You reside in a home you designed and constructed your self. You depend on the solar for energy, warmth your private home with a woodstove, and farm your personal fish and greens. The yr is 2025.
That is the lifetime of Marcin Jakubowski, the 53-year-old founding father of Open Supply Ecology, an open collaborative of engineers, producers, and builders growing what they name the World Village Building Set (GVCS). It’s a set of fifty machines—every thing from a tractor to an oven to a circuit maker—which are able to constructing civilization from scratch and might be reconfigured nonetheless you see match.
Jakubowski immigrated to the US from Slupca, Poland, as a baby. His first encounter with what he describes because the “prosperity of know-how” was the vastness of the American grocery retailer. Seeing the sheer amount and number of completely ripe produce cemented his perception that ample, sustainable residing was inside attain in america.
With a bachelor’s diploma from Princeton and a doctorate in physics from the College of Wisconsin, Jakubowski had spent most of his life in class. Whereas his friends kick-started their shiny new company careers, he adopted a unique path after he completed his diploma in 2003: He purchased a tractor to begin a farm in Maysville, Missouri, desirous to show his concepts about abundance. “It was a transparent resolution to surrender the workplace cubicle or high-level analysis job, which is so centered on tiny points that one by no means will get to work on the massive image,” he says. However in only a quick few months, his tractor broke down—and he quickly went broke.
Each time his tractor malfunctioned, he had no selection however to pay John Deere for repairs—even when he knew the right way to repair the issue on his personal. John Deere, the world’s largest producer of agricultural tools, continues to ban farmers from repairing their very own tractors (besides in Colorado, the place farmers have been granted a proper to restore by state regulation in 2023). Fixing your personal tractor voids any insurance coverage or guarantee, very similar to jailbreaking your iPhone.
In the present day, giant agricultural producers have centralized management over the market, and most industrial tractors are constructed with proprietary elements. Yearly, farmers pay $1.2 billion in restore prices and lose an estimated $3 billion at any time when their tractors break down, totally as a result of giant agricultural producers have lobbied in opposition to the fitting to restore for the reason that ’90s. At present there are class motion lawsuits involving lots of of farmers preventing for his or her proper to take action.
“The machines personal farmers. The farmers don’t personal [the machines],” Jakubowski says. He grew sure that self-sufficiency relied on agricultural autonomy, which could possibly be achieved solely by free entry to know-how. So he got down to apply the ideas of open-source software program to {hardware}. He figured that if farmers might have entry to the directions and supplies required to construct their very own tractors, not solely would they have the ability to restore them, however they’d additionally have the ability to customise the automobiles for his or her wants. Life-changing know-how must be out there to all, he thought, not managed by a choose few. So, with an understanding of mechanical engineering, Jakubowski constructed his personal tractor and put all his schematics on-line on his platform Open Supply Ecology.
That tractor Jakubowski constructed is designed to be taken aside. It’s a essential a part of the GVCS, a group of plug-and-play machines that may “construct a thriving economic system wherever on the planet … from scratch.” The GVCS features a 3D printer, a self-contained hydraulic energy unit known as the Energy Dice, and extra, every designed to be reconfigured for a number of functions. There’s even a GVCS micro-home. You should use the Energy Dice to energy a brick press, a sawmill, a automotive, a CNC mill, or a bioplastic extruder, and you’ll construct wind generators with the frames which are used within the residence.
Jakubowski compares the GVCS to Lego blocks and cites the Linux ecosystem as his inspiration. In the identical method that Linux’s supply code is free to examine, modify, and redistribute, all of the directions it’s worthwhile to construct and repurpose a GVCS machine are freely accessible on-line. Jakubowski envisions a future by which the GVCS parallels the Linux infrastructure, with customized instruments constructed to optimize agriculture, building, and materials fabrication in localized contexts. “The [final form of the GVCS] should be confirmed to permit environment friendly manufacturing of meals, shelter, client items, automobiles, gasoline, and different items—aside from unique imports (espresso, bananas, superior semiconductors),” he wrote on his Open Supply Ecology wiki.
The ethos of GVCS is paying homage to the Entire Earth Catalog, a countercultural publication that supplied a mix of critiques, DIY manuals, and survival guides between 1968 and 1972. Based by Stewart Model, the publication had the slogan “Entry to instruments” and was well-known for selling self-sufficiency. It closely featured the work of R. Buckminster Fuller, an American architect recognized for his geodesic domes (light-weight buildings that may be constructed utilizing recycled supplies) and for coining the time period “ephemeralization,” which refers back to the capability of know-how to allow us to do extra with much less materials, vitality, and energy.
Jakubowski owns the publication’s whole printed output, however he presents a pointy critique of its legacy in our present tradition of tech utopianism. “The primary buildings we constructed have been domes. Good concepts. However the open-source a part of that was probably not there but—Fuller patented his stuff,” he says. Fuller and the Entire Earth Catalog might have popularized an essential philosophy of self-reliance, however to Jakubowski, their failure to advocate for open collaboration stopped the final word imaginative and prescient of sustainability from coming to fruition. “The failure of the techno-utopians to arrange into a bigger motion of collaborative, open, distributed manufacturing resulted in a miscarriage of techno-utopia,” he says.
