Research notes
A digital brain for a living place.
Research investigation
Can passive design, local experience and simple sensors protect what a home stores from humidity?
A worldwide tropical inquiry, with Cañas as a public starting point. Nothing here has been field tested.
- Idea or practice
- A first experiment: wardrobes where clothing and leather meet damp air, with humidity and temperature sensing inside, ventilation or dehumidification, drainage and maintenance alerts.
- What sources support
- The US EPA advises keeping indoor relative humidity below 60%, ideally between 30% and 50%.
- What remains unknown
- That is general indoor guidance; leather, textiles and wood may each need a different range.
- Idea or practice
- Reliable rule-based automation that runs locally, works without internet, fails safe in a power outage and keeps data in the home. AI and robotics stay optional, used only where they help.
- What sources support
- This is a design principle proposed here, not a sourced finding.
- What remains unknown
- Which rules, failure behaviour and privacy defaults residents would trust remains open.
- Idea or practice
- Cinnamon sticks in wardrobes are a traditional practice some households use against damp.
- What sources support
- No source here shows that cinnamon prevents mould.
- What remains unknown
- It remains an untested household hypothesis.
A question to test in Cañas
Could a few willing homes log wardrobe humidity for a year, comparing ventilation alone, ventilation with dehumidification, and traditional practice?
Where to next?
Tropical architecture decides how little the controls need to do.
Wild ideas
No idea is too strange to explore. Imagination is not evidence.
#001 · Scorpion Patrol
Speculative concept
An autonomous mobile home robot might recognize, safely contain and arrange responsible removal of scorpions without direct human contact. Computer vision and UV scorpion detection research exists, and handheld humane capture tools exist, but there is no verified fully autonomous capture-and-relocation product. Safety, animal welfare and secure containment come first, with no unmonitored release near people. This is not a DIY safety solution.
#002 · A house that grows a garden
Research prototype
MIT’s Living Walls project combines soil, seed and ceramic 3D printed blocks so that walls can host plants. These are research prototypes; full buildings have not been deployed.
#003 · A house that helps repair itself
Early prototype
The University of Virginia prints earth walls that integrate living organisms. Prototypes exist only so far; speculative self-repair is different from demonstrated durability.
Have a wild idea of your own? Add your perspective below.