Fab Lab Torino

Fab Lab, makerspace and hackerspace

Fab Lab Torino, Via Egeo 16, CF. 97754320014, Torino (Italy)

Fab Lab Makerspace Hackerspace

Space size 400 m²

Opened in February 2012

Structure type Non-profit organisation

Explored in March 2016


Fab Lab Torino is the first Italian Fab Lab, and our laboratory pursues one main objective: bring digital fabrication and open source culture in a physical space where machines, ideas, and people can merge and contaminate each other, while learning from one another!

Main interests

Technology - machines & tools Community Entrepreneurship Robotics Music & sound devices Mobility & transports Health & well-being Furniture & house Electronics Design Recycling & upcycling

This workshop is great for:

Every single person & organisation!

The closest workshops nearby are:

  • Fablab pavone
  • Techlab
  • Fablab settimo
  • Fablab ivrea
  • Fablab make in granda

Interview & guided tour

Meet someone from the team & discover the space by yourself!

Our workshop

Learn more about our space, members, machines & services!

An exhibition called Fab Lab Italia was created in 2011 in which Riccardo Luna asked Massimo Banzi and other people from Officine Arduino to create a place representing the future of work . It was thought as a 9-month Fab Lab.

But there was a shift in its evolution! The Fab Lab tools and experience could enrich Officine Arduino’s experience after all. A deal was made with Toolbox Coworking to use some of their space and rehabilitate it. In February 2012, Officine Arduino settled in and Fab Lab Torino opened. The company paid for the Fab Lab machines and offered some employees time.

The idea? “Let people from Torino and all Europe experience the use of these tools and the aesthetics behind it, and see all the possibilities you have. It was meant at curious people dealing with strange things in broad terms: makers, entrepreneurs, private companies. Kids!”

“The main topic in this Fab Lab was education, and it didn’t changed. There are still shady areas between Officine Arduino and the Fab Lab, and what entity should do what. It’s very challenging to create a good model!”

“Here in the Fab Lab, the typical users are designers and engineers. There are hobbyists, students (mainly from PoliTecnico di Milano school), and also craftsmen, woodworkers making furnitures. But it’s still mostly men (80%).”

They discover Fab Lab Torino mainly from the website and social media. “We have Open Days sessions on Tuesday nights to make a tour in the Fab Lab, and people come back to attend some workshops. I would say 40% people who come to Open Days come back to attend a workshop. Most if them come here for the workshops, but don’t show up during the rest of the week.”

Why are they coming? “Some for a project, some hear about digital fabrication and want to discover the Fab Lab and its machines, some don’t even know why and come looking for collaboration and projects to join. A little percentage come here for their work, like a laboratory with tools” The range of projects is very wide, you should take a look at their portfolio.

“Even if we have 250 members, only 20-30 represent a core community and have a deep Fab Lab culture. They come often to help people within the Fab Lab, to run workshops, to share what they do, moments together and feel good!”

Fab Lab Torino was created with less than 30.000 euros. The first business model was to rent machines and give workshops, helping also the creation of other Fab Labs. During Fab Lab Italia exhibition in 2011, they made a deal with Toolbox Coworking to be hosted there, paying them a rent. 10-20 people took part in the adventure. The machines were given/loaned and shared between the Fab Lab and Officine Arduino.

Today, the non-profit org. has two people in the team and six in the bureau. The community gathers 250 members, and run activities for a yearly budget of 26.000 euros. Its different income sources are workshops, classes like the FabAcademy, collaborations based on renting know-how, and minute-based machines use.

Tomorrow, they’d like to empower the Fab Lab core community people in a profitable way, create a cooperative solution to provide services. And become more independent.

Their indicators of Fab Lab Torino’s good health? “The subcommunities diversity, being always creating strange and innovative workshops, seeing big companies coming through the doors. A Fab Lab is a community. So the community is the main indicator. Machines are just machines.”

Fab Lab Torino is a non-profit org. with a 6-people “council”. But there are only two people employed by the Fab Lab on a daily basis: one on the lab coordination, machinery, design, and architecture related activities; the other one on events, workshops and community management. All others contribute to the Fab Lab’s life and management but are not paid for it.

To welcome newbies, “we do organise every week an Open Day session to let people see the lab for the first time and ask questions. Once the person suscribes, they are invited to join some workshops. You need to attend it (some are free) before using the machines and tools.”

On Open Days, there’s the Hello World workshop, free for new suscribers who can also bring someone from free. It’s a lab introduction to the space, machines and equipment. But Fab Lab Torino offers more than 50 workshops from coding to drone basics, clay matter and DIY lamps.

