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Oliver
Belonging is being able to express who you are and what's important to you, have it resonate with those around you, and vice versa.
Their Story
Oliver believes belonging forms when a place gives people an easy reason to show up, so connection happens through shared activity rather than forced socializing. He values practical, inviting gathering spaces and hands-on routines that can pull attention away from "phone head" and toward shared goals. He's especially sharp about the small frictions (noise, air quality, equipment waiting, inclusivity assumptions) that determine whether a community space actually works.
In Their Words
"[A maker space] is somewhere you can be creative and have a sense of community, but if it is the workplace, it's still work. It's both community and a little bit of stress."
"Maker spaces can be loud and have air pollution. Multiple people might be trying to use the same tool, and you have to wait. You might go in the evening to work on something for fun and it should feel relaxing, but someone's running the router in the background and it's so loud, and someone else needs the table for their class."
"We would go to the machine shop. It's almost like work, but you're doing something really fun. Your day is very structured—you decide what you're going to do, who you're going to partner with—and it definitely becomes a community. People come back, you get to know each other, and you have shared goals."
"From Gen Z, everyone's very used to a lot of passive input. It can make it harder to access building with your hands at first, but then it's so much more rewarding when you do it and learn skills and feel that sense of accomplishment. For me, it gets you out of the 'phone head.' You have to make something out of whatever's in front of you. It's creative, and it's active."
"It's not a given in maker spaces. Engineering is a very white male thing, and there are automatic assumptions about what you might know and what skills you might have. If you say anyone can come but you assume prior knowledge, it's not necessarily a welcoming space. Making sure people don't feel that pressure, and making sure everyone gets attention and has a place to go, is part of creating community and belonging."
"Make sure you have a gathering space, a place where everyone can meet and talk, and where the physical space feels inviting. If the space is bad, people won't stay. If the space is good, it will attract people to spend time there and connect naturally."
Ideal Home
Making
Oliver's ideal home drawing presents a makerspace that feels like a library, with large doors, long shared tables, quieter desks by windows, clear material storage, a partially separated machine area, a bookable meeting room, and a display zone that highlights what members create.
