[MEETING/ SOCIAL] OSCEdays London: Open Meet [Online: 27th May 2017]

Proposed event for London Summer 2017:

I’d like to do something at the University campus in Hackney over the summer. I’m away at the beginning of June but was thinking that we could do it at the end of July instead. If anyone has any ideas or is interested in doing something together that would be great. I’m happy to organise but would be great to get ideas / input.

I was thinking of focusing on the topic of circular cities and inviting some people to talk on this topic in the morning with maybe some activities in the afternoon.

I would like to understand what sustainability initiatives are happening in and around Hackney Wick and start a mapping activity to document these and to begin to build links and a community here: food, local production, energy initiatives.

It would be great to get someone from the UCL Circular Cities lab to come and give a talk, as well as someone local like R-Urban Wick or Public Works. It would also be great if there was someone from Hackney council.

We could follow the MapJam methodology using a wall and then transferring it to a digital version.

I participated in a similar mapping activity when I lived in Cardiff with the Think Ark collective. You can see the map on the wall at the left of the image.

Another option that would be fun would be to follow the Maker Walk approach: https://twitter.com/maker_walk

Image source: http://www.thinkark.co.uk/arkade

@TechnicalNature @WoonTan @gpinuk @pmackay @Grit @lesmoore

Add anyone that I have forgotten and if people are interested we can arrange a date for a meet-up.

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I would love to be part of this, at least to help or follow it from the distance. :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

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Hackney Councillor Carole Williams
Cabinet Member for Employment, Skills & Human Resources
@CaroleWilliams
carole.williams@hackney.gov.uk
T. 020.8356.3270

// Met her @SoulLabels event during #64bits @HereEast with @only_type_ida

Sounds good :slight_smile: I’ll be away all of July beginning of August but can input / pre and post. Can also look at taking forward some of the beginning of Readings mapping - Someone from LWARB could be good to get involved too. Think Restart have been mapping repair facilities?

Cool @Nagstaly shout if you have ideas! It’s an open conversation.

I will work on this during the next Docu-days if anyone wants to join.

Hi All,
Great idea to map making in Hackney. I thought I’d share some of my experience of mapping manufacturing on the MakerWalk in Bristol.


https://www.bristolmuseums.org.uk/blog/bristol-maker-walk/

The MakerWalk was an inspirational window into what is made in a urban area in Bristol. In an area I was repeatedly told had no manufacturing, we found makers of hot airballons, caravans, beds, leather, books, windows, t-shirts and playgrounds and lots others. Plus a multitude of manufacturing skills in wood, metal, precision engineering and glass. All hidden behind quiet and often beautiful building facades. Some companies were in the same location for 170 years (still unknown to their neighbours) and others were new start-ups. The MakerWalk was a great way to contact with makers beyond the normally engaged companies.

Working on a EPSRC ‘Redistributed Manufacturing in a Resilient and Sustainable City’ funded research project I was asked to assess current manufacturing in Bristol. After speaking to over 30 organisations and searching a colossal amount of data and stats it became clear that it was not even possible to find out who was making in the city let alone know the scale, resources used & wasted, or skills of manufacturing. Combined with other public funded orgs unable to share their database of manufactures it became clear we would have to recreate these databases. Inspired by Make Works we decided to get out and map the manufacturing by foot.

*In total we found 108 manufactures in an area I was told there was no manufacturing
*We walked nearly 40 miles over 9 days. It was extremely enjoyable and inspiring

As this was public funded research we wanted it all to be open. We worked with local museum MShed to ensure all the data was archived for the city and will also be exhibited later this year). We also involved local a local fablab so they could widen their connection with local makers. We also wanted to use as much open source tools as possible so other people can repeat the same process. See the attached guide on how to do a MakerWalk and the software we used. This also meant that as many people as you wanted could do the MakerWalk, digitally mapping in real time so there is no labour-intensive documentation work required afterwards. Plus others could track the mapping in as it was happening.

We decided on the MakerWalk approach for several reasons,

  • Directory of manufactures (e.g. company house) contained companies we knew did not manufacture in the area (we found an extra 29 manufacturers not listed)
  • Traditional manufacturers rarely have a website let alone any social media so finding them is impossible without cold calling into random doors
  • Manufacturers are busy making and email/post surveys have tiny response rates - we got 78% response rate with only 6% refusing to talk to us.
  • As they were busy we only asked 3 simple questions and most of the time these were very rushed as they were busy working and didn’t want to talk for longer than 2 mins. But it was a great start intro for developing deeper relationships at a later stage.

Let me know if you have any questions about the MakerWalk approach. Depending on what you want to achieve, a less rigorous approach may be more suitable. Or just contacting the companies you are interested in visit and prearrange a visit to actually see their production processes.

There are also a multitude of other mapping exercises to do such as cityscapping, noisescapping, smellscapping, emotional, pollution, airscapping, soundscaping, odorscapping, touchscape etc.

3. Maker Walk Presenation.pdf (2.3 MB)
How to do a Maker Walk Draft.docx (4.7 MB)

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Actually there is already a map of makers on the maker mile
http://makermile.cc/

And maps of tech manufacturing
http://www.techmap.london/#?&coll={"sector"%3A["other_scitechmanf"]%2C"boundaryline"%3A"osbl_district_borough_unitary_region__hackney_london_boro"}

Thanks @judesherry for sharing your process which is very helpful and inspiring. We have some existing maps already that we can work from. I think that what would be most suitable for us would be build on your method by taking a more ethnographic approach to see some pre-identified people / businesses. I started drafting up the action protocol here but it still needs to be finished.

Ah brilliant to hear there are more maps. No need to repeat existing work but build upon them to make suitable or better work. One of the biggest challenges in Bristol was Data Project or proprietary rights. Although the information was there, publicly funded orgs such as universities were unable to share it. Even simple things like company names. It was extremely frustrating using public funding to repeat the same work over and over again.

Which maps are you using? Would love to see more maker maps.

Good stuff! Did anyone in the OSCEdays #local-teams:london group sign-up to this mapping session with Circular Economy Club?
[MEETING/ SOCIAL] OSCEdays London: Open Meet [Online: 27th May 2017]

Could also be interesting to link with these guys / Meetup who use Open Street Map (I’ve modified the London one sometimes) - https://www.meetup.com/OpenStreetMap-Q-A-Meetup/events/239691716/