A rare thing, Fab Lab Torino’s members created autonomous and thematic subcommunities like Audiohacklab, Biohacking Experience in Torino, Fab Labs for Kids, Arduino User Group, etc. They run meetups, events and projects on their own, independently from the Fab Lab’s team.

Fab Lab Torino has many different ways to keep traces about the Fab Lab and what people make inside. The blog and agenda features all the events and workshops, the portfolio features the users and Fab Lab team projects (picture, maker name, links), the newsletter introduces the coming events and everyday interactions through the social networks (Twitter, Facebook, Periscope, Instagram, Vine, GitHub, Tumblr, Pinterest and Vimeo).

About projects documentation, Fab Lab Torino started a collaboration with YouWant3D, a 3D printing platform startup. “What a Fab Lab needs is a platform for its makers to share their projects and be able to recreate the projects made by other people of the world community. Through our collaboration, YouWant3D developed a new branch of their website, made for this use!”

“I guess makers from our community read a lot of external documentation. Mostly on Github, people working on Arduino use Github a lot. The FabAcademy documentation, with the students following the classes. You can see their work there.”

“We also push our makers to speak about what they do! We even created events to teach makers how to become more entrepreneurial: social networks, business model canvas, taking pictures, share their work outside of the lab!”

An exhibition called Fab Lab Italia was created in 2011 in which Riccardo Luna asked Massimo Banzi and other people from Officine Arduino to create a place representing the future of work . It was thought as a 9-month Fab Lab.

But there was a shift in its evolution! The Fab Lab tools and experience could enrich Officine Arduino’s experience after all. A deal was made with Toolbox Coworking to use some of their space and rehabilitate it. In February 2012, Officine Arduino settled in and Fab Lab Torino opened. The company paid for the Fab Lab machines and offered some employees time.

The idea? “Let people from Torino and all Europe experience the use of these tools and the aesthetics behind it, and see all the possibilities you have. It was meant at curious people dealing with strange things in broad terms: makers, entrepreneurs, private companies. Kids!”

“The main topic in this Fab Lab was education, and it didn’t changed. There are still shady areas between Officine Arduino and the Fab Lab, and what entity should do what. It’s very challenging to create a good model!”

“Here in the Fab Lab, the typical users are designers and engineers. There are hobbyists, students (mainly from PoliTecnico di Milano school), and also craftsmen, woodworkers making furnitures. But it’s still mostly men (80%).”

They discover Fab Lab Torino mainly from the website and social media. “We have Open Days sessions on Tuesday nights to make a tour in the Fab Lab, and people come back to attend some workshops. I would say 40% people who come to Open Days come back to attend a workshop. Most if them come here for the workshops, but don’t show up during the rest of the week.”

Why are they coming? “Some for a project, some hear about digital fabrication and want to discover the Fab Lab and its machines, some don’t even know why and come looking for collaboration and projects to join. A little percentage come here for their work, like a laboratory with tools” The range of projects is very wide, you should take a look at their portfolio.

“Even if we have 250 members, only 20-30 represent a core community and have a deep Fab Lab culture. They come often to help people within the Fab Lab, to run workshops, to share what they do, moments together and feel good!”

Fab Lab Torino was created with less than 30.000 euros. The first business model was to rent machines and give workshops, helping also the creation of other Fab Labs. During Fab Lab Italia exhibition in 2011, they made a deal with Toolbox Coworking to be hosted there, paying them a rent. 10-20 people took part in the adventure. The machines were given/loaned and shared between the Fab Lab and Officine Arduino.

Today, the non-profit org. has two people in the team and six in the bureau. The community gathers 250 members, and run activities for a yearly budget of 26.000 euros. Its different income sources are workshops, classes like the FabAcademy, collaborations based on renting know-how, and minute-based machines use.

Tomorrow, they’d like to empower the Fab Lab core community people in a profitable way, create a cooperative solution to provide services. And become more independent.

Their indicators of Fab Lab Torino’s good health? “The subcommunities diversity, being always creating strange and innovative workshops, seeing big companies coming through the doors. A Fab Lab is a community. So the community is the main indicator. Machines are just machines.”

Fab Lab Torino is a non-profit org. with a 6-people “council”. But there are only two people employed by the Fab Lab on a daily basis: one on the lab coordination, machinery, design, and architecture related activities; the other one on events, workshops and community management. All others contribute to the Fab Lab’s life and management but are not paid for it.

