Hands on Makerspace builds confidence, opens opportunities for youth

Nick Tobier, professor of art and design at the Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design at the University of Michigan, focuses on collaborative projects in the public realm and the potential of public spaces.

Nick is also the co-founder of the Detroit-based Brightmoor Makerspace, in partnership with Detroit Community Schools. Utilizing the ideals of the Waldorf method—learning with your head, heart and hands—youth and adults build their practical making skills, incubate business ideas and gain creative confidence.

Through their federally funded "Neighbors Pavilions" project—houseless porches, originally created as outdoor classrooms during Covid, turned into public community spaces—the Makerspace was invited to present at the U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale. In November, Tobier and two students from the Makerspace will speak at the closing ceremony of the international festival for some of the greatest architectural minds in the world.

What are some of the skills that participants get to use at the Makerspace and what are they primarily working on?

So we are in some ways, at times, what I would describe as 'militantly low tech'...we do a lot with our hands. We do a lot with power tools, honestly, like things that you could chop your fingers off with if you wanted to, but in some ways, straightforward dimensional lumber. So we build a lot of furniture. We built some living edge tables. We upcycle fashion right now, so there's a lot of tie-dying, screen printing, jewelry. We've gone from furniture to things that are approaching tiny houses, which is our next, I don't want to say frontier because that sounds too colonial and western expansion, but we've built things that you could live in. 

So although we build furniture and we do a lot of woodworking, I always say we're not training woodworkers, but we're building creative confidence. So if you use a chop saw for the first time or something you were scared of, you think 'Oh, it's possible I can do something that I didn't think was possible,' and then, 'What do I want to do with my life?' rather than 'What am I left with because that's what's open to me?'

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