Arts University Plymouth has announced the renaming of Fab Lab Plymouth to Fab Lab South West, reflecting the pivotal role that the Fab Lab plays as a regional hub for digital innovation, entrepreneurship, and education in the South West of England. The announcement was made during the Big Creative UK Summit on 6-7 February 2025, hosted in partnership with Arts University Plymouth and the University of Plymouth, marking a new chapter for the largest Fab Lab in the region.
Founded by Arts University Plymouth in 2014, Fab Lab South West has empowered businesses, students, and the public by providing access to cutting-edge digital fabrication technologies. The Fab Lab has fostered a culture of innovation, bridging traditional crafts with contemporary technologies, and contributing significantly to Plymouth's creative economy.
Renaming the facility to Fab Lab South West underscores its expanding importance in driving the region’s creative and technological advancements. As part of the global Fab Lab Network, which includes over 2,400 labs across more than 90 countries, Fab Lab South West connects businesses, regional makers and artists with an international community of innovators.
Professor Paul Fieldsend-Danks, Vice Chancellor of Arts University Plymouth and member of the UK Council for Creative UK, said: “Fab Lab South West exemplifies the transformative power of creative technologies in solving real-world challenges. This renaming reflects our commitment to supporting innovation, sustainability, and collaboration across the South West, empowering individuals and creative businesses to thrive.”
Design engineer Ben Mundy, Fab Lab Manager at Arts University Plymouth, added: “From rapid prototyping for startups to interdisciplinary collaborations, our lab has been a catalyst for change. As Fab Lab South West, we look forward to working with a wider range of businesses and makers across the region, broadening access to digital fabrication technologies and shaping the future of making in the South West.”
Renaming of Fab Lab South West was announced alongside Arts University Plymouth’s joint hosting of Creative UK’s Big Creative Summit for the South West region. Creative UK is the independent network for the UK’s creative industries, connecting, investing, supporting and championing the Creative Industries and creative voices across the UK.
Celebrating success: Innovation across sectors
Fab Lab South West has supported a diverse range of projects since it first opened, showcasing the breadth of achievements within its facilities. Some highlights include:
Agrikinetics: Sustainable innovation – A research project focused on growing elephant grass for sustainable insulation and building materials. Agrikinetics approached the Lab to explore whether the grass could replace imported paper and card pulp. Fab Lab South West produced moulds and a proof of concept for cartons, enabling Dorset-based Agrikinetics to put the ideas into production.
Sagetech: Reducing healthcare's carbon footprint – Fab Lab South West collaborated with Sagetech to prototype and develop equipment for anaesthetic gas capture, addressing a critical environmental challenge in healthcare. Anaesthetic gases, which have long atmospheric lifetimes and high global warming potentials, contribute significantly to healthcare’s carbon footprint. The equipment designed in partnership with Sagetech captures these gases, preventing their release into the atmosphere and helping to mitigate the healthcare industry’s impact on climate change.
Barnaby’s Brewhouse: Circular economy leadership – Devon-based Barnaby’s Brewhouse partnered with Fab Lab South West to tackle carbon dioxide emissions produced during beer fermentation. The Lab collaborated with the brewers to design and prototype a CO2 capture and purification system, enabling the reuse of CO2 to carbonate their beers. This innovation reduces reliance on external suppliers of fossil fuel-derived CO2, aligning with the brewery’s sustainable ethos. Once fully implemented, the system will capture more CO2 than needed for beer production, with potential applications for local agriculture under consideration.
Atkinson Architects: Enhancing renovation with digital precision – Renowned for their work on listed and heritage buildings across Devon and Cornwall, Atkinson Architects collaborated with Fab Lab South West to integrate advanced LiDAR scanning into their projects. The Lab supported the pulsed laser scanning of a Grade I-listed heritage structure on the Dartington Estate, providing highly accurate data to inform renovation projections. The partnership also resulted in the creation of an architectural model, enhancing project visualisation and planning for historic sites.
Aegean Diving Services: Cleaner marine maintenance – Aegean Diving Services, specialists in whole-boat cleaning, partnered with Fab Lab South West to design an innovative shroud for their underwater grinding equipment. The shroud enables the capture of detritus created during cleaning, preventing pollution and ensuring compliance with stricter environmental regulations. This collaboration demonstrates how digital fabrication can support sustainability in marine industries.
Laura Quinn: Innovating wearable glass – Internationally recognised glass artist Laura Quinn worked with Fab Lab South West to design bespoke connecting components for her wearable glass art. Using a combination of traditional glassblowing techniques and digital technologies, the collaboration allowed Laura to create modular, interchangeable designs that push the boundaries of how glass is used. This work reflects her commitment to sustainability and innovation in craft, making her pieces more durable, repairable, and adaptable.
The announcement also celebrates the international profile of the Fab Lab, exemplified by Fab Foundation President Sherry Lassiter’s recent keynote speech at Arts University Plymouth’s Making Futures 2024 conference. Lassiter, a key figure in the global Fab Lab movement established at MIT, emphasised how digital fabrication is driving sustainability, innovation, and community building worldwide.
This renaming aligns with Plymouth’s status as the UK’s first Fab City, a global initiative committed to producing everything the city consumes by 2054, and builds on Arts University Plymouth’s leadership in the creative industries.
For more information on the range of services available and how to work with Fab Lab South West, visit http://fablabsouthwest.org.uk.