The Fab Lab is a high-tech, small-scale workshop that mimics a mass production factory. The concept, which originated at MIT, is a high tech design studio and digital fabrication lab that provides a hands on experience designing and building prototype inventions.
The Lab will be open for public use. As a result, Sarasota’s garage inventors will literally give form to their ideas. Funded through the generosity of the Faulhaber Family Foundation, the Fab Lab is designed to promote science literacy, cross-disciplinary collaboration and innovation. In Dr. Faulhaber’s view, “An idea in one person’s head has little effect. An idea in the world is something else. That’s how change and innovation begin.”
Sweet Sparkman Architects was responsible for design through construction administration. Schematic design through permit drawings were completed within 90 days, and permitting was complete within 15 days. Project requirements called for 100% fresh air intake through the redesign of the existing air distribution system, ventilation of each milling, welding, and etching machines, and 100 foot-candle lighting levels across the entire fabrication area.
