Open Design City

„meet in the summer, indian summer…”

is a two part workshop that will introduce you to craft in the bohemian spirit.

On the 17th In the first part of the workshop you will learn different ways of using braids to produce modish accessories – friendship bracelets, necklaces and head bands. To create the braids you will use vintage fabrics, colorful strings and ribbons. Then we can add some flower power by making fabric flowers and decorate them with beads and pearls.

On the 19th of July, is the second part of the workshop which is devoted to the home design. It will give you ideas to add magic to your home. Hold on to your dreams by making your own dreamcatcher and make some space for your plants and flowers with macrame holders. We can make all of these using simple d.i.y steps.

Materials are included, each participant will also receive a surprise gift. ;) The grups for each workshop have small number of participants, so that everyone feels cozy and has enough attention.

Workshop will be held by Kamila - check her blog and d.i.y projects http://kaamhandmade.blogspot.de/

You can decide to visit both workshops or pick up only one. The participation fee for each of the workshops is 25 EURO.

To book the workshop on 17th: https://gidsy.com/activities/berlin/10017/indian-summer-ws

To book the workshop on 19th: https://gidsy.com/activities/berlin/10018/indian-summer-ws-2

see there ☮

Exceptionally Hard and Soft Meeting: exploring the frontiers of open source and DIY

Despite all the discussions about open hardware, it appears obvious that
many techniques and technologies remain highly proprietary. Ubiquitous
areas such as thin films (which modern touchscreens depend on),
spintronics (which enable high-capacity hard disks) and logic design
techniques (used to build microprocessors) remain carefully avoided by
most hardware hackers.

The Exceptionally Hard and Soft Meeting (EHSM), to be held in Berlin on December 28-30 2012, will allow you to learn about DIY and open source projects going in such directions and meet the people behind them.

EHSM is an independent organization without any big sponsoring or grants, so it relies on you, the attendee, to crowdfund it. So help make this event possible and order your ticket soon. The prices remain very cheap for a conference of this quality, and they have an "early bird" price running until July 15th. See http://ehsm.eu/

Day Calligraphy Workshop - 5th Juli, 14.00-20.00

English Copperplate Script

This class is orientated to beginners, but it is open to everyone and anyone interested in improving their handwriting skills and calligraphy.

English Copperplate is a calligraphy script whose style was developed in the 19th century and it’s very well known for it’s simple elegance, thin loops and quick strokes.

The workshop will be on two different dates. You can either book your ticket for the 5th or 12th!

We will start to write our first good “A” to “Z”, with 95% of class dedicated to practice and 5% to theory.

The workshop will be entirely in english and part of the calligraphy tools are included on the price, just bring a pencil, eraser and a long rule.

Please, register through Gidsy:
https://gidsy.com/activities/berlin/9768/calligraphy-workshop

About the referent

Giuseppe Salerno is an Italian graphic designer and calligrapher, teaching calligraphy in Valencia, Spain. Berlin is his new home after working and living for years in Madrid and Valencia, Spain. He has been focused on calligraphy and creating hand-written fonts for the past several years and loves to bring this passion to anyone who has always wanted to draw letters, but never knew how. You can check out some of his work here: http://youareinthecircle.tumblr.com/

You would like to hold a workshop in betahaus? Welcome to Open Design City on Thursday evening 28th June – time for a tea party and discussion about possible future workshops.

The summer days are so Autumn-like that we decided (instead of trying to grill, fighting against the weather) to discuss potential future workshops in Open Design City while enjoying a warm cup of tea and relaxing.

The meeting agenda:
- Tea and relax
- Discussion about what you would like to learn and teach (which workshops you would like to hold)
- Schedule the workshop timetable for the upcoming months

We provide our favorite tea. Would be nice if you bring something tasty for it and, of course, a good mood!
If you have some further questions, please send an email to elizaveta@betahaus.de
Looking forward to see you all at betahaus!

You may have noticed an unusual system of boxes, placed directly at the entrance of betahaus. You may have even seen (and heard) two guys building it in the Open Design City. The guys are named Nico and Anthony. The secret concept of their epic creation is opened below.

This system of boxes turned out to be the 3d (best and main) prototype of an exchange platform for products and services, a locker system, with the help of which you can pick up or exchange your products or services. This innovation provides access to basically any service you may need to take care of any product you own. You can leave things there to clean them, repair, exchange, resew, give as a gift, etc. You can even just store things there (to leave a gift for your future grandchild is unfortunately still not possible at the moment, but to leave your keys for a friend to pick up in couple of days is definitely an option). Access to all the services is provided via their website ein-fach.de, which is just about to be launched.

All the core construction challenges like prototyping, 3d modeling and development of electronics were solved by Anthony and Nico in the Open Design City.

