— 657 664 Celebration & Contemplation, 10th International Conference on Design & Emotion 27 — 30 September 2016, Amsterdam Introduction I initially became interested in collaborative maker spaces when a colleague mentioned he was part of an all-night hack-a-thon hosted in Minneapolis, Minnesota to respond to the digital needs of area non-profit companies. I was fascinated by the notion of an informal, creative environment, seemingly unified by little more than a group’s shared interest in making something. I wondered about how these entities came together, and what made them, and the individuals who constituted them, work effectively. Over time, my exposure to a variety of maker spaces, and my subsequent conversations with people involved in them, led me to a specific question, “What are the most significant factors in the emergence of a sense of community in collaborative maker spaces?” This question became the basis of a phenomenological investigation into the nature of identity and interaction amongst individuals in collaborative maker spaces. To explore this question, I embedded myself as an artist-in-residence at Standard Projects, a small multidisciplinary maker studio in Hortonville, Wisconsin. The studio was started in 2014 by artist and designer Claire Abitz. My decision to use Standard Projects as the context for my inquiry was based on three characteristics of the studio, which I did not find elsewhere. First, the studio has a residency program. This attribute was primary in my decision-making, as I wanted to consider the studio’s social structure and interpersonal dynamics from within that structure and with the ability to contribute to its dynamics. Second, the studio had been founded fairly recently. Due to this, I reasoned that its social network would still be emerging and thus, might provide more insightful observations related to the process of relationship building. Third, I saw evidence in the marketing and news content associated with the studio of an emphasis on sustainability and ecologically sensitive practices. I felt that, in this way, the value structure of the studio aligned with my own, and therefore hoped this similarity would lead to productive interaction. During August of 2015, I spent eight days living and working at Standard Projects. My activities during this time involved interviewing, collaborating, and socializing with the other artists-in-residence, as well as with many members of the studio’s broader social network. Having reflected upon these experiences and compared my initial conclusions with those of others, three factors have emerged as being the most prominent in influencing the development of a sense of community at Standard Projects. These factors are skill, instruction, and emotion, described below. Factors in community building The factors described herein are three related ideas, and are understood to be influential in the development of a sense of community at Standard Projects. These ideas were identified based on experiential investigation and systematic reflection and corroboration with others. I present these ideas as categories of description, which are intended to generalize the knowledge derived from this inquiry to aid in understanding the development of a sense of community within other collaborative maker spaces. Skill Individual skill was understood as a major influence in how interpersonal relationships develop. The character of this skill can be analyzed along two main axes, the nature of an individual’s skills (e.g., woodworking) and skill level (e.g., expert). During my time at the studio, no individual was considered to be the most proficient with all media or techniques. Instead, it was understood that each person brought to the enterprise either a unique level of competence with a particular process or material, or a breadth of knowledge that could be used to facilitate communication. Skill was identified as a primary determiner of opportunities for collabo