Guatemala: New AIDG Fab Space under construction
by Peter HaasJanuary 14th, 2009
New AIDG compound: 3 story office and training space. Not shown: intern housing, garden, storage and workshop space.
Current AIDG office. Pictured: Former intern Emily Freeh
Yesterday we did a walk-through of our new AIDG compound for training and design. Anyone who has been with us in Guatemala or has visited our current office knows that it’s on the small side with not enough space for experimentation and storage. The new compound will give us far better resources for training and design, including a Fab Lab style facility for BOP engineering.
Under construction: Intern and visiting researcher housing
Under construction: Intern and visiting researcher housing
Under construction: Fab-lab spaceThe overall compound will include a fully equipped machine shop/fabrication facility and a 3-story office and training space where we will have an electronics and water testing lab (2nd floor). Two side buildings will cover housing for interns, visiting research groups and entrepreneur teams coming in from other regions. Throughout the grounds will be technical training and experimental design stations focused on our technologies. We’ll also be moving our “Petting Zoo” into this space.
Part of the existing eco-roof buildout that we hope to port to the new space. More pics/info.
A chunk of the big move will happen within the next 2 weeks. We’re going to try to keep as much of the eco-roof buildout as we can. Much of AIDG’s board will be on deck to help.
Papa Carlos & Mama Coney with a UCB Batch Solar Water Heater installed on their roof in Guatemala
The space is being rented to us by the sister of the famous Papa Carlos, seen in this CNN story about the Berkeley solar hot water team (CalSolAgua). Many interns have stayed with Papa Carlos and Mama Coney, who have become a significant part of the AIDG family here in Guatemala.
Under renovation: Interior of the office space
Dorit Leavitt, Steve Lee, Pete Haas, Steve Crowe. Cat Laine behind the camera.Related posts:
Neil Gershenfeld at PopTech and AIDG’s Dream of a Guatemalan Fab Lab
AIDG’s Environmental Education Center: Proyecto Futuros Verdes (Xela, Guatemala)
Building with Bottles at AIDG Guatemala
Low cost solar water heater for Guatemala: AIDG and UC Berkeley research team partner up
February 11th, 2009 at 12:49 am
Wow! This is fantastic. I can’t wait to come back down (hopefully this summer) to take advantage of the new lab - this will make world of difference. Great work!
June 5th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Our upcoming site is Voltaicdata.com
We are interested in live web cam of your construction of the the builing soon on your site.
June 13th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
The New facility will be excellent . From your photos you will have a better facility to hose the ares in your planning. Expansion is a good sign of success.