ABSTRACT
Makerspaces nest concepts of flexible, community-based learning with the aim of increasing the effectiveness of student learning and efficiencies in terms of staffing and space requirements. Rapid demand for the makerspace has increasingly seen direct links to academic programs alongside its physical growth from one small room to multiple spaces within the faculty and across the university. Art & Design has a combination of makerspaces, labs, studios, and workshops comprising analogue and digital technologies across a diverse range of design and art disciplines from woodwork to Virtual Reality. The maker movement reopens a way for the adult imagination to operate outside system constraints, democratizing knowledge exchange by removing the notion of an authority figure and replacing it with the shared expertise of multiple participants. Changing the nature of the traditional workshop has led to a desire for greater inclusion of makerspace activity in formal classroom outcomes.
