Chapter Six
FABRICATION
The Culture of Making and the Circular Economy
Civic Fabrication — Where the means of production belong to everyone and the products of labor serve the community. Editorial illustration • Hamilton 2092
The Culture of Making and the Circular Economy
In Hamilton 2092, you do not simply consume. You make. You mend. You transform. The fabrication commons are not factories in the old sense—places of alienated labor and mass production—but workshops of collective creativity, where the means of production belong to everyone and the products of labor serve the community.
This chapter will guide you through the fabrication systems of Hamilton 2092: the tool libraries where you can borrow what you need, the community nodes where you learn and practice skills, the circular economy that ensures nothing is wasted, and the repair culture that extends the life of everything the city produces. You will learn not just how to access these systems but how to participate in the culture of making that defines life in the sentient city.
The fabrication philosophy of Hamilton 2092 rests on three pillars: universal access to tools and knowledge, circular material flows, and the dignity of creative labor. Everyone has the right to make. Everything that can be repaired, is. And the work of fabrication is understood not as drudgery to be minimized but as a meaningful contribution to collective life.
Before you can understand fabrication in Hamilton 2092, you must understand the circular economy—the system through which materials flow through the city, never becoming waste but always becoming something else.
The cities of the early twenty-first century operated on a linear model: extract resources, manufacture products, use them briefly, discard them as waste. This model was ecologically catastrophic, requiring constant inputs of virgin materials and producing mountains of garbage that poisoned land, water, and air. It was also economically inefficient, destroying value at every step of the process.
Hamilton 2092 operates on a circular model: materials circulate through the economy, being used and reused, transformed and retransformed, maintaining their value indefinitely. When you are finished with something, it does not become trash. It becomes feedstock for the next cycle of production.
This circularity operates at multiple scales:
Technical nutrients: Metals, ceramics, synthetic materials—these circulate through industrial loops, being remelted, reformed, and remanufactured. A steel beam from a demolished building becomes the frame of a new structure. A ceramic component from a broken machine is ground down and reformed into a new part.
Biological nutrients: Organic materials circulate through biological loops, being composted, digested, and returned to the soil. Food scraps become compost. Compost becomes soil. Soil grows food. The cycle continues.
Hybrid materials: Many materials in Hamilton 2092 are designed to separate cleanly into their technical and biological components at end-of-life. A piece of mycelium-based packaging can be composted. A piece of metal-infused bioplastic can have its metal recovered and its organic component composted.
The circular economy depends on knowing what things are made of. In Hamilton 2092, every manufactured object carries a material passport—a digital record of its composition, provenance, and history, accessible through the mesh network.
When you pick up an object, you can scan it to learn:
This transparency enables proper sorting and processing at end-of-life. It also enables repair, since you know exactly what you are working with. And it creates accountability, since the full lifecycle of every product is visible.
The material passport system was one of the major achievements of the mid-Transition period, requiring decades of negotiation between manufacturers, recyclers, and civic authorities. Today, it is simply how things work—so embedded in daily life that Hamiltonians are often surprised to learn that other places do things differently.
When an object reaches the end of its current use, the circular economy applies five hierarchies of management, in order of preference:
First: Reuse. If the object is still functional, it should be used again by someone else. The city's exchange networks facilitate the passing along of goods—clothing, furniture, tools, electronics—finding new users for things that still have life in them.
Second: Repair. If the object is broken but fixable, it should be repaired. The repair culture of Hamilton 2092, detailed later in this chapter, extends the life of objects indefinitely.
Third: Remanufacture. If the object cannot be repaired, its components should be recovered and used to make new objects. This is the domain of the fabrication commons—disassembling, sorting, and reprocessing materials for new production.
Fourth: Recycling. If components cannot be remanufactured, their materials should be recovered through industrial recycling—melting metals, reprocessing plastics, pulping paper.
Fifth: Biological return. If none of the above are possible, materials should be returned to biological cycles through composting, anaerobic digestion, or other forms of biodegradation.
Only when all five options are exhausted does anything become "waste"—and in Hamilton 2092, that almost never happens.
The materials that circulate through the economy are held in common, not owned privately. The Material Commons is the institution that manages this shared inheritance—tracking stocks, allocating supplies, and ensuring that extraction is minimized and recycling is maximized.
When you need materials for a project, you do not buy them. You request them from the Material Commons, specifying what you need and what you are making. The Commons allocates materials based on availability, with priority given to projects that serve collective needs or demonstrate exceptional creativity.
This system has profound implications for the nature of fabrication in Hamilton 2092. Because materials are shared, not hoarded, there is no incentive to overproduce or to make things that will not be used. Because the Commons tracks everything, there is complete transparency about material flows. And because extraction is minimized, every project is an exercise in creative constraint—working with what is available rather than demanding virgin resources.
