Fab Lab Berlin’s story started with a tour. Wolf had a frustration about universities institutional labs, not being able to experience industrial design freely and try (almost) anything! After exploring digital fabrication in the USA, he came back home and couldn’t find any Fab Lab. He wrote on his university network about it, and that’s when Murat and Nicolaï appeared. All 3 decided to start a Fab Lab as a private company called Makea Industries, to put the concept in an economical context.
Created in July 2013, Fab Lab Berlin started in a 20m2 space. They started with small demands, focused on what they could do best to finance everything, and got prototyping demands and bigger projects. It moved on until the CTO from Ottobock heard of them and the Fab Lab concept.
It remembered him of their first days, decades ago, and how they use to prototype prostetics and orthesis. It got him interested in bringing these process back in the company. Thanks to the long-term partnership with Ottobock, Fab Lab Berlin moved to a 640m2, shared with the group.
The project aimed to give people access to the tools, from engineers, to designers and technical profils. Their will was to always work in-between design and production, to allow people to build quick and easy prototypes, and use the Fab Lab without any stress.