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The Owl’s Nest makes it possible to create environments in different places where people can make, repair, learn, share knowledge, investigate, meet and participate through practical activity. Technical, creative, educational and social activities can exist alongside one another and complement each other.
A shareable work model has been developed within the project for this purpose. Operators give that model concrete form at their own locations, with their own spaces, people, knowledge, equipment and activities. This allows the same basis to be applied in different situations and for different purposes.
For local authorities, schools, funders, policymakers and other organisations and professionals, this work can be relevant from different domains. The pages below show how the shared work model relates to those domains.
Making can be about more than solving a technical problem. Form, sound, imagination, craft knowledge and cultural meaning may become central to what someone creates, explores or shares. The work model can accommodate both informal creative practice and more specialised artistic work.
Learning does not have to take place in a classroom or formal course. Explaining, demonstrating, trying things independently, examining mistakes and exchanging knowledge can all be part of practical activity. This allows formal, non-formal and informal learning to exist alongside one another.
Practical work often begins with wanting to understand how something works. Investigation, measurement, design, fabrication, maintenance and adaptation can bring technical problem solving, craft knowledge and scientific inquiry into the same environment without treating them as identical.
Gardening and other work with living systems connect directly with nature and the environment. Other activities may also raise questions about materials, resources, waste, measurement or environmental consequences when those issues become part of the work itself.
Products, components and materials can often remain useful for longer than their first intended use. Maintenance, repair, adaptation and reuse can preserve value and reduce unnecessary waste. This domain makes that practical relationship visible without reducing circularity to recycling alone.
Digital systems increasingly shape access, participation and control. This domain therefore extends beyond computer skills to questions of privacy, ownership, interoperability, documentation, free software and the ability to understand, change or leave the systems people depend on.
Participation can begin simply with being welcome, being present and having a meaningful role. Shared projects, reciprocal help, knowledge exchange and social relationships can create ways to contribute without requiring formal volunteering, employment or organised group activity.
Practical activity can provide a setting in which someone receives support while pursuing personally meaningful goals and everyday participation. The support may be informal, peer-based or professional; the activity itself does not automatically become care or treatment.
The capabilities within the work model can relate to a domain in different ways. On the domain pages they are recognisable by the same activity badges used elsewhere on the website. With a direct relationship, the connection is already part of the central meaning of the capability itself; with an indirect relationship, it arises from the way an activity is applied, supported or used in a particular context.
The terms direct and indirect describe the relationship within the shared work model. They do not automatically describe what a particular operator offers. A relationship with a domain also does not give The Owl’s Nest or an operator formal status as, for example, an educational institution, care provider or cultural institution.
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