Democratizing production: challenges in co-designing enabling platforms for social innovation

Abstract

In the social innovation field it has been recognized the need for infrastructures tosupport the flourishing of social innovation: intermediaries that should facilitate theconnections between diverse stakeholders and resources. Design research hascontributed to the idea of intermediaries by developing the concept of enablingplatforms. These are situated systems of human and non-human actors, whichshould support bottom-up initiatives and cross-sector networks by responding to themeta-technological demands of social innovation activities. In order to fulfil thisscope they should be deeply rooted in the specific context where they are operating,valuing local stakeholders and resources. Furthermore they should be characterizedby a certain degree of indeterminacy, which leaves to the involved stakeholders thepossibility to initiate their own activities by performing design actions after the designof the platform is concluded, the so called design-after-design.This article would like to discuss the nature of enabling platforms and how theycould be designed referring to a concrete case: the establishment of the fabricationspace Fabriken in Malmö, Sweden. First some reflections will be made about whyfabrication spaces can be considered enabling platforms and which specificchallenges they pose in supporting social innovation. Further on, the strategy ofdesign-in-use will be presented highlighting the role that prototyping, individualinvolvement and long-term perspective can play in designing enabling platforms.

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