A DIY Civilization A baker’s oven, a backhoe, a well drilling
rig. According to social entrepreneur Marcin Jakubowski, these
are a few of the 50 machines essential for any society to
sustain a modern, comfortable lifestyle. But these machines are
not only essential, explains Leifur Thor, they’re also
expensive, hard to repair and designed to be obsolete in a few
years. Thor volunteers with Open Source Ecology, a non-profit
Jakubowski founded to develop the Global Village Construction
Set. The set will comprise durable, modular machines that people
can build and maintain themselves with sustainable, locally
available materials—often scrap metal. OSE will give the plans
away to anyone who wants them. The money a farmer would have
sent to a large corporation to buy a hay cutter will stay in the
community. The environmental impact of shipping heavy equipment
long distances will disappear. These machines are designed to
cost roughly a fifth of what factory-produced models do. "We’re
obsessed with the idea that wha