Not like software program, {hardware} can’t be infinitely reproduced or immediately examined. It requires manufacturing infrastructure and particular supplies, to not point out exhaustive documentation. There are bodily constraints—completely different port requirements, fluctuations in availability of supplies, and extra. And now that manufacturing chains are so globalized that manufacturing a sizzling tub can require elements from seven completely different international locations and 14 states, how can we count on something to be replicable in our yard? The answer, in line with Jakubowski, is to make know-how “applicable.”
Acceptable know-how is know-how that’s designed to be inexpensive and sustainable for a particular native context. The concept comes from Gandhi’s philosophy of swadeshi (self-reliance) and sarvodaya (upliftment of all) and was popularized by the economist Ernst Friedrich “Fritz” Schumacher’s e-book Small Is Stunning, which mentioned the idea of “intermediate know-how”: “Any clever idiot could make issues larger, extra complicated, and extra violent. It takes a contact of genius—and quite a lot of braveness—to maneuver in the other way.” As a result of completely different environments function at completely different scales and with completely different assets, it solely is sensible to tailor know-how for these situations. Photo voltaic lamps, bikes, hand-powered water pumps—something that may be constructed utilizing native supplies and maintained by the area people—are among the many most generally cited examples of applicable know-how.
This idea has traditionally been mentioned within the context of facilitating financial development in growing nations and adapting capital-intensive know-how to their wants. However Jakubowski hopes to make it common. He believes know-how must be applicable even in suburban and concrete locations with entry to supermarkets, {hardware} shops, Amazon deliveries, and different types of infrastructure. If know-how is designed particularly for these contexts, he says, end-to-end replica will likely be doable, making more room for collaboration and innovation.
What makes Jakubowski’s know-how “applicable” is his use of reclaimed supplies and off-the-shelf elements to construct his machines. By utilizing native supplies and broadly out there elements, he’s in a position to bypass the complicated international provide chains that proprietary know-how usually requires. He additionally buildings his schematics round ideas already acquainted to most people who find themselves concerned with {hardware}, making his constructing directions simpler to comply with.
Every little thing it’s worthwhile to construct Jakubowski’s machines must be out there round you, simply as every thing it’s worthwhile to find out about the right way to restore or function the machine is on-line—from blueprints to lists of supplies to meeting directions and testing protocols. “For those who’ve bought a wrench, you’ve bought a tractor,” his guide reads.
This spirit dates again to the ’70s, when the thought of constructing issues “moved out of the retired individual’s storage and into the younger individual’s relationship with the Volkswagen,” says Model. He references John Muir’s 1969 e-book Tips on how to Preserve Your Volkswagen Alive: A Guide of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat Fool and fondly remembers how the Beetle’s easy design and simply swapped elements made it frequent for homeowners to rebody their automobiles, combining the chassis of 1 with the physique of one other. He additionally mentions the impression of the Ford Mannequin T automobiles that, with a couple of additional elements, have been made into tractors in the course of the Nice Despair.
For Model, the concentrate on repairability is essential within the fashionable context. There was a time when John Deere tractors have been “applicable” in Jakubowski’s phrases, Model says: “A century earlier, John Deere took nice care to guarantee that his plowshares could possibly be taken aside and bolted collectively, which you could undo and redo them, substitute elements, and so forth.” The corporate “attracted insanely loyal prospects as a result of they regarded out for the farmers a lot,” Model says, however “they’ve actually reversed the orientation.” Echoing Jakubowski’s preliminary motivation for beginning OSE, Model insists that know-how is suitable to the extent that it’s repairable.
Even when yow will discover all of the elements you want from Lowe’s, constructing your personal tractor continues to be intimidating. However for some, the staggering worth benefit is cause sufficient to tackle the problem: A GVCS tractor prices $12,000 to construct, whereas a industrial tractor averages round $120,000 to purchase, not together with the person repairs that is likely to be needed over its lifetime at a price of $500 to $20,000 every. And gargantuan although it could appear, the duty of constructing a GVCS tractor or different machine is doable: Just some years after the challenge launched in 2008, greater than 110 machines had been constructed by lovers from Chile, Nicaragua, Guatemala, China, India, Italy, and Turkey, simply to call a couple of locations.
Of the various machines developed, what’s drawn essentially the most curiosity from GVCS lovers is the one nicknamed “The Liberator,” which presses native soil into compressed earth blocks, or CEBs—a sort of cost- and energy-environment friendly brick that may face up to excessive climate situations. It’s been particularly common amongst these seeking to construct their very own properties: A person named Aurélien Bielsa replicated the brick press in a small village within the south of France to construct a home for his household in 2018, and in 2020 a gaggle of volunteers helped a member of the Open Supply Ecology neighborhood construct a tiny residence utilizing blocks from one in every of these presses in a fishing village close to northern Belize.
