Please join us for a discussion about the “gig economy” and maintenance. Gig workers (shoppers, drivers, etc) sustain daily life, and as such have been recognized as “essential workers.” But this dependence on gig workers raises an important question: what steps do companies, governments, and individuals take to maintain gig workers–or, in other words, to ensure that this form of labor is sustainable? Continue reading Virtual Event: The Gig Economy, A Precarious Form of Maintenance

Can’t make it to Liverpool on September 28th? Or just want a preview? We will be at the London Design Festival this weekend! The Non-Pavilion, in the Sackler Courtyard at the V&A, focuses on design and de-growth. How can design help to reverse over-consumption and production? Naomi Turner and Jen McArthur from the Festival of Maintenance will join Geraldine Dening from Architects for Social Housing … Continue reading London Design Festival: Debating maintenance and de-growth at the Non-Pavilion

Recently, I recorded an interesting conversation with Adrian McEwen. Adrian is co-founder of DoES Liverpool. Back in 1996, Adrian joined STNC and worked on early mobile browser technology. This was the HitchHiker framework which appears at the top of the timeline of web browsers included below. STNC was eventually acquired by Microsoft. Adrian explains how during his time at STNC, personal digital assistants (PDA) and … Continue reading Alternate History – Could the web have been easier to maintain?

Like most words, maintenance has several meanings. In this context maintenance is the process of keeping something in an existing state (of repair, efficiency, or validity). In self-organising biological systems from cells to landscapes, processes operate to repair and restore function. For example, wound healing is a complex repair process in which the skin and tissues repair themselves after injury. Can anything ever be maintenance … Continue reading Maintenance – The Tip of the Iceberg

In the lead-up to the 2019 Festival of Maintenance, we are catching up with some of our speakers from 2018 to reflect on the value of maintenance in our work and everyday lives. Oliver Holtaway advises social enterprises and mission-led businesses on strategy, research and communications, and helped to make Bath City FC a community-owned football club. See Oliver’s talk from the 2018 Festival here. … Continue reading How do you maintain a football club? Oliver Holtaway on the community takeover of Bath City FC

The 2018 Festival of Maintenance brought together a variety of fantastic speakers. Leading up to the 2019 Festival, we are catching up with some of our speakers from 2018 to reflect on the value of maintenance in our work and everyday lives. Alex Mecklenburg is a co-founder at Truth & Spectacle, a consultancy that helps organisations own their creativity as a business function for innovation … Continue reading Alex Mecklenburg on maintenance and why we need better stories

Repair is as important as innovation Continue reading The Economist piece on the Festival of Maintenance

Researcher, Hannah Fisher, reports from the London Festival of Maintenance and interviews Laura James, Daria Cybulska and Janet Gunter. Continue reading BBC report from the Festival of Maintenance

A summary of the day, audience feedback, and details of where Festival funds came from and what they were spent on. Continue reading Laura James reflects on the first Festival of Maintenance.