To welcome newbies, “we do organise every week an Open Day session to let people see the lab for the first time and ask questions. Once the person suscribes, they are invited to join some workshops. You need to attend it (some are free) before using the machines and tools.”

On Open Days, there’s the Hello World workshop, free for new suscribers who can also bring someone from free. It’s a lab introduction to the space, machines and equipment. But Fab Lab Torino offers more than 50 workshops from coding to drone basics, clay matter and DIY lamps.

A rare thing, Fab Lab Torino’s members created autonomous and thematic subcommunities like Audiohacklab, Biohacking Experience in Torino, Fab Labs for Kids, Arduino User Group, etc. They run meetups, events and projects on their own, independently from the Fab Lab’s team.

Fab Lab Torino has many different ways to keep traces about the Fab Lab and what people make inside. The blog and agenda features all the events and workshops, the portfolio features the users and Fab Lab team projects (picture, maker name, links), the newsletter introduces the coming events and everyday interactions through the social networks (Twitter, Facebook, Periscope, Instagram, Vine, GitHub, Tumblr, Pinterest and Vimeo).

About projects documentation, Fab Lab Torino started a collaboration with YouWant3D, a 3D printing platform startup. “What a Fab Lab needs is a platform for its makers to share their projects and be able to recreate the projects made by other people of the world community. Through our collaboration, YouWant3D developed a new branch of their website, made for this use!”

“I guess makers from our community read a lot of external documentation. Mostly on Github, people working on Arduino use Github a lot. The FabAcademy documentation, with the students following the classes. You can see their work there.”

“We also push our makers to speak about what they do! We even created events to teach makers how to become more entrepreneurial: social networks, business model canvas, taking pictures, share their work outside of the lab!”

Technologies & processes available

CNC milling Robotics 3D printing Printing, drawing & painting Electronics Laser cutting

Services offered

FabAcademy curriculum Workshop memberships Open moments Classes & workshops Coaching & project mentoring Prototyping

Our best practices

The inspiring things we do here to run our collaborative space

Ecosystem between a fablab, a private company and a coworking space

What is it?

Fablab Torino is powered by Officine Arduino (private company). Both are hosted in Toolbox Coworking facilities, where they develop the Casa Jasmina experimentation together.

In concrete terms?

Officine Arduino is a Torino based company dealing with maker and open source hardware/software solutions to solve various challenges. It is the main financer of Fablab Torino, paying for the machine and human costs.

Toolbox’s Coworking is a huge coworking space owning the building. They offer the walls to both Officine Arduino and Fablab Torino.

Why it’s interesting?

Fablabs are hubs, where people, projects, ideas and machines merge. And Fablab Torino hub aspect is increased by its combination with Officine Arduino and Toolbox Coworking and their local networks.


Thematic subcommunities within the fablab community

What is it?

Fablab Torino’s team and members created autonomous and thematic subcommunities within the fablab global members community.

In concrete terms?

Among Fablab Torino’s subcommunities, some were suggested, other freely created by the people. In early 2016, there were:

  • the Arduino User Group Torino (started from Officine Arduino, suggested to start a community)

  • the AudioHackLab group about music and hacks (completely created by the people within the community)

  • the Biohacking Experience in Torino (BeinTo) group about biology and hacking

  • the Fablab for Kids group

  • the digiFABturing group, that run experiments with the Comau 6-axis robotic arm

Why it’s interesting?

“It was a way to focus on specific topics, without isolating people and areas of comfort. There are a lot of exchanges between people from the different subcommunities! They run meetups, events and projects on their own, independently from the fablab’s team.”


Casa Jasmina, the open furniture/hardware apartment project

What is it?
Casa Jasmina is a pilot-project of Genuino-Arduino. Its aim is to run experimentations about a house of the future “by makers and for makers”. Project curated by the great Bruce Sterling.

In concrete terms?

Casa Jasmina is being developed with the idea of open source furniture and electronics, both software and hardware. The flat has three main fonctions:

  • a testbed about Internet of Things - like an R&D department in Arduino, everything is tested in Casa Jasmina.

  • a guest house - residency, space rent, and soon available on Airbnb. “We want people to try. And they’ll become test users.”

  • a curated space - incubators for makers and designers, projects can be set up within the appartment.

Why it’s interesting?

Casa Jasmina is a collaboration between Fablab Torino and Officine Arduino. The project benefits both entities, and acts as a project showroom and residency facility. It is a multi-purpose project that creates value for the whole ecosystem, and an inspiring example!


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