Open Source Ecology Project Targets Blueprint for Sustainable World

A team of U.S. volunteers is developing an open-source database they say will ultimately provide a do-it-yourself guide on how to construct each of the 50 industrial machines needed “to build a small civilization with modern comforts.” Launched in 2003 by Marcin Jakubowski, who describes himself as a “self-made industrial engineer,” the Open Source Ecology project so far has made prototypes of eight of the 50 machines, including a high-volume brick press, a hydraulic tractor, and a 3D printer. All the designs, instructional videos, and budgets are posted to an online wiki. The project, which is supported through small donations, ultimately hopes to provide inexpensive, accessible, and materially sustainable technologies for any setting, whether urban or rural, or in the developed or developing world. “We want a repository of published designs so clear, so complete, that a singleburned DVD is effectively a civilization starter kit,” Jakubowski said during a TED presentation this year. He hopes to prototype all 50 machines by early 2013, and by 2014 to exhibit a functional, small-scale, industrialized community demonstrating that “we can lead self-sustaining lives without sacrificing our standard of living.”