Fablab Saigon

Ho Chi Minh City's first makerspace, launched in March 2014 - the first community-run space in Vietnam, bringing a digital fabrication workshop, a cafe and a coworking area under one roof.

Fablab Saigon is an open community fabrication space (makerspace), currently at 9/3 Ly Van Phuc, District 1, combining three functions under one roof: a digital fabrication workshop, a cafe and a coworking area. The space started in March 2014 and is recorded as the first fablab and makerspace in Ho Chi Minh City, as well as the first community-run working space in Vietnam. It is part of the global Fab Lab network, registered on fablabs.io - a workshop model originating at MIT where anyone can come and use machines to make things themselves. The team states its mission as spreading the capacity to innovate through digital fabrication and championing the Maker movement as a different way of thinking about consumption, the economy and society; the British Council also classes Fablab Saigon among creative and digital innovation spaces of the Maker Space type, with workshops, themed talks and making events as its main activities. The space has changed address at least twice: the official contact page still lists the old address at 44/10 Nguyen Van Dau, Binh Thanh, British Council reports give Vista Verde, 2 Phan Van Dang, District 2, while the current working address is 9/3 Ly Van Phuc, District 1. This is a place to make things rather than to look at them: visitors usually take part in a workshop, use the machines themselves or attend talks about technology and fabrication. The current list of machines, the per-session membership fees and whether casual visitors may look around freely have not been clearly confirmed, so anyone interested should get in touch before coming. The space suits people who love making, engineering, 3D printing and electronics, founders who need to build prototypes, and groups of engineering students; it should not be treated as a sightseeing stop, because its real value lies in taking part. You can combine a visit with the Tan Dinh and Da Kao areas in District 1, or with Toong Teng Ceramic, also on Ly Van Phuc Street. Since the address has changed several times and both the official site and the British Council reports still list old addresses, use the current Ly Van Phuc address and call ahead; the website fablabsaigon.org is currently under maintenance but still lists the hotline and email +84 365 713 381 (the older number on the site is +84 949 716 313) and hello@fablabsaigon.org, and the profile on fablabs.io still confirms the Ly Van Phuc address, so the space can be considered to be operating normally. It opens Tuesday to Friday from 10:00 to 18:00 and Saturday from 9:00 to 17:00, closed Sunday and Monday. As the workshop contains a lot of machinery, visitors must follow its safety rules.

English text: machine translation from the Localis platform — proper names kept in Vietnamese.