Innovation and Maker Spaces (IMS) must evolve from their traditional workshop roots to address the pervasive yet often overlooked mental and emotional harms that undermine collaboration and inclusivity. By embedding EPIC (Emotionally, Physically, Intellectually, and Cognitively) safety protocols into their culture and design, IMS can foster environments where diverse communities thrive creatively, collaboratively, and equitably, unlocking their full transdisciplinary potential.
Establishing Whole Person Safety for EPIC Transdisciplinary Collaboration
Introduction
Innovation and Maker Spaces (IMS) are the descendants of traditional workshops, where physical safety protocols have long been essential to ensure stakeholders remain free from bodily harm. The need for physical safety measures, such as clearly defined equipment training and operational guidelines, is well understood, as physical dangers are often immediately recognizable. However, mental and emotional harm—far less visible but far more pervasive—often occurs daily yet frequently goes unaddressed. While physical injury is damaging, it tends to affect the individual, while mental and emotional harm can be destructive to the entire IMS community for years.
Because IMS have evolved from traditional shop cultures that historically served a narrow demographic, they often reinforce systems of inequity rooted in misogyny, white supremacy, and systemic bias. These inequities have fostered exclusionary cultures that privilege certain groups while marginalizing the vast majority, perpetuating barriers to interest, access, and participation. Therefore, most IMS communities require thoroughly reexamining and redesigning their culture. Embedding holistic safety measures into all aspects of an IMS to create a physically and mentally safe, transdisciplinary workspace is the first step toward inclusion, attraction, and universal adoption—one that welcomes and supports the “whole person.”
Toward an EPIC IMS Safety
An Innovation and Maker Space designed with integrated mental and physical preventative and response safety protocols can be considered an "EPIC space" — one that is Emotionally, Physically, Intellectually, and Cognitively secure. Such spaces prioritize the holistic well-being of their community members by fostering an environment where individuals are safe from judgment or harm and can be themselves, explore new ideas, and take creative risks without fear. This transformation establishes a dynamic and inclusive culture where everyone is empowered to thrive collaboratively and intellectually.
At its core, an EPIC IMS fosters a transdisciplinary community through five intentional development stages of engagement and empowerment. The process begins with Diverse Representation, ensuring historically excluded communities have an authentic voice and a visible and active presence in the IMS. From there, this Community of Belonging establishes the infrastructure and initiatives that establish mutual respect, shared purpose, and genuine inclusion. Like a dinner party with close friends, this safe environment supports Unrestricted Ideas Culture follows, encouraging community members to discuss ideas freely with one another and collectively embrace creative thinking. This enables Collaborative Conceptual Thinking, driving the co-creation of transformative, transdisciplinary solutions through hands-on physical artifact design that asks complex questions. Finally, the empowered community supports Intellectual Exploration by applying insights learned through this new equitable culture to discover and solve transdisciplinary challenges.
The following outlines a customizable process IMS communities may use to develop their own EPIC safety framework, transforming its spaces into hubs of equity, transdisciplinary creativity, collective problem-solving, and a culture where all individuals and ideas can thrive.
1. Honest Discovery:
Creating an Innovation and Maker Space (IMS) environment that prioritizes physical safety alongside mental and emotional well-being is foundational to fostering equity, collaboration, and transdisciplinary exchange among all community members. Addressing whole-person EPIC safety begins with understanding the specific challenges and needs of the community. This requires collecting qualitative data through methods such as “fly on the wall” observation, anonymous interviews, and surveys with current and prospective IMS participants to assess the extent of inequalities they face in terms of mental and emotional safety. These insights should illuminate safety gaps related to equipment access, emotional well-being, and cultural inclusivity. By analyzing this data, IMS communities can develop a dual-focused assessment of need that addresses both tangible and intangible safety measures toward creating a supportive and inclusive EPIC environment where all community members are valued and protected.
2. Build a Diverse and Informed Team
To begin this process, IMS community leaders themselves must first develop an internal pedagogical framework to teach and confront their own inequitable beliefs. This establishes a baseline of awareness that transfers to the spaces they manage, preventing and perpetuating harm and exclusion within the environment they direct. After which, the crucial next step in addressing IMS safety inequities is assembling a diverse team of IMS staff and stakeholders that reflects the entire community the IMS seeks to include. Critically, they should possess sociocultural literacy and a deep understanding of equity principles, enabling them to recognize and dismantle the biases and power dynamics contributing to mental and emotional unsafety in the space. These individuals form an advisory team to the IMS EPIC safety assessment and (re)design, becoming a guiding force and establishing the foundation for creating policies, practices, and initiatives that prioritize equity and inclusivity. Team members must remain involved in the IMS after the work has been completed to transfer their experience to new incoming IMS community members.
3. Professionally Identify Mental and Emotional Risks
While the community and advisory team will play a key role in identifying solutions to risks, the subtle nuances of preventing mental and emotional harm often require a more comprehensive approach. This process ideally involves conducting a thorough external audit of community interactions, operating procedures, initiative designs, and the equipment and infrastructure that shape the IMS environment. In collaboration with the IMS advisory team, communities should consider engaging two external auditors: one focused on equity, mental and emotional strategies, and the other on the physical environment.
Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Justice (EDIJ) Specialists have expertise in applying a racially centered lens to EDIJ. They facilitate retreats, lead in-depth conversations, and conduct forensic culture audits. Their insights help identify systemic issues and empower the IMS community to develop effective mental and emotional safety protocols.