"I used to think that having limited materials would be frustrating, that it would stifle creativity. The opposite has proven true. When I have access to anything, I am paralyzed by choice. When I have only what the Commons has in surplus—some recycled aluminum, some mycelium composite, some glass from demolished buildings—I am forced to think more deeply about what I am making and why. The constraint becomes a prompt. Some of my best work has come from working with materials I would never have chosen if I had unlimited options."
Ah Her wakes at 7:15 AM to the smell of mycelium. Not metaphorically—there's an actual petri dish on her nightstand that's fruiting, earthy and slightly sweet smell of organized decomposition. She lies in bed for a moment, watching light come through the loft's east-facing window, listening to ravine sounds below. A crow calls. Water moves. The city wakes in its distributed way.
Her loft above the lab is small—bed, desk, shelves of books and salvaged equipment, plants everywhere—but it's home in a way that matters. Some plants are experiments. Others are how she's decided to live: embedded in growing systems, participating in biological knowledge production while basically making coffee.
By 8:00 AM, she's descending to the lab. Ground floor is working space: workbenches, soldering equipment, culture racks, computers for documentation and design. Everything is organized, but not obsessively. There's space for failure here, for beautiful accidents that happen at the intersection of biology and engineering.
By 10:00 AM, she's preparing for a workshop. Today she's teaching ravine ward residents about basic bioelectric reading—how to build simple devices that measure electrical signals from plants. Workshop starts at 1 PM, so morning is prep time. She's creating simple diagrams, testing electrode designs, preparing materials.
She's thinking about what to teach and what to deliberately not teach. She believes knowledge should be shared, but some knowledge without accompanying ethics is dangerous. Every workshop includes teaching people to ask: "Am I serving this organism, or am I using it? Am I in relationship with this system, or am I extracting?"
At 1:00 PM, workshop begins. Ten people, ranging from teenagers to elders, curious about bio-computing. She teaches with her whole body. She builds simple circuit with them, hands-on. She lets them experience the moment when they first read an electrical signal from a plant. She sees wonder in their faces and remembers having this experience at eight years old, seeing her mother's work.
By 4:00 PM, she's doing one-on-one mentoring with Kai. Kai is learning to design bioelectric interfaces for specific applications—monitoring soil in restoration projects. She teaches primarily through questioning. "What do you think soil is telling you? How might an interface help translate that? How might it get in the way?"
Kai is frustrated by questioning method. "Why don't you just tell me how to build this?" they ask.
She smiles, remembering asking her mother the same question. "Because if I tell you, you'll have a design. If you figure it out through questioning, you'll have understanding. The design is less important."
By 6:00 PM, her mother Sarah arrives for their weekly meeting. She sits at the lab's main table, surrounded by equipment. Sarah wants to show her new research concepts—ways mycelial networks might interface with biological computing. She's still working, still asking questions, still generating ideas despite stepping back from institutional research decades ago.
Ah Her listens, asks questions, is both excited and skeptical. Her mother appreciates both responses. She's learned not to expect enthusiasm—she's learned to expect critical thinking.
Ah Her asks about the documentation question. "What if I documented protocols in ways that make them harder to industrialize? Like, instead of clean step-by-step instructions, I documented the relationships, the failures, the moments of uncertainty?"
Sarah considers seriously. "That could work," she says. "It would make knowledge less portable, but more honest. And honesty is what resists extraction."
"Exactly," Ah Her says. "I want to document so that people who want knowledge for right reasons can use it, but people who want it for extraction will hit a wall."
"That's probably not entirely possible," Sarah says. "But it's worth trying."
Kai arrives at Ah Her's lab on a Wednesday evening, carrying excitement she hasn't seen in months they've been apprenticing. They want to commercialize the bioelectric interface designs. They've been talking with two other ravine community people—people with business backgrounds, energy and ambition. They want to create a company, manufacture and distribute interfaces, create jobs, build economic value from the knowledge developed together.
"This is exactly what my mother warned me about," Ah Her tells them. She sees confusion on Kai's face—they don't understand why she wouldn't want the work to spread.
"But this helps people," Kai says. "If we commercialize, we can get these interfaces to communities that don't have access to the knowledge."
"We can," Ah Her agrees. "But we'll also be replacing their need to develop local knowledge with their need to consume our product. We'll be training them to be customers instead of makers."
She tells them about planned obsolescence, about how companies design products to fail. She tells them about how manufacturing at scale requires removing the relational knowledge that makes the work meaningful.
