The Agbogbloshie scrapyard in Accra, Ghana is infamous world-wide as a symbol of the environmental impact of planned obsolescence in electronics. It is a hub in the West African subregion for scrap and reprocessing of industrially manufactured goods and equipment. Agbogbloshie and the adjoining Accra Timber Market additionally support a maker ecosystem that spans compact carpentry and electrician workshops, metal and machine fabricators to tinsmiths, blacksmiths and cottage foundries.
Agbogbloshie Makerspace Platform (AMP) is a pan-African participatory design initiative to build alternative futures for Agbogbloshie and beyond. The design for deployable makerspace kiosks integrates “plug-in” equipment and toolkits with a digital network for making, sharing and trading. Working in and around the Agbogbloshie scrapyard since 2014, >2000 youth from West Africa, Europe and the United States have collaborated to iteratively design and prototype AMP spacecraft: an open architecture for “crafting space”.
Modular, mobile, low-cost and open-source, spacecraft operates as a set of tools and equipment to craft hybrid physical-digital spaces, enabling makers with limited means to jointly navigate and terraform their environment. The prefabricated kiosk assembly features steel semi-octet trusses, sized to utilize steel reinforcement bar off-cuts and joined with bolts recovered from automotive scrap.
AMP is internationally recognized for championing open design and manufacturing out of Africa. To date four AMP spacecraft modules have been deployed in Accra, Ghana; in Dakar, Senegal for Afropixel6 digital arts festival and Dak’art Contemporary African Art Biennale (2017); and for the exhibition, Digital Imaginaries: Africas in Production, at the ZKM | Center for Arts and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany (2018-2019). Two more are currently under construction, with a base cost approaching $5000 for a frame of 25 cubic meters size.
