Abstract

Waymakers Learning Lab is a youth makerspace in Johannesburg that celebrates learning through making. In the under-resourced urban context of Lorentzville and its surrounds, many young people lack access to spaces that nurture practical skills, creative agency and personal identity development. Waymakers’ offers a low-threshold, experiential learning approach delivered through circular making practices that support diverse intelligences. This learning ecosystem is housed within an unused warehouse at Victoria Yards (an adaptive reuse precinct known for edible gardens, shared resources, and a culture of making). The learning lab draws on existing educational initiatives within the precinct, particularly targeting teenagers aged 15 to 19. Learning is not facilitated by traditional teachers, but by local makers, artists and architects. Project-based learning, peer collaboration and mentorship foster both practical competence and emotional resilience. The initiative is supported by the broader Makers Valley Partnership network, drawing on tangible (tools, materials, spaces) and intangible (mentorship, peer learning, local knowledge and livelihood creation) resources.

Waymakers is grounded in an ecological worldview that recognises the world’s interdependent ecosystem of connections between people, materials and places. In nature, nothing is truly waste, but merely a resource with the potential to be reimagined. Waymakers uses circular practices as a medium for hands-on learning, piloting a local material bank that reclaims, processes, and redistributes discarded interior fit-out construction materials through community-led making projects. These practices create an active learning environment that transforms waste into opportunities for personal agency, ecological stewardship and community regeneration. 

At its core, Waymakers challenges the epistemic hierarchy that positions practical skills as “lesser” knowledge. It restores dignity to tacit, embodied ways of knowing, recognising their value in shaping the world at a human scale. Participants engage with a spectrum of learning environments, moving between individual experimentation and collaborative construction, creating a reciprocal ecosystem in which skills, knowledge, and resources circulate. In this model, making is not merely a production process, but an act of care for self, others, and the environment. By linking ecological regeneration with epistemic justice, Waymakers equips young people to craft viable livelihoods, establish micro-enterprises, and contribute to the resilience of their urban fabric. It is both a space and a system of reciprocity, restoring the value of making as a way for youth to create resilient futures for themselves and their city.

Keywords: experiential learning, circular economy, spatial agency, epistemic justice, low-threshold, ecological worldview, adaptive reuse