Guys came up with this idea as solution of their own problems, which they faced in everyday life. For example, dry-cleaning stores close at 6, and you don`t have any possibility to use them if you work full time. The final aim is to provide access to whatever people need 24/7 without making it unaffordably expensive. The final users will basically pay just as much as they would have paid after running to the closest laundry at 5 minutes to 6 p.m. It`s not only cheaper than classical home-delivery, it`s also way more flexible – no appointments, no need to be anywhere at any exact time – everything is just as flexible as it could be to provide top convenience.

einFach is generally an open platform, with no limitations and top compliance regarding the possible ways of using it. At the moment there are no defined limitations regarding the time of storing or anything else, Anthony and Nico would like to stay open as long as possible and as much as possible. It is an open innovation and the idea is to figure out optimal ways of its implementation on certain locations together with the users.

Best of luck to the new rising star!

This Monday nights (as every Monday night) Open Design City will be opened for everyone, who would like to try out our tools, 3D printer, get to know how we are working and get involved in different D.I.Y. projects.

11 June and 18 June you will also get a chance to attend free of charge Collage Plaster Molding workshops. Learn how to make plaster molding yourself and decorate it with any objects of your choose! Workshop will highlight DIY silicone mold-making and the process of creating a profile for plaster molding. To see, which wonderful things could be made with the skill of plaster molding, check out the website of Sean Williams, the organizer of the workshop:

Laugh & Smile are the best makeup? But how to acheive the well-known beauty ideal “pearls of teeth contrasted with cherry lips”? Luna knows the secret.. ;) Check out this link to know more about her cosmetics.

Join us on the 15th of June to make your own Lip balm, Lip scrub, and Toothpaste out of the natural nutritious elements! You will use all edible organic ingredients and design your own natural scent for truly healthy and good cosmetics. All the patterns you'll get to know are easily repeatable within your own kitchen and perfectly open for further experiments.

We will appreciate if you would like to reuse your old cosmetics containers.

The price is 20 Euro. Apply here.

Can't find the right clothes for summer? Bored of Your own wardrobe? No shops and vintage markets can fit Your dreams?

Join The Very First REDESIGN FASHION WORKSHOP at the Open Design City laboratorium to upcycle the boring clothes and textiles into trendy bag, skirt or shirt! Bring your old clothes, or inspirational textile, good mood and be ready to reveal the secret of designing clothes, establish loving relationship with sewing machine, measure, stitch, cut, sew with support of skilled facilitators.

In the workshop we will give second life to boring fabrics and last season clothes, learn how to create a wearable, environmental-friendly and definitely cool items. For more experimental mood there will be opportunity to decorate Your creations with the most unexpected upcycled materials, like tea bags, bicycle tubes, or plastic threads!

This workshop is held by Kulturlabor Trial & Error, who are professionally working on upcycling and environmental friendly design since 2010. Workshop will take place on 5th of June in Open Design City, from 18:30 until 22:00 evening. The price of the workshop is 30 EURO per person (materials included).

Watch out - the places are limited, so sign up in advance!

See you on Tuesday!

On the 29th of May at 6.30 pm we decided to have a Barbeque evening in the backyard of Open Design City. While eating, chilling and communicating with each other on Tuesday evening, we would like to discuss the potential future workshops in Open Design City.

Meeting agenda:

- Eat/drink/chill

- Discussion about what we would like to teach/learn

- Schedule the workshop timetable for the upcoming months

There will be a big June/July/August calendar, in which all of us may place a workshop to hold in ODC or, maybe, create a new one, collaborating with each other. There will also be space for experimenting – working on new ideas, concepts and prototypes all together or trying out new workshops (if you are not sure you are ready to hold a paid workshop yet) inside ODC on Monday nights within the regular DIY BAUSTELMONDAY event.

Would be cool if we all get something to grill/drink and share with each other.

You are friendly recommended to invite as many of your creative friends as you want :)

Looking forward to see you all !

P.S. If you have any questions regarding the event, don`t hesitate to contact elizaveta@betahaus.de

This Monday night (as every Monday night) Open Design City will be opened for everyone, who would like to try out our tools, 3d printer, get to know how we are working and get involved in different D.I.Y. projects.

This night we will continue building a “Jerry”, a cheap DIY open source server housed in a water canister. You are more than welcome to join in if you haven`t started working on it with us yet. It is rugged and cheap and ready for use all around the world. Jerry’s creator, Romain, will show you how to build your own Jerry server.

Romain was invited by the folks at knowable http://knowable.org/ - a social platform for diy projects and recycling and upcycling ideas for developing countries. More about Jerry at http://flavors.me/jerrydiy