Local Accessible Urban Digital and Sustainable Factories: New European Bauhaus Approach to Open and Decentralised Urban Manufacturing

Project Information

LAUDS Factories

Grant agreement ID: 101135986

DOI

10.3030/101135986

EC signature date 15 November 2023

Start date 1 January 2024

End date 31 December 2026

Funded under

• Digital, Industry and Space

Total cost

€ 2 830 156,25

EU contribution

€ 2 830 156,25

Coordinated by

TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAT BERLIN
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - LAUDS Factories (Local Accessible Urban Digital and Sustainable Factories: New European Bauhaus Approach to Open and Decentralised Urban Manufacturing)

Reporting period: 2024-01-01 to 2025-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Our objective is to demonstrate LAUDS (Local Accessible Urban Digital and Sustainable) Factories, promoting the New European Bauhaus approach to open, circular and distributed manufacturing in a realistic, measurable, and replicable way based on an open, certifiable, bottom-up, standardised and unified techno-social manufacturing framework and transdisciplinary production-value networks.

LAUDS Factories represent a new paradigm in manufacturing, blending sustainability, locality, accessibility, urban integration, digital innovation, and environmental stewardship. The term "factory" within the LAUDS context refers to open and sustainable manufacturing facilities that specialize in small series-production. These factories are not just places where goods are made; they are hubs of innovation, collaboration, and community engagement, redefining the traditional concept of manufacturing.

LAUDS Factories are transformative spaces that blend sustainable small-scale production with local resource utilization, accessible innovation platforms, urban cultural integration, digital collaboration tools, and comprehensive sustainability practices. They are at the forefront of reshaping manufacturing for the 21st century, addressing the need for environmentally and socially responsible production methods while fostering economic development and community engagement.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During the first half of the LAUDS Factory project, very good progress was achieved across various work packages and special objectives. Key milestones include the successful selection and initiation of five projects from the first open call (OC#1), onboarding of new partners (TMDC, MEK, and MLAB), and refinement of the LAUDS Factory framework through research and methodology development. The pilot phase of the OC is starting to give fruits in the prototypes created and in terms of lessons learned on the application of the methodology developed. Progress in the LAUDS Factories framework development is promising both in its technical aspects (WP2), its collaborative work approach (WP1), and its inclusion in the broad economical ecosystem (WP3). This will be developed further and become sustainable outputs in the forms of a LAUDS Academy and a handbook (WP4).

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Our definition of LAUDS Factory was refined by the creation of a mapping of transformation factors, based of co-creation workshops organised at the start of the project. We conducted additional surveys and workshops to analyse the needs of businesses and creatives, as well as technical infrastructure requirements. We evaluated the existing technical infrastructure of the LAUDS Factories to find gaps and draw pathways for change. In addition, a collaboration capacity readiness model has been developed in order to facilitate and assess the collaboration between LAUDS Factories and open call projects, and inside the hybrid teams of these projects.

Five open call projects involving hybrid teams of creatives and technical providers have been running in three LAUDS Factories. Workshops to discuss the collaborative maturity of the projects were organised and Intermediate meetings were used to document the project using a blueprint approach, and further interaction with the consortium are planned. We also developed a model of KPIs to assess the OC project successes. Furthermore, the LAUDS Exploration OC#2 was launched in M18, where we will fund 8 new projects.

Information gathered (actors, business models, blueprints) will be provided in a new online visualisation technique, this is hoped to lead to more impactful and sustainable projects inside the LAUDS Factories. Scientific dissemination, project deliverables, and open datasets are made public and discoverable on open access journals and the Zenodo repository archive.

These building blocks amount to the successive realisation of the overall objective and pave the way for its further dilligent pursuit.