Connection Making: analogue-digital synapsis between fabrication hubs

The paper intends to apply the emerging theories on network science to the production chain of contemporary society, hyper-globalized and hyperconnected, to provide an alternative point of view aimed at the multilevel development of a given territory/context. The subject of discussion will be the Fab Labs, specifically those belonging to the Fab Charter, framing them not only as places of digital fabrication, experimentation and research, but, above all, as nodes of a network that in recent years has expanded to connect realities geographically very far from each other. With the analysis of case-studies we will investigate the dimension and importance of planning and designing these systemic processes to lead to the onset of an organizational culture oriented to ‘sensemaking’ and with the aim of optimizing collaborative processes of the Fab Lab network, demonstrating the social value of ‘glocal’ production.