"I'm saying that commercialization in its current form is extractive. But maybe there are other forms of scaling that aren't. Maybe instead of manufacturing for profit, you could facilitate knowledge transfer. Maybe instead of creating customers, you create practitioners."
Sarah sits at Ah Her's lab bench on a Tuesday evening, and she's angry in a way Ah Her has rarely seen. She's holding a letter—an official letter from one of the largest biotech companies in North America. They want to acquire rights to her mycelium-interface protocols. They're offering substantial money, institutional support, the promise of scale.
"They want to industrialize your work," Sarah says, her voice carrying weight of having watched this happen to her own research. "They want to take what you've built in relationship to this community and turn it into something that extracts knowledge without accountability."
"I'm telling you that I refused something similar, and I don't regret it. And I'm telling you that you have the privilege of watching how that refusal turned out in my life. You can make an informed choice."
"If you take this offer, you'll have resources. You'll also have accountability to shareholders and boards and institutional logic. You'll have to optimize what you're doing now. You'll have to stop asking why and start asking how much. And eventually, what you love about this work will be gone."
By the time Sarah leaves, Ah Her knows what she's going to do. She's going to refuse the offer. But more than that, she's going to use the refusal as an invitation—she's going to write back explaining why, what autonomy means, what knowledge production in relationship to specific places means.
Her loft above the lab is small—a bed, desk, shelves of books and salvaged equipment, plants everywhere—but it's home in a way that matters. Some plants are experiments. Others are just the way she's decided to live: embedded in growing systems, participating in biological knowledge production while also, basically, making coffee.
She showers in warm water (the one luxury she allows herself) and dresses in her uniform: dark pants, neutral-colored shirt, the cardigan that belonged to her father. He sent it to her five years ago with a note: "This cardigan has held a lot of thinking. Maybe it will hold yours too." She's never taken it off in the lab. It's become part of her identity—the young woman who builds bioelectric interfaces and wears her father's cardigan like a daily reminder that knowledge is relational, not extractive.
The laboratory around her—this imperfect, underfunded, community-rooted space—suddenly feels like a choice, not a circumstance.
She falls asleep reading papers on mycology and electrical engineering—fields that shouldn't intersect but increasingly do, because the boundaries between disciplines are as artificial as the boundaries between biology and technology.
Outside, the ravine is full of spring growth. The mycelial networks are continuing their work. The bioelectric signals that she's learned to read are flowing through living systems that don't know they're being read and don't care whether humans understand them. They just grow, transform, teach. And she's learning to participate in that teaching without trying to control it.
If the circular economy is the system through which materials flow, repair culture is the practice that keeps those materials in use. In Hamilton 2092, repair is not a fallback for when things break. It is a way of life, a source of meaning, and a fundamental expression of care.
In the early twenty-first century, many manufacturers deliberately made their products difficult or impossible to repair. They used proprietary fasteners, glued components together, withheld service information, and designed products for obsolescence. This was profitable for corporations but devastating for the environment and for consumer autonomy.
Hamilton 2092 recognizes the right to repair as fundamental. All products sold or distributed in the city must be designed for disassembly, with standardized fasteners, modular components, and publicly available repair documentation. Manufacturers are required to provide spare parts for a minimum of fifty years. And no one can be prevented from attempting to repair something they own—or, in the case of shared goods, that they steward.
This right is enforced by the Repair Council, a civic body that reviews products for repairability and denies market access to those that fail to meet standards. The Council also maintains the Repair Database, a comprehensive resource of repair guides, parts specifications, and troubleshooting information for virtually every object in circulation.
The social heart of repair culture is the repair café—a community space where people gather to fix things together, sharing skills, tools, and companionship.
Repair cafés operate on a simple model: bring your broken item, sit down with a volunteer repair coach, and work together to diagnose and fix the problem. The repair coach does not fix the item for you; they guide you through the process, teaching you skills that you can use again.
There are repair cafés in every neighborhood of Hamilton 2092, typically operating out of the fabrication commons or neighborhood centers. Some specialize—electronics cafés, textile cafés, furniture cafés—while others handle anything that comes through the door. All are free to use, though participants are encouraged to contribute to the commons in whatever way they can.
The repair café is more than a practical service. It is a social institution, a place where neighbors meet, where skills are transmitted across generations, where the culture of repair is performed and reinforced. Regulars speak of the satisfaction of fixing something that seemed hopeless, the pleasure of working with their hands, the unexpected friendships formed over a disassembled toaster.
Repair is a skill, and like all skills, it must be learned. Hamilton 2092 provides multiple pathways for acquiring repair competence:
The Repair Curriculum: All students in the city's schools learn basic repair skills—sewing, electronics troubleshooting, simple carpentry, mechanical maintenance. These are not vocational tracks but general education, considered as essential as literacy and numeracy.
