LAUDS Experimental Interface
Discover how your production space contributes to a more local, accessible, digital, and sustainable production ecosystem. Complete a short assessment, generate your LAUDS profile, and join the European Production Map alongside makerspaces, labs, factories, and production companies shaping the future of urban production.
Production spaces are more than places where things are made. They generate knowledge, build local networks, experiment with new technologies, and create opportunities for their communities. Yet these qualities often remain difficult to recognize and communicate.
The LAUDS Experimental Interface helps production spaces reflect on these broader dimensions through a shared assessment framework. In just a few minutes, you can explore how your organisation approaches locality, accessibility, sustainability, collaboration, knowledge sharing, and other key aspects of contemporary urban production.
The outcome is not a certification or a score. It is a visual profile that highlights the characteristics of your production space, helping you identify strengths, reveal opportunities for development, and communicate your practices more clearly.
By completing the assessment, your organisation also becomes part of the European Production Map, a growing network that makes Europe’s diverse production ecosystem more visible, connected, and easier to discover.
Values
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Factory
The term “factory” refers to open and sustainable manufacturing facilities that specialise in small series-production.
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Local
This aspect emphasises the geographical proximity of the factories to urban and metropolitan areas. By being local, LAUDS factories minimise distribution costs and environmental impact associated with transportation. They also tap into local resources and materials, fostering a sense of community and supporting the growth of local businesses. The focus on locality encourages the incubation of new business activities within the neighbourhood, contributing to economic development.
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Accessible
Accessibility refers to both physical access to the factories and the availability of opportunities for experimentation and collaboration, LAUDS factories prioritise small-batch production, allowing for flexibility and adaptability in manufacturing processes. The “open lab” business model encourages experimentation and prototyping, enabling businesses to tailor their production methods to suit their specific needs. This accessibility fosters innovation and supports the growth of diverse businesses.
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Urban
The urban aspect of LAUDS factories highlights their role as social hubs that bring together diverse communities, including artists, SMEs, mid-caps, and star-ups. By leveraging the cultural richness of urban centers, these factories facilitate collaboration and knowledge-sharing across different disciplines. This collaborative approach fosters creativity and innovation, driving forward solutions to local and global challenges.
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Digital
Digitalisation plays a key role in the LAUDS concept, enabling collaboration, data generation, and access to digital tools. While the focus isn’t on digital solutions (development of digital products), LAUDS factories leverage digital innovations to enhance the collaboration process. Digital tools enable distributed design and co-creation, allowing stakeholders to work together coherently and smoothly across different locations. This digital infrastructure supports efficient production and promotes innovation in manufacturing processes.
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Sustainable
Sustainability is another core concept of the LAUDS factories, both socially and environmentally. Social sustainability is achieved through accessibility, empowering individuals and communities with the tools they need to participate in the manufacturing process. Environmentally, LAUDS promotes circular transformation by utilising local raw materials and embracing principles such as recycling, remanufacturing, and the use of secondary materials. By adopting sustainable practices, LAUDS factories minimise their environmental footprint and contribute to the transition towards a more sustainable economy.
Why this tool?
Production is changing. Across Europe, makerspaces, labs, factories, and production companies are creating value in ways that go beyond manufacturing alone. They strengthen local economies, share knowledge, experiment with digital technologies, and contribute to more resilient communities.
The LAUDS Experimental Interface was created to make these practices visible through a shared framework. Rather than focusing only on productivity or output, it encourages organisations to reflect on the broader impact of their production activities and understand how they contribute to a more local, accessible, digital, and sustainable production ecosystem.
What do I get?
Completing the assessment gives you more than a place on the European Production Map.
You receive a visual profile of your production space that highlights how your organisation approaches different dimensions of production. The profile is designed to support reflection rather than evaluation, helping you recognise your strengths, identify opportunities for future development, and better communicate your production model.
By joining the map, your organisation also becomes part of a growing European network, making it easier for others to discover your work, understand your expertise, and explore future collaborations.
How does it work?
The assessment takes around 10 minutes to complete and consists of a short series of questions about your production space.
Once submitted, your answers generate a visual profile based on the LAUDS framework and add your organisation to the European Production Map.
Disclaimer
The assessment is not a certification, audit, or ranking. There are no passing scores or benchmarks to achieve. Instead, it provides a shared language for understanding production practices and encourages organisations to reflect on how they create value for people, places, and communities.
The resulting profile should be interpreted as a contextual reflection tool, rather than a definitive evaluation. Each dimension captures specific aspects of the LAUDS values and cannot fully represent the complexity of a production space. The profile is intended to support discussion, self-assessment, and continuous improvement, not to provide an absolute measure of performance.