The Renaissance of Repair: A Timely Opportunity for Fabrication Research

2026-05-11

AI Summary

While existing research on personal fabrication acknowledges sustainability, it rarely centers on repair and lacks systematic technical and methodological support for repair practices. This work proposes the first repair-centered framework for personal fabrication, structuring the repair process into five phases: problem identification, solution exploration, material sourcing, implementation, and testing. Integrating perspectives from human-computer interaction, sustainable manufacturing, and user-driven design, the study analyzes key challenges and research opportunities within each phase. By establishing a novel paradigm that explicitly foregrounds repair in fabrication research, this paper shifts the focus from disposable production toward maintainable and enduring making practices, laying a theoretical foundation for future tools, platforms, and community ecosystems that empower users to independently repair their possessions.

Abstract

Through the rise of the right-to-repair movement, along with supporting legislation, we are currently witnessing an attitude shift in favor of repairing. This opens up various opportunities for personal fabrication research. Although the field has shifted more towards sustainable practices, repair is rarely the main focus. In this paper, we want to make the case for repair-centered fabrication research as a timely, relevant, impactful, and therefore meaningful topic. We describe potential avenues researchers could pursue by defining repair as a five-step process, including issue identification, exploring solutions, acquiring materials, performing the repair, and testing, and discuss challenges and opportunities for each step.

Problem

• repair
• fabrication research
• right-to-repair
• sustainability
• personal fabrication

Innovation

• repair-centered fabrication
• personal fabrication
• sustainable practices
• right-to-repair
• fabrication research