Apprenticeships: Those who wish to develop deeper expertise can apprentice with master repairers, spending years learning the intricacies of particular domains—vintage electronics, antique furniture, complex machinery.
Peer learning: The repair cafés and fabrication commons are environments of peer-to-peer learning, where anyone with knowledge shares it freely with anyone who wants to learn.
The Repair Database: For self-directed learners, the Repair Database contains detailed guides for repairing virtually every object in circulation, from the simplest household item to the most complex industrial equipment.
There is a political dimension to repair culture. Every item repaired is an item that does not need to be replaced, saving the materials and energy that would go into new production. Every repair skill learned is a reduction in dependence on distant manufacturers and global supply chains. Every repair café is a node of autonomy, a space where people take control of their material environment.
In this sense, repair is a form of resistance—against the throwaway culture of the past, against the logic of endless consumption, against the alienation of people from the objects they use. The repair movement of the early Transition period was explicitly political, and while repair culture in Hamilton 2092 is now simply everyday life, it retains that political character. To repair is to refuse. To repair is to choose a different relationship with the material world.
"I have a toaster that was made in 2034. It has been repaired forty-seven times. The heating elements have been replaced three times. The casing has been patched and repainted. The timer mechanism has been rebuilt twice. It is not an heirloom or an antique—just an ordinary toaster, mass-produced in a factory that no longer exists. But every repair tells a story. The time the cord was replaced by a neighbor who taught me about electrical safety. The time the spring was fabricated in the workshop when no replacement could be found. The time the whole neighborhood gathered to celebrate its fortieth repair anniversary. This toaster is not just a device for browning bread. It is a record of relationships, a monument to the culture of repair."
You cannot make or repair without tools. In Hamilton 2092, you do not need to own every tool you might use. Instead, you borrow them from the tool library—a shared collection maintained by the community for the community.
Tool libraries operate on the same model as book libraries: a collection of items is maintained in a central location, available for borrowing by anyone with a library card. The difference is that the items are tools—hand tools, power tools, specialized equipment—rather than books.
The tool library system was one of the early successes of the Transition period. Starting in the 2030s with small volunteer-run collections, it expanded over decades into a comprehensive network covering the entire city. Today, there is a tool library within walking distance of virtually every residence in Hamilton.
A typical tool library holds thousands of items, organized by category:
Hand tools: Hammers, screwdrivers, wrenches, saws, chisels, planes—the basic implements of manual work.
Power tools: Drills, sanders, routers, circular saws, jigsaws—tools that multiply human effort.
Garden tools: Shovels, rakes, hoes, pruners, wheelbarrows—everything needed for working the soil.
Kitchen equipment: Specialized appliances, canning equipment, food processors—tools for the domestic arts.
Electronics equipment: Oscilloscopes, multimeters, soldering stations, component testers—devices for working with circuits.
Textile tools: Sewing machines, sergers, knitting machines, looms—instruments for working with fiber.
Specialized equipment: Items needed only occasionally—tile cutters, floor sanders, pressure washers, tree pruners.
The collection is determined by community need. If enough people request a particular tool, the library will acquire it. If a tool sits unused for years, it may be deaccessioned and replaced with something more needed.
Using the tool library is straightforward:
Membership: Anyone resident in the library's service area can become a member. Membership is free and carries no obligations beyond the responsibility to care for borrowed items.
Borrowing: Browse the collection in person or check availability through the mesh network. When you find what you need, check it out at the circulation desk. Borrowing periods vary by item—hand tools might go out for a week, specialized equipment for a day.
Responsibility: You are responsible for the tool while it is in your possession. This means using it safely, returning it clean and in working order, and reporting any damage or problems.
Learning: Most tool libraries offer instruction in the safe use of their equipment. Some require certification before you can borrow certain tools—power tools, for instance, or anything potentially dangerous.
Contribution: Tool libraries welcome contributions. If you have tools you no longer use, donate them. If you have skills, volunteer to teach others. If you have time, help with maintenance and organization.
Tool libraries are more than warehouses of equipment. They are social spaces, gathering points for the community of makers.
At the tool library, you meet neighbors working on similar projects. You get advice from experienced users. You discover new tools and new techniques. You participate in workshops and skill-shares. The tool library is where the culture of making is transmitted and reinforced.
This social function is as important as the practical service. The tool library builds relationships around shared competence, creating the trust and mutual knowledge that make community possible.
While tool libraries provide access to equipment, fabrication nodes provide access to space, expertise, and community. These are the workshops where Hamilton 2092 is physically made.
A fabrication node is a community workshop—a space equipped with tools and machinery, staffed by knowledgeable facilitators, open to all who wish to make things. Nodes vary in size and specialization, but all share the same basic function: enabling citizens to transform materials into useful objects.
