Shifting towards community-building in opening up FabLabs for non-expert users

In the early days of Fablabs and other digital fabrication spaces (e.g. hackerspaces, makerspaces), these community spaces that offer public, shared access to high-end manufacturing equipment (e.g. 3D-printers, laser cutters) were often described as having the democratizing potential to empower everyone as future makers. However, research showed that non-expert users are often impeded to engage in such spaces due to various challenges (among other things, the unfamiliarity of available tools and machines, a lack of skills and experience). By describing a case study in which we elucidate different strategies that were used to engage non-expert users in FabLab [anonymized], this paper focuses on the mediating role of the design researchers who bec