Jakubowski remembers receiving an electronic mail about one of many first full reproductions of the CEB press, constructed by a Texan named James Slate, who ended up beginning a enterprise promoting the bricks: “When [James] despatched me an image [of our brick press], I assumed it was a Photoshopped copy of our machine, nevertheless it was his. He simply downloaded the plans off the web. I knew nothing about it.” Slate described having a really restricted background in engineering earlier than constructing the brick press. “I had taken some mechanics courses again in highschool. I largely come from an IT laptop world,” he mentioned in an interview with Open Supply Ecology. “Just about anybody can construct one, in the event that they put within the effort.”
Andrew Spina, an early GVCS fanatic, agrees. Spina spent 5 years constructing variations of the GVCS tractor and Energy Dice, desirous to create technique of self-sufficiency at a person scale. “I’m constructing my very own tractor as a result of I wish to perceive it and have the ability to keep it,” he wrote in his weblog, Machining Independence. Spina’s curiosity gestures towards the broader concern of technological literacy: The extra we outsource to proprietary tech, the much less we perceive how issues work—additional entrenching our want for that proprietary tech. Transparency is essential to the open-source philosophy exactly as a result of it helps us turn into self-sufficient.
Since beginning Open Supply Ecology, Jakubowski has been the primary architect behind the handfuls of machines out there on his platform, testing and refining his designs on a plot of land he calls the Issue e Farm in Maysville. Most GVCS lovers reproduce Jakubowski’s machines for private use; just a few have contributed to the set themselves. Of these choose few, many made devoted visits to the farm for weeks at a time to discover ways to construct Jakubowski’s GVCS assortment. James Sensible, one of many earliest and longest-term GVCS contributors, remembers organising tents and tenting out in his automotive to attend classes at Jakubowski’s workshop, the place visiting lovers would collect to iterate on designs: “We’d have a display screen on the wall of our present finest concept. Then we’d speak about it.” Sensible doesn’t take into account himself significantly skilled on the engineering entrance, however after working with different visiting individuals, he felt extra emboldened to contribute. “Most of [my] data got here from [my] friends,” he says.
Jakubowski’s purpose of bolstering collaboration hinges on a level of collective proficiency. With no neighborhood expert with {hardware}, the natural innovation that the open-source strategy guarantees will battle to bear fruit, even when Jakubowski’s designs are completely applicable and totally documented.
“That’s why we’re beginning a college!” mentioned Jakubowski, when requested about his plan to construct {hardware} literacy. Earlier this yr, he introduced the Future Builders Academy, an apprenticeship program the place individuals will likely be taught all the required expertise to develop and construct the inexpensive, self-sustaining properties which are his latest enterprise. Seed Eco Properties, as Jakubowski calls them, are “human-sized, panelized” modular homes full with a biodigester, a thermal battery, a geothermal cooling system, and photo voltaic electrical energy. Every home is totally vitality unbiased and might be inbuilt 5 days, at a price of round $40,000. Over eight of those homes have been constructed throughout the nation, and Jakubowski himself lives within the earliest model of the design. Seed Eco Properties are the fruits of his work on the GVCS: The construction of every home combines elements from the gathering and embodies its modular philosophy. The enterprise represents Jakubowski’s bigger purpose of creating on a regular basis know-how accessible. “Housing [is the] single largest price in a single’s life—and a key to a lot extra,” he says.
The ultimate purpose of Open Supply Ecology is a “zero marginal price” society, the place producing an extra unit of a superb or service prices little to nothing. Jakubowski’s interpretation of the idea (popularized by the American economist and social theorist Jeremy Rifkin) assumes that by eradicating licensing charges, decentralizing manufacturing, and fostering collaboration by schooling, we are able to develop actually equitable know-how that permits us to be self-sufficient. Open-source {hardware} isn’t nearly serving to farmers construct their very own tractors; in Jakubowski’s view, it’s an entire reorientation of our relationship to know-how.
Within the first concern of the Entire Earth Catalog, a key piece of inspiration for Jakubowski’s challenge, Model wrote: “We’re as gods and we would as nicely get good at it.” In 2007, in a e-book Model wrote concerning the publication, he corrected himself: “We’re as gods and have to get good at it.” In the present day, Jakubowski elaborates: “We’re changing into gods with know-how. But know-how has badly failed us. We’ve seen nice progress with civilization. However how free are folks at present in comparison with different occasions?” Cautioning in opposition to our reliance on the proprietary know-how we use each day, he presents a brand new strategy: Progress ought to imply not simply attaining technological breakthroughs but additionally making on a regular basis know-how equitable.
“We don’t want extra know-how,” he says. “We simply have to collaborate with what now we have now.”
Tiffany Ng is a contract author exploring the connection between artwork, tech, and tradition. She writes Cyber Celibate, a neo-Luddite e-newsletter on Substack.
