About the Stadtfabrikanten e.V.

Several months passed before the lab was fundamentally prepared and ready for use. After several meetings in 2015, the hammer fell for the decisive meeting. On 13.01.2016, the time had come - the foundation of the association was knocking on the door. Seven people came together to draw up and countersign a joint constitution. We founded the association with the name Stadtfabrikanten e.V. (the idea for the name came from Maik) and the FabLab Chemnitz project workshop. Last but not least, due to an already agreed project cooperation, we also had a certain amount of pressure for the foundation, which was already on its way. Together with Chemnitz University of Technology and the Saxeed start-up network, we wanted to implement the two-year "Ideenwerkstatt" project and a funding was necessary. So we started the official association activities and initially threw ourselves in at the deep end.

Not averse to the irrepressible idea of transplanting a FabLab to Philippstraße, we started holding our first events in the fall and a certain regularity and dynamism developed. We simply wanted to do something together - sometimes without a plan, of course. Everyone brought something of their own and so we gathered equipment from various places to generate a basic workshop kit. Daniel brought in a range of woodworking tools, furniture and shelves, among other things. Other participants were also constantly carting in furniture and technology. Various items for the workshop arrived in no time at all and the rooms began to transform. Workshop areas began to get in shape. Thanks to the support of Verbund Offener Werkstätten, we were able to borrow a so-called traveling laser from cameo for a few months. Together with Maik and Mario's 3D printers and the laser, we had already collected some important core elements of a FabLab.

The Dresdner Konglomerat e.V. - the Saxon pioneers of a CoMaking Space and host of the FabLab Dresden - also supported us during this jumbled start-up phase and gave us initial help with paperwork, advice, tips and ideas.

In October 2015, Maik and Daniel traveled to Leipzig together and presented the idea of a FabLab Chemnitz and the existing FabLab Dresden at the Modell-Hobby-Spiel fair at the Leipzig exhibition grounds. This event introduced us to Saskia Leupold, who came from the model-making scene, studied in Chemnitz and became aware of us. She soon joined us and was to become another important founding member.

A few months later, in March 2015, Maik and Mario stood together at the Chemnitz Linux Days and promoted the idea of an open workshop in Chemnitz together with other supporters they had found along the way, such as Rayk Pehlgrimm. Through the Linux Days, they also networked with Georg Schultheiß, another co-founder of FabLab Chemnitz and a student interested in 3D printing and an explainer, as it turned out later.

In the summer of 2015, Daniel and Mario finally got to know each other through a meeting with Maik at Rosenhof in Chemnitz. For various reasons, Daniel's attempt at self-employment with puukx failed after a few months of hard work, leaving him with an almost unused 230m² factory hall at Philippstr. 13. Mario had also been self-employed since 2014 and still needed space for his 3D printing business as a sideline. So he moved in with him as a subtenant. The first workshop symbiosis was forged.

At the same time, the idea of setting up a shared workshop directly at Philippstr. 13 - because there was still enough space here - took shape in the group that had already been formed with Daniel, Maik, Mario, Georg and a few other creatives. The fascination with the different trades in wood, plastic and metal drove us forward. That was when we became pregnant with the FabLab Chemnitz.

Through Maik's efforts at various events, the MetaFabTour ultimately brought together people in Chemnitz who were enthusiastic about the vision of a shared and open workshop. Maik, rooted in the area through his studies at the TUC and family connections, among other things, worked with various stakeholders and companies in 2015 to build a network of potential donors and active co-creators in order to create a spacious FabLab. Originally, the FabLab Chemnitz was to be part of his project plan called "TeilWERK", which was to take root in the premises of the Bildungswerkstatt Chemnitz (BWC). However, after persistent effort and many postponed ideas, TeilWERK was ultimately not successfully implemented. However, the desire for a FabLab in Chemnitz remained strong and persistent.

For a long time, the FabLab Chemnitz was a traveling project with the motto "Open high-tech workshop for everyone - for everything" without a fixed location and, moreover, a pipe dream that only manifested itself two years later. Initially it grew out of the so-called “MetaFabTour” - a project by Konglomerat e.V. (today Rosenwerk Dresden) in collaboration with the Saxon State Library and various professorships at the TU Dresden, which was invented in 2014. Roughly speaking, the aim of the tour was to find places where critical masses could be found in order to set up further open workshops there. The project aimed at mobile laboratories that were held for a few days to weeks in various public places (e.g. Saxon State Library Dresden, Lokomov Chemnitz, Modell-Hobby-Spiele Leipzig) in order to draw attention to the project. So we went around with various 3D printers, a cameo laser cutter and other tools. One of the main contacts for this project at the time was Maik Jähne from Nossen, who is one of the co-founders of the FabLab Dresden and had already been active in the maker scene a few years previously and was interested in various workshop and work concepts. He started the tour in April 2014. The project lasted eight months and finally ended in December 2014. The result was activated interested parties, some of whom would soon become active as local actors. Back in 2014, Maik advertised the future label “FabLab Chemnitz”.

Through the activities, which radiated in four different directions, Daniel Tauscher and Maik also started talking about Markus Braun from the Saxeed start-up network. Back then, Daniel set up his own company puukx in 2014 to offer a service in the wood processing industry in Chemnitz and to produce his own wooden construction kit. Both Daniel's inner attitude and the puukx product idea were ideally suited to the Modell-Hobby-Spiel fair at a joint stand with the FabLab Dresden and the MetaFabTour. At this point in time, Daniel did not yet know exactly what FabLabs or MakerSpaces were and what they stood for, even though he had recently completed his thesis on his own concept of a shared workshop. But that would soon change. So he exhibited in October 2014 and came into contact with the maker scene.

Meanwhile, Mario Voigt, then still a student, wrote to Maik by email sometime in 2014 because he was equally and independently enthusiastic about the idea of a FabLab Chemnitz and found a thematically appealing flyer from Maik via Google and Facebook. He no longer enjoyed his dark and small hobby basement and wanted to share his tools and machines with others, as the living room was also overflowing with craft stuff because Mario bought his first 3D printer in February 2014. Months later, when Maik replied and the email was almost forgotten, contact between them finally started. A variety of overlaps in 3D printing and in the hobby and craft sector were found and the exchange continued.