Making and Design is at the heart of who we are

‘Prod any happy person and you will find a project’ (Happiness: Lesson froma New Science Richard Layard London  Penguin 2006). We all need purpose in our lives, we need in some way to make our mark on the world, often in small but meaningful and sigificant ways. Making, as Richard Gauntlett, is in a number of ways tied to connecting;

‘I mean this in three principle ways;

• Making is connecting becauseyou have to connect things together (materials, ideas of both) to make something new;
• Making in connecting becvause acts of creativity usually involve, at some point, a social dimension and connect us with other people;
• And making is connecting because through making things and sharing them in the world, we increase our engagement and connection with our social and physical environments.

I don’t think everyone has to sign up to this who wants to join a maker space! I do think that using our skills and experience that we bring to making things together cannot be wasted. Young or old being part of a community that makes things has a range of benefits not least for our physical and mental health. 

So making is connecting and drawing together skills and experience in our community is our starting point for wanting to develop a Maker Space for Witney.

However, there is also another reason behind our efforts to bring people together in a Maker Space; we are all everyday designers. This may seem a bit crazy given that designers study design theory and practice at university, in what way can we be designers? Victor Papanek, and a designer who advocated social and ecological responsibile design, almost all that we do all the time is design, for design is basic to all himan activity (Design for the Real World). He defined design as the planning and patterning of any act tpwards a desired end. We want to argue that the idea of active citizenship, where we have both rights and responsibilities to each other, requires us all to plan and pattern our lives in community towards socially desirable ends. 

These are our starting points, but what we need now is to share our vision and make it a reality together, through developing a Maker Space in Witney. We look forward to making/connecting and designing with everyone who joins with us.