The long-term aim is broad: developing and implementing innovative solutions that enhance the resilience and sustainability of human habitat. The near-term scope is deliberately narrow, because narrow is what makes depth and proof possible.
Starting beachhead
| Dimension | Initial focus | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Geography | Mallorca | Where we live. Island constraints (water, energy, supply chain) make resilience concrete rather than theoretical. |
| Building type | Fincas — rural/semi-rural properties, often old, often off or semi-off the municipal grid | Where our own experience is, and where the technical problems are richest. |
| People | Families living in fincas; initially the expat community around us | Reachable, motivated, and with budget already allocated to house projects. |
| Site Zero | Our own finca | The first fully instrumented site. Our own evidence base. |
Starting here is a choice about sequencing, not a permanent boundary. The knowledge we build should be written so that it generalises: a water balance is a water balance whether the roof is in Mallorca or elsewhere.
Subject areas in the beachhead
The pains we start from are the ones finca owners actually talk about:
- Swimming pools — water loss, energy for pumping and heating, chemicals, seasonality, alternatives such as natural/biological pools.
- Garden and irrigation — water demand, drought-tolerant and native planting, soil, terraces (marjades), trees, food production.
- Heating in winter — old buildings, damp, poor envelopes, wood/pellet/heat pump choices.
- Cooling in summer — heat waves, shading, ventilation, thermal mass, air conditioning.
- Domestic water — wells, cisterns, rainwater, municipal supply, storage, quality and treatment, wastewater.
- Building in general — renovation, envelope, materials, waterproofing, permitting.
- Energy — solar generation, storage, tariffs, grid dependence, consumption by end use.
These are entry points (how people experience the problem), not the organising structure of our knowledge. The structure is in the Knowledge domain map, which organises by resource flow so that things can be measured and compared.
Deliberately open
We want to keep an open approach to what we can eventually do with the knowledge. The Outputs document lists the forms we can foresee today; it is a snapshot, not a commitment. New forms are welcome if they pass the test in Principles: does this put proven knowledge to work at a larger scale?
Out of scope for now
Recorded so that we notice when we drift into them by accident:
- New-build developments and property development as a business.
- Urban apartments and multi-family buildings.
- Industrial or agricultural production at commercial scale.
- Geographies outside Mallorca, other than as sources of transferable knowledge.
- Manufacturing our own hardware.
Any of these may be revisited. The point is that entering them should be a decision, not a slide.