While I was in Seattle visiting friends and family the other week, I had a chance to visit Metrix Create:Space and Jigsaw Renaissance. These are two of the public hackerspaces in the Seattle area. Metrix is run along more business and less club lines. People can show up and work on things, rent tools or time on the makerbots or the laster cutter, and generally sit around developing projects. Jigsaw Renaissance is a hackerspace on more common lines, as a sort of member-based social club. In that model, which we were also using for Ace Monster Toys, people pay for membership in the space and can use it as they wish. When more expensive items need to be purchased, the group raises funds internally in order to facilitate things. This kind of space also builds a bit more of a community, in my experience, as it isn’t being run as any one individual’s personal profit making business.
That being said, both spaces look to be interesting places to check out. I definitely felt more at home with what Jigsaw Renaissance wants to do. You can find both spaces near Capitol Hill.
I put up photos from Metrix Create:Space and Jigsaw Renaissance up on Flickr in order to help people get a sense of the spaces.
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