The fabrication node system evolved from several sources: the makerspaces and hackerspaces of the early twenty-first century, the community workshops of the labor movement, the shared studios of artists and craftspeople. By the 2060s, these threads had converged into a comprehensive network of publicly supported fabrication facilities.
Fabrication nodes are organized by scale and specialization:
Neighborhood nodes are the smallest and most numerous, typically serving a few hundred households. They offer basic woodworking, metalworking, electronics, and textile equipment—enough for most home repair and small-scale making projects.
District nodes serve larger areas and offer more specialized equipment: CNC machines, 3D printers, laser cutters, welding equipment, kilns. These are where more complex projects are undertaken.
City nodes are the largest facilities, housing industrial-scale equipment: metal foundries, large CNC routers, automated cutting systems, materials testing labs. These serve projects that require capabilities beyond what district nodes can provide.
Specialized nodes focus on particular domains: electronics fabrication, biotech, textiles, ceramics, glass. These serve makers working in those specific fields.
Access to fabrication nodes is universal and free, but structured to ensure safety and fairness:
Orientation: New users must complete an orientation covering safety, policies, and basic use of the space. This is typically a few hours and must be renewed annually.
Certification: Many tools and machines require specific certification before use. This ensures that users have the skills to operate equipment safely and effectively. Certification is typically achieved through classes offered at the node.
Reservation: High-demand equipment can be reserved in advance through the mesh network. Walk-in use is also possible when equipment is available.
Materials: Users generally provide their own materials, though nodes maintain stocks of common supplies and scrap materials available for practice and small projects.
Storage: Projects in progress can be stored at the node for limited periods, allowing work to continue over multiple sessions.
Community contribution: Users are expected to contribute to the maintenance of the space—cleaning up after themselves, reporting problems, helping with periodic deep cleans. Many also choose to volunteer as instructors or maintenance helpers.
The most important product of a fabrication node is not the objects that come out of it. It is the community that forms within it.
At the node, you work alongside other makers, sharing space, tools, and knowledge. You see what others are working on and learn from their techniques. You ask for help when stuck and offer help when you can. You participate in critiques, celebrations, and collaborative projects.
This community cuts across the divisions that structured work in the old economy. At the node, you might find yourself working alongside someone from a completely different background, collaborating on a project that requires both your skills. The node is a space of encounter, where the social fabric of the city is woven through shared creative labor.
"Three years ago, I started building a dining table at the Westside Fabrication Node. I had never done woodworking before, and I was terrified of the machines. But the other users took me under their wing—showing me techniques, checking my work, encouraging me when I made mistakes. The table took six months to complete, working a few hours each week. By the end, I had not just a table but a community. The people who taught me are now my closest friends. We still meet at the node, though we are working on different projects now. That table sits in my home, and every time I eat at it, I am reminded of the relationships that created it."
With access to tools, materials, and community, what do you make? The answer in Hamilton 2092 is: almost everything.
The fabrication commons of Hamilton 2092 produce a vast range of goods:
Furniture: Chairs, tables, beds, storage—much of the city's furniture is made locally, designed for durability and repair.
Housing components: Doors, windows, fixtures, fittings—buildings are assembled from parts fabricated in the commons.
Tools and equipment: The tools used in the commons are themselves made in the commons, creating a self-sustaining cycle.
Textiles: Clothing, bedding, upholstery—fabricated from fibers produced in the agricultural belt.
Electronics: Circuit boards, sensors, control systems—designed for longevity and repairability.
Art and decoration: The objects that make spaces beautiful and meaningful.
Infrastructure: Street furniture, signage, public fixtures—the hardware of public space.
This is not to say that everything is made locally. Some things—specialized components, rare materials, certain complex products—are imported from the broader bioregional network or beyond. But the default is local production, and imports are the exception.
Products made in the fabrication commons are designed according to specific principles:
Durability: Things should last. This means robust construction, quality materials, and designs that do not depend on fashion or trends.
Repairability: Things should be fixable when they break. This means modular construction, standard fasteners, accessible components, and available documentation.
Adaptability: Things should be modifiable to suit different needs. This means adjustable designs, modular systems, and open documentation that allows customization.
Disassemblability: Things should be taken apart at end-of-life. This means avoiding permanent joints, using reversible fasteners, and designing for material recovery.
Beauty: Things should be pleasing to use and to behold. This is not superficial decoration but integral to function—objects that work well and feel right.
These principles are enforced not by regulation but by culture. Makers in Hamilton 2092 take pride in work that embodies these values. Objects that fail to meet them are not prohibited, but they are not respected.
