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Labcraft PDF Version 9.23
Labcraft PDF Version 9.23
Edited by
Co-Authored by
Mariko Takeuchi
Rachel Sinha
Marlieke Kieboom
Kimon Moerbeek
Lena Hansen
Magali Marlin
Anna Lochard
Josh Harvey
Eduardo Jezierski
Labcraft Publishing
London & San Francisco
Labcraft is published under Creative Commons
Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International License.
You may share and adapt the material from the book with
appropriate attribution. You may not use the material for
commercial purposes. You can read the full license at:
www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
July 2014
First Edition
Space to Create 44
Permeable Boundaries 51
Adaptive Resourcing 55
Lab Money 59
Part III. Lab Strategies 66
Seeing the Bigger Picture 68
Cultivating Connections 74
An Invitation 124
Aknowledgements 127
11 LABCRAFT • FOREWORD
Apple cannot predict the future, nor can the U.S. or Japan.
And so they invest in efforts to discover it.
The traditional research lab performs scientific experi-
ments within relatively well-defined conditions. Their work is
aimed at outcomes that intrigue corporations, governments
and nonprofit organizations so much that the latter agree to
pay for the experiments. These entities fund experiments in
the hope they will learn how to do what they do in ways better
aligned with the conditions and needs of tomorrow.
Sometimes laboratory activity is conducted inside the
organization itself. Frequently, as with most academic
research, funding moves laterally from the organization
hoping to benefit from the research to the lab proposing to
do it. Systems—including those set up by venture capitalists
and entrepreneurs—are put in place to help “translate” useful
learning from labs in the direction of funders’ interests and
society generally.
Thanks to such experiments and research over the past
few decades, human conditions have radically changed in
many obvious ways. Not all of these ways have been positive.
Some have bred confusion.
As a response, a new kind of lab has emerged. And that
is the story of this special book. The labs described in these
pages approach complex social and cultural problems, often
framed by poorly defined conditions and rarely underpinned
by traditional scientific method. They bring unusual groups of
specialists and interests together to confront questions that
transcend the interests of a single corporation or country. And
they often conduct their experiments in direct dialogue with
the public.
Their approach, indeed their very emergence, parallels
the rise (and one hopes, success) of the Internet. Just as
the Internet provides a forum for dizzying idea exchange and
experimentation, these cultural and social labs are becoming
12 LABCRAFT • FOREWORD
public forums with a potential to spark radical grassroots
cultural and social change.
While grass-rooted and as yet unproven, the phenomenon
of the social innovation lab is already a matter of large-scale
interest. Too many educational, political, cultural and indus-
trial institutions remain fixed to a worldview that is behind us.
Thankfully, many leaders are now questioning how their insti-
tutions—of all sizes and types—can move to a more contem-
porary high ground.
The productive function of society has long been based on
the effective distribution of knowledge, services, and prod-
ucts. We have come to know what to teach, what to produce,
and how to serve—at least in part because we studied and
experienced how things worked sufficiently to learn how they
might work better, or at least well enough.
Today, we are simply less sure. It’s reasonable in these
times to question the value of teaching calculus, or making
a certain computer, or providing a particular kind of health
care—tomorrow.
The cultural and social lab addresses issues, causes, and
interests that are not addressable in standard translational
labs or inside traditional institutions. Their form, model, and
ability to produce positive social change are all in motion.
These are early days for social labs. But, as captured in
these stories— written in intriguingly time-constrained condi-
tions, these new labs are asking questions whose answers
matter to us all.
David Edwards
Harvard University
Founder, Le Laboratoire
Author, The Lab: Creativity and Culture (Harvard Press 2010)
13 LABCRAFT • FOREWORD
PART I
INTRODUCING LABS
RISING FROM THE RUBBLE
LAB SPACE
LAB STRATEGIES
Over time, these are the some of the most important learnings
our labs have found crucial to cultivating connections:
2. Spinoffs
Many of our labs have created new labs that focus on other
themes or challenges, using a similar methodology.
4. New Narratives
A fourth level of impact created by labs is the cultivation of
new meta-narratives—the stories through which we under-
stand society and detect opportunities for change. We act as
hubs in networks of changemakers and emerging innovations,
and from that unique position we can see the new stories
emerging in between seemingly diverse projects and ideas.