In post-industrial Manchester, expanding community of techno-savvy anti-capitalist makers has the potential to initiate an unprecedented industrial revolution that will emulate the history that has created the current world of manufacturing. The Third Industrial Revolution is the democratisation of manufacturing.

 

Functioning as a base within a setting of disused mills for start-up businesses and collaborative technology projects, the proposal provides the locality with a set of communal resources and new materials for digital fabricating, prototyping and tinkering; enabling a community with self-build means of continual adaptation; ultimately encroaching, reviving and redefining abandoned structures that had been the symbol of manufacture.

 

Appropriately set in the fringe of a burgeoning creative industrial area of the Northern Quarter, CNC routers, 3D printers and laser cutters allow users and community groups to experiment and manufacture components for small-scale urban projects and new prototypes to expand the centre itself. Coupled with open access to new materials resources, the proposal assists the gradual questioning and colonising of the established nature of global manufacturing since the previous industrial revolution, presenting a paradigm shift towards bespoke and clever material solutions with unprecedented energy efficiency.