Digital fabrication technologies—3D printing, CNC machining, laser cutting—play an important role in the fabrication commons, but they are not the dominant mode of production.
These technologies excel at producing complex geometries, custom parts, and small-batch production. They are used for prototyping, for producing components that would be difficult to make by hand, and for enabling customization. But they are not used for mass production—that is neither necessary nor desirable in the circular economy.
The relationship between digital and manual fabrication is complementary. Digital tools produce precision components; hand tools assemble and finish. Digital design enables customization; craft skill brings warmth and character. The fabrication commons use both, choosing the right tool for each task.
Making is a skill, and skills must be learned. Hamilton 2092 provides multiple pathways for acquiring fabrication competence:
The fabrication curriculum: All students learn basic making skills—woodworking, metalworking, sewing, electronics—through their schooling. These are not vocational tracks but general education, considered essential for competent citizenship.
Node classes: Fabrication nodes offer classes in specific skills and techniques, from beginner to advanced levels. These are typically free or low-cost.
Apprenticeships: Those who wish to develop deep expertise can apprentice with master makers, spending years learning the subtleties of particular crafts.
Peer learning: The fabrication commons are environments of peer-to-peer learning, where anyone with knowledge shares it freely.
Self-directed learning: The mesh network contains vast resources for self-directed learning—tutorials, documentation, forums where makers share knowledge.
Why make things? In a world where objects can be produced by machines, why bother with the labor of fabrication?
The answer, in Hamilton 2092, is multi-layered:
Autonomy: Making things yourself reduces dependence on distant supply chains and anonymous producers. It gives you control over your material environment.
Quality: Things you make yourself can be better than mass-produced alternatives—better fitted to your needs, better made, more durable.
Learning: The process of making teaches you about materials, about tools, about design. It develops competence that extends beyond the specific project.
Relationship: Making connects you to the objects you use. When you have made something, you know it intimately. You are more likely to care for it, repair it, and value it.
Community: Making connects you to other makers. The shared labor of fabrication builds relationships and strengthens community.
Joy: There is pleasure in making—the satisfaction of solving problems, the absorption of focused work, the pride of completion. This joy is not incidental but central to the value of fabrication.
"I made a bowl in the ceramics studio at my neighborhood node. It took me three months of weekly sessions—learning to center the clay, to throw the form, to trim and glaze and fire. The bowl is not perfect. It is slightly asymmetrical. The glaze has a run that I did not intend. But I eat from it every morning, and every time I do, I feel a connection to the material, to the process, to the community of potters who helped me learn. I have factory-made bowls that are more regular, more flawless. But none of them give me what this one does."
Not everything in Hamilton 2092 is made from metal and plastic. A significant and growing portion of the city's material production comes from biological fabrication—using living organisms to produce useful materials and objects.
Mycelium—the root structure of fungi—is one of the most versatile biological fabrication materials. It can be grown into almost any shape, producing materials with properties ranging from soft and foam-like to hard and wood-like.
The process is simple: agricultural waste is mixed with mycelium spores, placed in a mold, and allowed to grow. The mycelium digests the waste, binding it into a solid mass. When the desired form is achieved, the material is dried to stop growth, producing a lightweight, strong, biodegradable product.
Mycelium is used for:
Packaging: Replacing plastic foam with a biodegradable alternative.
Building materials: Mycelium bricks and panels for construction.
Furniture: Chairs, tables, and storage grown rather than manufactured.
Textiles: Mycelium leather for clothing and upholstery.
Insulation: Mycelium foam for thermal and acoustic insulation.
The mycelium industry is a major employer in the agricultural belt, where the raw materials are produced and the cultivation facilities are located.
Beyond mycelium, biological fabrication encompasses a range of materials derived from living organisms:
Bioplastics: Plastics produced from plant starches, oils, and cellulose rather than petroleum. These can be designed for various properties and for biodegradability at end-of-life.
Biofibers: Textile fibers produced from plants—hemp, flax, nettle—and from agricultural waste. These replace synthetic fibers and reduce dependence on cotton, which is resource-intensive to produce.
Bacterial cellulose: A material produced by certain bacteria, with properties similar to leather. Used for clothing, accessories, and technical applications.
Algae-based materials: Algae can be processed into bioplastics, biofuels, and nutritional supplements. The remediation ponds around the harbor are a major source.
The most advanced biological fabrication involves working with living materials—organisms that continue to grow and adapt after fabrication:
Living walls: Building surfaces covered with plants that filter air, regulate temperature, and provide habitat.
Self-healing materials: Concrete and other building materials impregnated with bacteria that repair cracks through biological mineralization.
Adaptive structures: Architectural elements that respond to environmental conditions through biological processes—shading systems that grow leaves in summer and shed them in winter, ventilation systems that open and close through plant movement.
