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DIY

Topic owner: Liam

What is the history of DIY across domains? Vernacular architecture, home improvement, maker culture, hacking, open source software, etc.? What are the benefits and drawbacks of DIY? What are the ethical implications of DIY? Who can DIY help and how? What are the politics and economy of DIY? What are alternatives and extensions? Do-It-with-others (DIWO), Do-It-For-Yourself (DIFY), Do-It-Together (DIT), etc.?

Examples

Knowledge commons and open tools

The political premise that access to knowledge and tools is itself a form of power.

Whole Earth Catalog (Stewart Brand, 1968–1972; revived periodically) Mail-order catalogue of tools, books, and knowledge for self-sufficiency; pioneered the idea that access to information is a political act. Direct precursor to open-source culture. Steve Jobs called it "Google in paperback form."

Co-Evolution Quarterly / Whole Earth Review (Stewart Brand et al., 1974–1998) Continuation of WEC as a magazine; bridged counterculture, cybernetics, ecology, and DIY technology. Published early writing on personal computing, appropriate technology, and vernacular architecture.

Radical Software (New York, 1970–1974) Journal distributing DIY video technology and media theory; argued that grassroots media production could decentralise power.

Appropriate Technology movement (E. F. Schumacher et al., 1970s) Small Is Beautiful (1973) argued technology should be low-cost, locally maintainable, and ecologically scaled. Direct influence on WikiHouse and Open Source Ecology.

How Buildings Learn (Stewart Brand, 1994) Argues buildings are shaped by their occupants over time across six "shearing layers"; frames DIY adaptation as the normal condition of architecture.

Make: Magazine / Maker Movement (O'Reilly Media, 2005–present) Revived WEC's ethos for digital fabrication, microcontrollers, and open hardware; Maker Faires created physical communities of practice around shared tools.

Open fabrication and self-build

Democratising the means of making: systems enabling non-professionals to fabricate, construct, and build.

WikiHouse (Alastair Parvin et al., 2011–present) Downloadable CNC-milled timber chassis; anyone can cut and assemble structural components with minimal skills.

Open Source Ecology (Marcin Jakubowski, USA, 2003–present) Open blueprints for 50 industrial machines including CNC routers, earth-brick presses, and buildings for self-sufficient communities.

Rural Studio (Samuel Mockbee / Auburn University, Alabama, 1993–present) Students build low-cost houses for rural communities from salvaged materials; places ethics of care and place-specificity above professional convention.

Gramazio Kohler Research (ETH Zurich, 2000s–present) Robotic fabrication using place-specific data inputs (acoustic maps, wind, site geometry) to produce bespoke architectural elements.

Branch Technology (Tennessee, 2015–present) Large-scale robotic 3D printing of free-form structural meshes at low material cost; opens bespoke geometry to non-expert builders.

Tactical urbanism and spatial reclamation

Claiming, reprogramming, or exposing the politics of space through unsanctioned action.

Ant Farm (San Francisco, 1968–1978) Guerrilla urbanism, inflatable structures, and media spectacle (Cadillac Ranch, Media Burn) challenging consumer and car culture.

Recetas Urbanas (Santiago Cirugeda, Spain, 1990s–present) Uses legal loopholes (permits, skip licences, scaffolding) to build unauthorised structures in public space; publishes "urban recipes" for others to replicate.

AAA / R-Urban (Atelier d'Architecture Autogérée, Paris, 2001–present) Self-managed community hubs linking urban agriculture and circular economy. R-Urban Colombes (2012–2014) was demolished by a new council, making it a live case study in political resistance.

Assemble (Granby Four Streets, Liverpool, 2013–present) Community-led reclamation of condemned terraced houses using bespoke handmade ceramics and fittings. Turner Prize 2015.

PARK(ing) Day (Rebar Group, San Francisco, 2005–present) Parking meters used to temporarily convert car spaces into parks and community rooms; now global, with open data on use and dwell time.

Guerrilla greening and ecological commons

Unauthorised replanting of urban land as ecological and political act.

Liz Christy Community Garden (New York, 1973) First guerrilla garden, later legalised; founding act of the Green Guerrillas movement that seeded hundreds of community gardens in New York City.

Guerrilla Gardening (Richard Reynolds, London, 2004–present) Covert planting of neglected public and private land; On Guerrilla Gardening (2008) catalysed a global movement linking DIY politics to urban ecology and belonging.

Incredible Edible (Todmorden, UK, 2008–present) Unauthorised vegetable gardens planted on all available public land in a small town; "propaganda gardening" as a model for food sovereignty. Widely replicated internationally.

Depave (Portland, 2008–present) Community events removing asphalt to restore permeable soil and planting; combines urban activism, ecological restoration, and collective labour.

Prinzessinnengarten (Berlin, 2009–present) Mobile container garden on vacant lots; open-source growing, soil, and biodiversity data shared publicly as community knowledge.

Co-making with other species

Design that includes nonhuman agency, biological process, or ecological sensing as active participant.

Baubotanik / Living Architecture (Ferdinand Ludwig, Stuttgart, 2000s–present) Trees and plants guided, grafted, and woven into scaffolding frames over decades; biological agency shapes the final form.

Urban Reef (Rotterdam, 2018–present) 3D-printed modular reef structures placed in urban waterways and street furniture to support insect, bird, and amphibian biodiversity; community-placed and data-monitored.

Tega Brain / "Asunder" and related works (2015–present) Sensing and DIY infrastructure makes nonhuman ecological processes legible; critiques algorithmic environmental management.

Repair, maintenance, and care

DIY as refusal of disposability; maintaining and extending the life of things as political and ecological practice.

Repair Café (Martine Postma, Amsterdam, 2009–present) Community spaces where volunteers repair broken objects together; now 2,500+ worldwide. Reframes skill-sharing as social infrastructure.

The Restart Project (London, 2012–present) Community repair events for electronics combined with advocacy for the Right to Repair; produces open data on what breaks and why.

Right to Repair movement (EU legislation 2024, global) Political campaign and now law requiring manufacturers to provide spare parts, repair documentation, and software access to independent repairers. Largest recent victory for DIY against corporate lock-in.

Fixperts (Daniel Charny / RCA, 2012–present) Pairs designers with people who have everyday problems to create bespoke, filmed, open-source fixes; frames repair and improvisation as design method.