Even though the industrial revolution paved the way for the production system on which cities and people rely for the supply of their resources, it is becoming more and more apparent that it is no longer a viable system. Today’s global production system is incapable to compensate for the losses and wastes that came because of the centralised industrial systems that were established long ago.

A need for a distributed production system has emerged from the backfiring of the industrial revolution and from the fear that comes due to the lack of resources needed to resist a global collapse.

The understanding that it is more socially sensible to develop a system that depends on the local production of products and the global connectivity of data, led architects and urbanists to the challenge of constructing a sustainable or even self-sufficient dwelling, a living organism that interacts with its environment, exchanging resources and which functions as an entirely self-sufficient entity.

The 20th century set an international paradigm of excessive consumption of energy, available to everyone at any cost, a paradigm that needs to change today to one that focuses on the saving and the intelligent distribution of energy throughout a distributed system.
Distributed systems are the results of the interaction of self-sufficient units. This research is part of a larger effort that aims to explore the various mechanisms that lead to the self-sufficiency of tomorrow’s human habitat.

In order for the exploration to be thorough and for the conclusions to be reliable, it is crucial to first understand what it means for a building to be self-sufficient. Self-sufficiency in a complex system, such as the common household, is inherently dependant on specific layers, which, if adjusted properly, can concomitantly contribute to the creation of an autonomous organism that requires little to zero assistance from external factors to operate. These layers are: Information, Energy, Water, Matter, Food, Mobility, Nature, Limits, Welfare, Community and Traceability.

This particular part of the research will explore the ways in which the generation, consumption, storage and distribution of energy play a crucial role in the self-sufficiency of the habitat of the future.