one of us.    Also with a shared facility like this we are more easily able to learn from each other and pass on to others skills that we have acquired.

A question we want to answer is, what can these tools do to be in service to the earth and our livelihoods?    We want to see what kind of fabrication facility can we establish to do viable production on a small scale.    In many cases there are low tech and traditional ways that will work in tandem with or better than newer ways of achieving our objectives.

In general, we will be interested in developing a viable local production facility that can support our artisanal endeavors and local economy.    This facility may be instrumental in supporting such efforts as food production, food processing, clothing production, mushroom production, water management and purification, local dwelling construction, etc.

The first step in establishing the Construction Zone is to start acquiring tools that we can exchange with each other that are generally easy to transport among ourselves while working toward finding a location for the Construction Zone.    We already have some tools to donate for this purpose.

The second step will be creating the infrastructure for the Construction Zone once a location is secured.    We may consider using portable structures such as metal shipping containers for this purpose as then our fabrication capabilities will be portable, giving us flexibility in moving to other locations if needed.

Some of the first equipment acquired for the fab lab will be wood working tools and equipment, 3D printer.    Laser cutter/engraver.    Small metal milling machine.    Small metal lath.    Electronics work bench with such tools as DVMs, soldering irons and o-scopes.    Mig welder.

As we get established we will install larger metal laths and mills and develop CNC equipment based on open source efforts available.    Pottery equipment will also be something we will be interested in acquiring as well as glassblowing equipment.    Textile production equipment will also be of interest.

As soon as we can, we will start converting more of the fab lab over to renewable energy.    We already have some of the materials and concepts to do this.    For information on what we will apply fab lab production capabilities for see projects in the works on this site.

To learn more or get involved contact Sunnyside Artisans@gmail.com

Small sample of Inspiring references:

solar.lowtechmagazine.com/

www.opensourceecology.org/category/open-source-fab-lab/

fablabbcn.org/projects/type/civic-ecology

farmhack.org