Inclusive hands-on classes
Small-group DIY and repair workshops led by women and non-binary instructors in a peer-supported environment.
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Service design case study
Project Forge
A community-centered service concept for helping women and non-binary Seattleites build repair skills, access tools, and feel welcome in material reuse spaces.
Challenge
Repair culture had an access problem.
The team began with a broad design question about equitable material reuse in Seattle, then narrowed the opportunity to repair education. Research showed that tool libraries can be powerful community infrastructure, but repair spaces often feel gendered, intimidating, or difficult to enter for people who have not been welcomed into hands-on technical work.
How might we empower women and non-binary individuals to access tools, build repair skills, and participate in a material reuse commons that supports confidence, independence, and community belonging?
Research
from ecosystem to service requirements
The work followed a 20-week Double Diamond process, using mixed research methods to move from a broad material reuse question to a pilotable service.
20 weeks
research, design, pilot testing, and handoff
6+ orgs
visited across Seattle's reuse and repair ecosystem
15 hours
volunteering-as-a-method in the field
34 posts
documented through netnography
- Literature review
- Netnography across DIY and home repair communities
- Field visits to circular economy organizations
- Volunteering-as-a-method
- Subject-matter expert interviews
- Community needs survey
- Resource and ecosystem mapping
- Discover: literature review, field visits, volunteering, netnography, interviews, and ecosystem mapping.
- Define: narrowed the material reuse question into a repair-learning access problem.
- Develop: shaped classes, task-based toolkits, and a catalog around inclusive participation.
- Deliver: ran pilots, measured confidence shifts, and handed off an implementation playbook.
Insights
what the research made clear
- Repair needs to be normalized as an everyday community practice, not treated as a niche technical skill.
- Communities who could benefit most from repair skills often face barriers around cost, confidence, transportation, and access.
- Repair spaces can feel gendered, which discourages women and non-binary people from participating.
- Structured, peer-led, hands-on learning is more welcoming than unsupported self-directed learning.
- Repair works best as a collective skill that builds knowledge-sharing and community connection.
- Visible women and non-binary mentors matter because representation changes what feels possible.
Solution
A minimum viable service for inclusive repair learning.
Project Forge became a service model that Seattle REconomy could pilot and scale inside its tool library ecosystem. The service focused on three launchable components rather than a large abstract platform.
Task-based toolkits
Curated sets of tools and instructions for specific repair jobs, used during classes and available for independent borrowing.
Toolkit catalog
A physical binder or future digital catalog that helps patrons find the right toolkit by task, category, and difficulty.
Validation
Testing turned the concept into a service handoff.
The team tested the concept through hands-on repair workshops at the NE Seattle Tool Library, including a drywall repair class and a frame-building workshop using power tools. Feedback between sessions shaped clearer materials, better pacing, stronger safety guidance, and more intentional opportunities for peer connection.
2/5 to 4/5
average confidence with power tools before and after the final pilot
5/5
participants reported increased comfort and capability using tools
5/5
participants said the instructor identity made the space feel comfortable, safe, and supported
4/5
rated the toolkit very helpful to their learning
Handoff
made to be used after capstone
- Implementation playbook for Seattle REconomy Tool Libraries
- Class planning checklist from pre-planning through post-class debrief
- Toolkit guidance and reusable instruction sheet template
- Toolkit catalog guidance for physical and future digital versions
- Feedback loops and post-workshop survey recommendations
- Success metrics for membership, class demand, toolkit use, confidence, community connection, and volunteer retention
Leadership
product takeaways
- Treated emotional safety, physical safety, and representation as service requirements, not side notes.
- Scoped a large systems problem into a pilotable minimum viable service.
- Turned research and workshop evidence into an implementation artifact a partner organization could actually use.
Built from the Project Forge process book and implementation playbook. The original PDFs are not published on this site.