These technologies are still developing, but they represent the leading edge of fabrication in Hamilton 2092—the integration of making and growing, of the built environment and the living world.
Working with living organisms raises ethical questions that the fabrication commons take seriously:
Welfare of organisms: Mycelium and plants are not sentient in the way animals are, but they are living systems. The fabrication commons treat them with respect, ensuring that cultivation conditions are appropriate and that organisms are not caused unnecessary stress.
Genetic modification: Some biological fabrication uses genetically modified organisms. The city has strict protocols for containment and for assessing ecological impacts. Citizens can choose to work with GMO or non-GMO materials as they prefer.
Ecological integration: Biological fabrication is designed to integrate with local ecosystems, not disrupt them. Cultivation facilities are designed to support biodiversity, and end-of-life materials are composted to return nutrients to the soil.
The fabrication systems of Hamilton 2092 are not just technical arrangements. They are political and economic structures that embody the city's values and distribute power in particular ways.
In the old economy, production was organized for profit. Goods were made to be sold, and their value was determined by what the market would bear. This led to overproduction, planned obsolescence, and the externalization of ecological and social costs.
In Hamilton 2092, production is decommodified. Goods are made to be used, not sold. Their value is determined by their utility and their quality, not by exchange price. The goal is not profit but meeting needs—creating the material basis for a good life while respecting ecological limits.
This does not mean that fabrication is inefficient or unproductive. On the contrary, the elimination of profit-seeking removes many distortions that plagued the old economy. There is no incentive to overproduce, to create artificial scarcity, or to externalize costs. Resources flow to where they are needed. Quality is valued over quantity.
Hamilton 2092 practices distributed production—manufacturing dispersed throughout the city, close to where products will be used. This contrasts with the centralized production of the old economy, where goods were made in massive factories and shipped to consumers.
Distributed production has multiple advantages:
Reduced transport: Products do not need to be shipped long distances, saving energy and reducing emissions.
Local adaptation: Production can be adapted to local needs and conditions, rather than standardized for mass markets.
Resilience: The system is resilient to disruption—if one node fails, others can compensate.
Democratic control: Production is visible and controllable by the communities it serves.
Some things are still produced centrally—materials that require specialized equipment, components that benefit from economies of scale. But the default is local, and centralization is the exception.
Who does the work of fabrication? In Hamilton 2092, the answer is: everyone, in varying degrees.
There is no sharp division between "producers" and "consumers," between those who make and those who use. Everyone participates in fabrication to some degree—repairing their possessions, contributing to community projects, helping maintain shared infrastructure.
Those who work in fabrication as their primary contribution to the community are valued but not elevated above others. The fabrication worker is not a "proletarian" alienated from their labor but a skilled practitioner whose work is recognized and respected.
Labor in the fabrication commons is governed by the same principles as other work in Hamilton 2092: it is self-directed where possible, collaborative by default, and oriented toward meeting real needs rather than generating profit. Fabrication workers participate in decisions about what to make and how to make it, through the cooperatives and assemblies that govern the commons.
The fabrication commons balance innovation and tradition. New techniques and materials are welcomed when they serve the community's needs. But they are integrated into a tradition of craft that values skill, quality, and relationship over novelty and efficiency.
This balance is maintained through the governance of the commons. Innovation is encouraged but evaluated—does it serve the community? Does it respect ecological limits? Does it maintain or enhance the quality of work? Innovations that pass these tests are adopted. Those that do not are set aside.
The result is a fabrication culture that is dynamic but grounded, open to change but respectful of accumulated wisdom. It is neither the frozen traditionalism of nostalgia nor the reckless progressivism of technophilia, but a thoughtful evolution guided by clear values.
The fabrication systems of Hamilton 2092 do not operate in isolation from the more-than-human world. They are embedded within ecological systems, dependent on them, responsible to them.
Fabrication operates within ecological limits. The Material Commons tracks the availability of resources and constrains production when limits are approached. Energy use is monitored and minimized. Waste is eliminated through circular design.
These constraints are not experienced as burdens but as creative prompts. Working within limits requires ingenuity and leads to innovations that might not emerge in a context of abundance. The fabrication commons have developed remarkable techniques for doing more with less—designs that use minimal material, processes that minimize energy, products that serve multiple functions.
Fabrication facilities are designed to integrate with local habitats. The buildings incorporate green roofs and living walls. The operations are designed to minimize noise, light, and chemical pollution. The sites are chosen and managed to support biodiversity.
This integration is not just about reducing harm. It is about creating positive relationships. The mycelium cultivation facilities support insect populations that feed birds. The biological fabrication labs maintain seed banks and genetic archives. The fabrication commons are understood as part of the urban ecosystem, contributing to its health and diversity.
