Co-owning Workspaces

I'm trying out a new concept: collaborative ownership of shared workspaces. For example, sharing a laser cutter among ten people who live close enough together.

[www.7commons.org]

The basic idea is to facilitate collective ownership and cooperative use of production workspaces that are
- too expensive to afford on your own
- too difficult to maintain
- too infrequently used to justify
- too rapidly depreciating given an individual level of use

I've spec'd out some workspaces that folks here may be interested in, or may already own, such as

- laser cutters
- woodshops
- letterpress
- pottery studios
- recording studios
- apparel production facilities

I'd be interested to hear from the community what you think the plusses and minuses of collaborative ownership and cooperative use of these resources might be. Some of the issues I've encountered in focus groups are the problems that a service would attempt to solve, such as:

- insurance
- scheduling
- maintenance
- security and access
- shared space
- training and know-how
- safety
- legal structure

Please let me know if you have ideas about how this could work!

Dave Hunkins
7commons.org

Dave - this is a very interesting concept. It's a little different than a hackerspace or a makerspace. Having the equipment co-owned would be a great way have the use of more equipment and potentially less individual machinery/overhead investment, than if you were going it alone. Do you think population density would make a difference in willing participants?

Admin

i need help to grue my shop wont partner ship

@colbico

Not sure what your point is. Message is unclear.
Do you mean that you would like to grow your business by partnering?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/17/2015 10:30PM by (n/a).