Operating under the legal framework of the EU's Digital Product Passport which aims to advance transparency and environmental sustainability, Hamburg’s Fab City OS (OS stands for Operating System) is a collection of different open source software solutions divided into the "Fab City OS Suite" and the "Fab City OS Core" network.
The Interfacer Project, an EU-funded initiative, aims to build the digital infrastructure for Fab Cities which are self-sufficient, locally productive, and globally connected cities. With key members, the Dyne.org foundation and FabCity Hamburg the project has developed the Fab City OS and its open source solutions. These solutions can be hosted locally, offering transparency and providing comprehensive documentation for the design and manufacturing processes of the Fab Cities.
The EU is funding Circular Economy (CE) to address waste and environmental sustainability by extending the life of products and creating value through their reuse. That is why it supports initiatives such as the Hamburg Fab City, which aims for CE and reducing C02 emissions during production.
This solution is built on the "Valueflows" technical standard, which outlines the roles and actions of participants throughout the product's manufacturing lifecycle. In essence, it tracks who performed each task and which resources were used, thereby aligning with and complementing the EU's Digital Product Passport.- Adam Burns
Knowledge in and knowledge out vs materials in and trash out
The Fab City OS project connects Fab Cities by fostering the sharing of knowledge with each other in a “data in and data out” fashion- Adam Burns
The Fab City concept stems from the Fab Lab movement. This movement promotes an open philosophy of accessible workshops equipped with tools such as 3D printers and CNC mills, enabling the manufacturing of goods locally. It also allows the individual production of a wide range of items, from cars to smartphones to even homes. By making hardware accessible and modifiable, the movement promotes the idea of open hardware. Finally, by prioritising local manufacturing, the knowledge of the entire production process becomes more familiar to the end customer, be it a city or a community. This approach significantly reduces waste and the CO2 emissions that are typically associated with global production methods and promotes the reuse of materials and products.
The Reach and Challenges of Fab Cities
Both the Fab City movement and the EU aim to provide local and regional resilience, increase knowledge, and skills, and extend sustainability to the whole life cycle of a product, from its design to its implementation and reuse…in other words to build something to last with lower demand of materials, without disruptions in the supply chain and transmit knowledge and skills while doing so - Adam Burns
The city of Hamburg supports this initiative and it was the first Fab City to transition its website to the Fab City OS Suite, and the source code is now freely available to the public.
Hamburg has historically been a port city that receives materials globally. It also has a high density of small to medium enterprises which is why they have supported and promoted our efforts to go “glocal”. - Adam Burns
Apart from Hamburg, cities such as Boston, Barcelona, and Bhutan (the world’s happiest country with almost 0 c02 emissions in 2023) are embracing the Fab City model, but they face challenges. Chief among these is the need to connect the interdisciplinary backgrounds of the different types of designers and manufacturers. Additionally, there is a lack of comprehensive documentation and tools to share solutions and understand the needs of each Fab City and manufacturer thereof.
The local groups that make the Fab City are from extremely different backgrounds and they have to come together and work. The Fab City OS provides a connecting tissue for everyone to pitch in the design and manufacturing in a harmonized and transparent way- Adam Burns
The Fab City OS Suite enhances the communication and collaboration of Fab City local designers by offering a modern, optimized website that can facilitate the sharing and standardisation of solutions. Additionally, the Suite incorporates open source tools such as Matrix Chat for messaging, Pretix for event management, and Git for version control.
All the components of Fab City OS are open source by conscience because local variants of the Fab Cities provide special local value when customizing any part of the code or hardware design if they wish to do so and tracking this can benefit the whole project. The license used is AGPL v3.0… it is the go-to license used by Dyne as it reassures the open publishing and documentation of any customized modification of the initial source code.- Adam Burns
For more on the Fab City Hamburg's Fab City OS click here.
For more on the work and projects of the Dyne.org foundation click here.
A sincere thanks to Adam Burns the representative of the Dyne Foundation for his interview and clarifications. Your support is greatly appreciated!
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