Some fabrication in Hamilton 2092 is done not by humans but by other species. The mycelium that produces building materials, the bacteria that repair concrete, the plants that create living architecture—these are not tools used by humans but partners in production.
This more-than-human fabrication raises profound questions about agency, relationship, and the nature of making. The fabrication commons have developed protocols for working with other species that respect their autonomy and ensure their welfare. These are not laborers to be exploited but partners to be collaborated with.
The RepairBacter (Bacillus reparans) that maintain the city's concrete structures are a prime example. These synthetic-biological hybrids were developed to heal cracks and reinforce aging infrastructure through biological mineralization. They are not "used" by the city so much as cultivated—provided with conditions in which they can thrive, in exchange for the service they provide. The relationship is one of mutual benefit, not extraction.
Similarly, the MycoHamiltonia fungi that form the foundation of remediation agriculture are partners in the truest sense. They enable plants to thrive in contaminated soils, extracting heavy metals and storing them in crystallized form. Without them, the city's brownfield agriculture would be impossible. They are recognized as essential workers in the urban economy, deserving of respect and accommodation.
All of this leads to an ethics of making that is distinctive to Hamilton 2092:
Make only what is needed: Overproduction is waste. The first principle of fabrication is to produce only what serves real needs.
Make things that last: Durability is a form of respect—respect for the materials used, for the labor invested, for the future users who will inherit what you make.
Make things that can be unmade: Design for disassembly ensures that materials can be recovered and reused.
Make in relationship: Fabrication is not solitary but social. It builds connections between makers, between makers and users, between the human and more-than-human worlds.
Make with joy: The labor of fabrication is not drudgery but creative expression. It should be engaged with wholeheartedly, not endured.
These ethics are not enforced by rules but embodied in practice. They are the water in which the fabrication commons swim—so ingrained in the daily life of Hamilton 2092 that they are often unstated, simply understood. When you participate in the fabrication commons, you are participating in these ethics. You are contributing to a material culture that is rooted in care, reciprocity, and a deep respect for the living world.
Everything described in this chapter—the material passports, the repair cafés, the fabrication nodes, the biological materials—is infrastructure for thinking in centuries, not quarters. It is the groundwork for a different kind of future than the one that was being built in the early twenty-first century.
Consider the Multi-Lens, one of Hamilton's three primary prototypes. It began as a thesis project by Alejandro Hernandez Guzman at Sheridan College in 2026—a pair of glasses made from salvaged optics and e-waste that let the wearer see the city's hidden systems. When you looked through the Multi-Lens, you could see infrastructure: the thermal gradients in the Orenda network, the data flowing through the mesh, the mycelium networks beneath the streets, the water moving through aquifers. You could perceive what was usually invisible, understand the relationships that structured the city.
The first prototype shipped in 2038. For years, it was a small tool used by designers and systems thinkers. Production was interrupted by Hurricane Mara in 2053 and restarted as part of the reconstruction. Today, the Multi-Lens is a common tool in Hamilton—used by stewards and engineers, by artists and children learning to see their city. It is not a finished product that will never change. Its design files live in the knowledge commons, open for adaptation, improvement, and reimagination by future makers.
This is the deepest lesson of Hamilton's fabrication culture: you are not making things for yourself. You are making things for people who will inherit them, improve them, and eventually replace them with something you cannot yet imagine. The material passport is a letter to the future, a record of what was known and what was tried. The repair cafe is a gift to those who come after, a demonstration that things can last, can be loved, can be maintained through relationship. The fabrication node is a commons to be inherited, tools and knowledge available for the making of new worlds.
The Multi-Lens will still be used in 2192, in 2292, but not in its current form. It will have evolved, as will every system described in this manual. The fabrication commons will be making things we cannot conceive of, using processes we haven't yet discovered, in response to conditions we can't predict.
But the principles will remain. Make things that last. Make things that can be unmade. Make in relationship. Make with joy. Design for disassembly. Design for repair. Design for a future you will never see.
This is what it means to fabricate with responsibility to the Seventh Generation, and to the tenth, and to the twelfth. This is how you build not just a city, but a world that can sustain itself across centuries.
For a glimpse of what the Multi-Lens and the entire fabrication commons might become across ten generations, see Chapter 8.
Dunne, A., & Raby, F. (2013). Speculative everything: Design, fiction, and social dreaming. MIT Press.
Ellen MacArthur Foundation. (2026). Circular economy introduction. https://ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/topics/circular-economy-introduction
Tharp, B. M., & Tharp, S. M. (2019). Discursive design: Critical, speculative, and alternative things. MIT Press.