Principles of Operating a Shared Workshop

These are some of the thoughts I have compiled over the last year volunteering my time helping maintain a wood-shop at my local hackerspace, Noisebridge. Noisebridge is a very unique space in that it operates as an anarchist space with one guiding principle: Be excellent to each other. There can often be conflict between passionate people at the space doing their best to make things better, and not being able to agree on what "better" really is. I'm putting my thoughts down on what I've observed to work. I'm certain not everyone will agree.

Everything must have exactly one place of belonging

If the space is big enough to require redundant items, each duplicate should be clearly labelled as to where it belongs. I.E. if there are two solder stations, each soldering iron should be labelled with the station it belongs to. Keep in mind that Hackerspaces are rarely big enough to require redundancy. Noisebridge has some duplicate items because of accessibility issues with our multi-floor layout, but beyond that, we strive to be as explicit about where things belong as possible.

Floor Space is sacred

In a workshop, you are constantly moving around. For your safety and efficiency, floors and worktops should be cleared at the end of each use.

Keeping tools and supplies off the floor is also essential. Use vertical space on walls, add shelving, and remove unused tools if necessary. The floors should be the cleanest part of your shop.

Maintainers must be ruthless in enforcing rules about keeping things clean**

Again, I'm talking from experience at an anarchist hackerspace, where the doors are open and all are welcome. So based on how restricted access your space is, your mileage will vary.

There should be a zero tolerance policy for things left on work tops. If someone's project is not stored correctly, they must address the problem immediately or the project must be removed from the space. Workspace must be protected at all costs, otherwise the purpose of the space is brought into question. Is it really a workshop if there is no space to work?

Agree upon limits to what tools are to be kept in the space

Non-industrial spaces are extremely limited in square foot and resources. Having a couple accessible and well-maintained tools should always be prioritized over accumulation of tools in various states of usability. From my experience, the more tools added to the space, the harder it becomes to work because you are trading square footage for more tools. You are also trading time and resources maintaining those tools.

Labels and rules should be explicit, but mutable

Nothing is set in stone at an anarchist space, or any space for that matter. Assume you will have to make changes in the future, but you should try and mitigate excessive churn. Robustly structured environments should be able to support the activities people expect to use it for, and it should also be able to adapt if the community agrees we want to support new sorts of activities.

This might manifest itself as putting some of your otherwise stationary tools on casters so you can rearrange the shop easily. However, this should be done carefully. Increasing the flexibility of the space also makes it easier for rogue agents to act in ways that benefit their own interests rather than those of the community. This balancing act is often best addressed in practice by keeping a watchful eye over the space, and mentoring others to do the same. It is also important to define shared values as a community to help individuals know how to behave when working on their own.

Project storage rules should be clear and upheld

A workshop should not be treated like a U-haul storage locker. This is often the biggest source of accumulation and detrimental to the preservation of floor space. If you even have the space for project storage, with the community to outline how long a project should be allowed to be stored, and stick to the agreement by promptly removing projects that exceed the deadline.

This may seem harsh and upsetting to an individual who leaves their project longer than the allotted time, but there are sacrifices you make when committing to a project in a shared workshop. Try to work with people before they reach these deadlines to make sure they are aware of these expectations. This can be one of the hardest things to do because of the time and difficulty associated with contacting individuals for project updates, and even just figuring out who's project is who's.

Closing thoughts

You don't have the same freedoms as you do in your own space, but if you can give up these freedoms you gain the benefits of more square footage, bigger variety of tools and resources, and most importantly a community to build with. Living in San Francisco as a 23 year old, having access to a wood shop that is solely my own is fiscally impossible.

Yeah, a lot of the time working with a community is hard. Like, rip out your hair hard.

When I'm feeling that stress, I need to remind myself that working with a community doesn't just bring up the bad things. It also brings me tremendous joy to work with other people, teach, and learn alongside them. It's become rare that I will go to the wood shop and just work on whatever personal project I have in mind. Most of the time, I will be working on something for the space or chatting with someone about a project or something unrelated to woodworking altogether. I've come to realize shared workshops are not just about giving people the resources they need to build their own stuff. The community of makers and hackers is itself something that requires building.

Notes

This is an excerpt from a book I'm reading about cohousing, where it is common that several homes will share one workshop. I found some of the outlined principles interesting.

Making Workshops Successful

It may be hard to imagine that a workshop used by 50 or 60 persons could possibly function smoothly. Potentially, a shared workshop can help residents save money and produce better work, and it can be more fun in the process. It can also be a chaotic free-for-all. In comparing the systems of different cohousing communities, we found that the following practices promoted the usability and safety, and decreased the frustration, of a shared workshop

A. Accountability Keeping the workshop locked and having two or three people "in charge" makes users feel accountable to the person they get the key from, who will be upset if a tool is missing or the shop is left messy.

B. Buying In, or varying degrees of investment. Some may want to have better power tools; they should buy and store them separately in a locker or tool box. Others may not even want to invest in a good set of hand tools (and should not plan on borrowing them). Thus, there can be two or three levels of investment. (Cohousers generally advise against various levels of investment for common facilities except when a small group wants to purchase something less than half of the residents are likely to use, such as a table saw or a sailboat.)

C. Children. Some feel that children should have full access to the workshop (except power tools), to encourage their spontaneous creativity. For safety and to prevent abandoned projects, others feel that children should be permitted only under adult supervision. Between the permissive and disciplinarian attitudes there is a practical middle ground. Adults should aggressively teach interested children "shop manners" - safety first, how to clean up, and how not to abuse tools. Once they have demonstrated competent shop manners, children should be given equal access. Until then, they might have a separate bench, with their own tools.

D. Day-Glo. Successful workshops paint their hand tools the most awful Day-Glo fluorescent colors available, 'so you can see those suckers 50 yards away lying in two feet of grass'. Besides, no self-respecting person would want tools that color in their house.

I agree with most of this, but I think Buying in would need to be adjusted for a space that wants to welcome those who otherwise could not afford access to such a space, and I don't think the section in children should be just limited to kids. Everyone should have to show some basic competence with respect to safety and clean-up.