Certified Industrial Hygienists (CIH) bring specialized knowledge in environmental health and safety (EH&S) matters. They identify physical safety risks that may contribute to mental and emotional harm, working alongside the IMS community to develop tailored solutions. These unbiased teams will help determine the full scope of needs and offer valuable perspectives and pedagogical approaches to teach the IMS community how to best ensure EPIC safety.
By addressing these risks holistically, IMS communities can learn what is needed to design the systems and protocols required to mitigate harm, creating a safer, more equitable environment for all.
4. Guides for Addressing Mental and Emotional Harm
To begin, the advisory team builds on the learning from the two auditing teams to design a comprehensive framework, such as a Racial and Social Equity Roadmap and honor code, to guide their decision-making processes. These guidelines serve as the touchstones when developing all future EPIC safety measures and responses, such as inclusive identity design, bias awareness training, equitable equipment training, and equipment procurement practices that ensure infrastructure is designed to meet the needs of all users. Importantly, these guidelines are living documents that must remain open to refinements as the community grows and develops in the years to come.
5. (re)Design and “Patina”
The IMS advisory team utilizes its guidelines as a framework for the (re)design of both its internal and external identity and critically plays an active role and meaningful voice in the (re)design process. By directly contributing to every aspect of the visual and experiential (re)design, the advisory team maintains an authentic connection to the IMS, enabling them to see themselves reflected in its social and functional fabric—a powerful acknowledgment of belonging.
While physical safety protocols are relatively straightforward and can rely on well-documented medical responses to the first aid injury severity scale, categorizing the severity of an injury based on a 6-point scale (where one represents a minor injury and six indicates a maximal), designing for and addressing mental and emotional harm is far more challenging as it can manifest in subtle and subjective ways, ranging from unintentional microaggressions to overt discriminatory behavior, thus requiring a nuanced and proactive approach.
Because the advisory team represents the depth and breadth of the IMS community, this ensures that every graphic and physical design decision is rooted in their inherent understanding of the IMS community's core culture. For example, elements such as the IMS logo, color palette, physical artifacts, and graphic design components are more likely to be crafted to evoke trust, openness, and accessibility, fostering positive emotional connections when coming from community members themselves. In addition, by reflecting on the intentional use of space and design, prioritizing inclusivity, and addressing critical safety infrastructure needs, the advisory team carefully develops processes for creating physical artifacts or “patina” such as labels, signage, and interactive learning tools. These processes and the resulting “patina” voicelessly communicate the experiences of those who have engaged with the space into the future, building upon the richness of the diverse community and transforming a simple environment into a vibrant, living, humanistic ecosystem.
Establishing cyclical (re)design work that continuously iterates empowers community members to personally make the design elements, signaling, and environments that work to ensure EPIC safety and encourage collaborative interactions, curiosity, and creativity in their IMS.
Response Design
When developing responses to emotional or mental harm, avoid including staff with dual roles who are often too overburdened to provide immediate assistance. Instead, engage mental and emotional harm mediation professionals such as Title IX and Bias coordinators, diversity officers, mental health professionals, and public security personnel dedicated to these areas. These professionals collaborate with the community to co-design tailored responses that align with each event's unique context and dynamics. This approach ensures that harm is promptly identified, the underlying causes are assessed, and a resolution strategy is thoughtfully customized to the specific needs of those involved, fostering healing and long-term restoration. In addition, a zero-tolerance policy is critical because, although your IMS is designed to support everyone, individuals who cause harm are never welcome.
Commonly, a response protocol to mental and emotional harm requires a three-tiered severity scale that the IMS community can use as a reference to identify emotional and mental harm. These protocols focus on the most common types of mental and emotional harm IMS communities frequently encounter and provide structure for addressing it:
Unintentional Harm: Behaviors that may unintentionally offend or exclude, such as biased comments or inappropriate jokes.
Cultural Harm: Actions that violate established policies, such as community members allowing untrained individuals access to equipment.
Egregious Harm: Intentional actions that cause mental and emotional harm, including discriminatory language or refusal to respect individuals' identities.
When the mental or emotional harm has been identified, design each scenario to immediately activate a carefully structured sequence of healing, counseling, and communication protocols co-designed with mental and emotional harm pre-identified mediation professionals. Direct the matter to designated individuals or groups equipped with specialized training and the authority to effectively address and alleviate the harm. Once the person or group has been treated, work with the individual who caused the harm to determine if they can remain part of your community.
Conclusion:
Despite best efforts, every IMS community will remain vulnerable to physical and emotional harm. However, this process ensures that the IMS community has been empowered to develop the culture, infrastructure, and tools to respond quickly and effectively to incidents of emotional and mental harm.
All IMS spaces have the unique opportunity to transcend systemic inequities, transforming them into benchmarks for an inclusive culture that empowers communities in transdisciplinary solution development. However, to do so, equity and EPIC safety must be deeply embedded at every level for innovation and maker spaces to realize their full transdisciplinary potential. Intentional and inclusive EPIC harm-reducing design solutions cultivate a sense of belonging, empower collaboration, and spark groundbreaking ideas, establishing IMS environments that are accessible and transformative for al strengthening its community to build a more equitable world, becoming models of collaborative excellence and catalysts for transformative change on both local and global scales.
Janos Stone (edited from original 11.23.2024)
Artwork: Eric Hattan, Now way (detail)