Circular spaces international conference to inspire circularity in creativity

The conference was opened with a tour of the premises at the Maker. The workshop and community manager at Maker Asger Nørregård Rasmussen proudly demonstrated the makerspace, emphasizing the actions done to ensure that it is possible to make products based on circular economy principles.

After the tour of the makerspace Malte Hertz Jansen, managing director at Maker, opened the meeting. The conference was continued with a presentation from Evija Nagle, project manager of the “Circular spaces”. She introduced the audience with the project, partner consortium, overall project aims and deliverables. Evija Nagle highlighted the importance of the cross-border cooperation between the partners by sharing knowledge and experience in different fields.

After the introductory part of the conference, we explored the solutions prepared within the project. Ilze Eglāja from Valmiera Development Agency dove deep in one of the solutions – guidelines “Transformation into circular makerspaces”. Ilze elaborated more on the 10 steps developed on how to transform an existing makerspace to a circular makerspace that provides all the necessary tools for makers to produce circular products. The guidelines are available here.

To provide real examples, Malte from Maker showed their makerspace transformation by showing examples of before and after. In the makerspace they have introduced new equipment, improved work flow, updated material storage and upgraded infrastructure for recycling. Diogo Dias Da Costa Vale from Gewerbehof Luckenwalde shared their experience on transforming to circular makerspace. Their key to transformation has been organizing workshops that show circular economy principles in the makerspace, including environmentally friendly 3D printing materials, creating a material tracking system and material recovery station, waste sorting and other activities.

To strengthen the transformation to circular makerspaces even more, international teams in 5 makerspaces across Baltic Sea Region are working on circular products by utilizing equipment, space and knowledge in these makerspaces. For the conference teams had prepared the first prototypes of the products. To learn more about the international teams, read here.

Jan Tore Usken from Creator makerspace in Stavanger, Norway, introduced the audience with the education program “Circular makerspaces: training program”. The program includes 9 topics that cover all you need to know about circular economy and creating circular products in makerspaces. The program includes both methodological notes and slides for each topic. The training program is available here.

Sandra Rožkalne from Ventspils High Technology Park shared the newest solution in the project – digital circular collaboration tool. It’s a tool where makers can meet suppliers, where makers can post their products and makerspaces showcase their circularity. The tool is a great way how to connect different parties and strengthen the cooperation. The tool also includes guidelines and training program mentioned before. The tool can be accessed makertech.com.

Insights on communication activities in the project were shared by Elizabete Brūvere, project’s communication manager. Elizabete also shared insights about the future and had an interactive part with the participants by asking questions about the barriers that makerspaces and makers experience to transform into circular economy based makerspaces.

The next part of the conference was the second edition of event series that Maker organizes – ‘Speaking of: Design Ethics’. Researcher Linda Nhu Larsen gave a presentation on responsible design, highlighting the need to create products that are transformable, dismantled, repairable and sustainable. This was followed by a presentation by A:gain on how to produce sustainable products on a large scale. Products created in their company include recycled plastic tables, acoustic panels made from textiles, window displays made from recycled windows and more.

Parallel to the conference, an exhibition of the international teams was held, showcasing the circular product prototypes designed withing the project. Also, participants had the chance to look at the Cabinetmakers’ Autumn Exhibition 2024.

Thank you to all the participants for the active participation, sharing of experience and knowledge. We are happy to invite you to the next conference of the project “Circular spaces”! The conference will be held on 5th March, 2025 in Valmiera, Latvia. Save the date and see you in Valmiera!

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