Backstory
It was September 2020 when I first sat foot on the lands of Traditional Dream Factory. For a few years already, I had been developing the concept of OASA - a global network of regenerative coliving spaces serving as a model for nature conservation providing living spaces to nomad entrepreneurs, creatives, solarpunks, change-makers.
It was a warm day, and the property had sheep grazing all over it. I went together with Ani, my romantic partner at the time, and my amazing co-creator in this project. We had visited other industrial properties around Alentejo in the weeks prior, while living from our temporary coliving situation in a regenerative hotel to be (Gandum). The criteria I had ended up looking for - after having looked at properties across US, South Africa, Greece, Portugal and more - was to be within 1.5h of a major city, close enough to the beach, large enough to host our dreams, not too hard to develop. As we drove in to the courtyard excitement was building up. I had probably visited 100 properties at this point, but this one felt really exciting and approachable. With its 1400 square meters of single story warehouses in good conditions, this abandoned chicken factory on the side of the small village of Abela appeared to be the perfect canvas to unleash our creativity. The buildings had not been used for animals for 15 years, serving rather as a community gathering space. Some spray paint indicated it had been used as parking for 4x4 explorations, and a stack of 100 chairs or so along with some leftover decorations on the walls and ceilings showed how much life the village had breathed into this space. The owner (Maria-Fernanda - who still comes for regular visits and lives in the village nearby) showed us around and told us stories of how her dad had built it in the 70s, in 2 phases starting with two 37x11m warehouses, then later building another 50x9m warehouse. This space had been one of the main economical centers of the village, employing several of the villagers (who also come visit us from time to time), and housing 30 000 chickens (for eggs - we still have some of their boxes).
It took us a few months and a few visits to get to meet the owners (cousins of Maria-Fernanda) who owned the 25ha of land next door that we wanted to adjoin to the property to add a nature element to the buildings. Finally, on December 24, 2020, I signed an offer to buy for 200 000€, together with signing a lease with option to buy on the adjoining 25ha of land. The dream was on.
By that point, we were 9 of us coliving in Gandum including Joana & Filipa (our architects), Arturo (our web3 engineer), Catarina (our engineer), along with other TDF founding members: Freddy, Cso and others. Taking this step of purchasing the property in Abela, 1.5h away from our current home was a big step - and something I had been waiting to do for a long time. I sold my home in Philadelphia that I had built a few years prior and took a mortgage with a Portuguese bank and in March 2021, we got the keys to what is now know as Traditional Dream Factory or TDF. Having a tech income (working remotely for a US tech company) made kickstarting this project much easier financially, as I could funnel my income into the development of a Minimum Survivable Village (read How to Build a Regenerative Village).
Kyle, a skilled engineer from NYC joined us - and together with Ani and I we formed the first team of Stewards to run operations at TDF. Having all three had a good amount of experience building camps at Burning Man and similar events, we operated in a doocratic manner and started chipping away at making this abandoned chicken warehouse habitable. We cleaned up the buildings, connected the city water, installed solar panels, connected the grid, built up an industrial kitchen, setup compost toilets and outdoor showers, and planted our first gardens. Of course we also ordered our soundsystem as one of our first luxuries, and we bought an industrial dishwasher to facilitate washing up for lots of people. In September 2021, we hosted our first large scale event: re:build. With 120 people on our lands for a week, that really motivated us to get the space together, and the event became a key factor in the success of TDF. It brought us on the global and local map for people building regenerative villages. We connected with Tamera, a nearby community operating since the 80s, and they helped with kitchen staff and water retention landscape experts giving workshops. We connected with other regenerative projects in the area and sent them groups of visitors. We even setup the foundations for our future sauna as the event was starting. And the event brought us community. Bea (now director of TDF), Charlie (part of OASA board) and many other members joined us through the event.
We then hosted Primal Gathering - a regenerative celebration enabling us to bring enough energy to do our first large scale restoration effort - and we planted 1500 trees that week on our most degraded hill. The week after, we hosted re:encrypt - our first crypto related event which led us on our journey to start our DAO.
It was not all rosy - building a regenerative village is really, really hard. You have to learn so many skills you probably have never done in your life: plumbing, electricity, farming, agroforestry, legal structures, tech infrastructure, bar operations, people management… It took a toll on our relationship with Ani, and we broke up after the event, though we remain co-creation partners in the project to this day - and I hold a lot of admiration to her for everything she is doing. Kyle left at the end of the year, for visa and family issues and didn’t come back. We had to reinvent ourselves.
In 2022, especially with thanks to Ani, we launched an updated structure enabling a more decentralised approach to building and operating villages. We wrote manuals and invitations for stewardships - a 3 month program for a team of 3-4 people to be the operators of TDF. The stewards are our the hosts on the ground creating both cultural continuity and making the sure the projects on the ground make progress. We then experimented with sociocratic principles and launched circles - groups of people holding authority over certain domains (land & permaculture, architecture & construction, community, communication etc). And we made some mistakes there too - trying to make the circles too overarching and too executive rather than being decision making bodies. We launched a test token (pTDF) to experiment with DAO governance on Snapshot - voting on trimestrial roadmap proposals. We hosted more events such as ReFi Spring, Heart:Magika and more - always in cocreation with TDF members, and always bringing a focus in our space that is core to our values - from regeneration to human creativity. In December 2022, our Swiss legal structure was finalised and our token design was given green light to be launched as a utility token.
Separation of Powers
In January 2023, I made the decision to clarify the executive power within the project. Our experience with circles showed that low level of commitments to be part of circles was insufficient in keeping enough motivation and momentum going to actually doing the work required to run a project like TDF. We needed some more focused work, and committed individuals empowered to take action, and make quick decisions when needed. The DAO passed a proposal on Feb 3rd re-affirming me and Ani as executive team, and stating the boundaries of the executive action as being capable of making decisions on behalf of the project in order to execute the roadmap. The roadmap is described in our White Paper, and includes the architectural plan that was approved by the municipality (14 suites, 4 studios, a house, a biopool, a biomorphic coworking garden, a maker space, an industrial kitchen and farm to table restaurant etc) - as well as the general direction for the project with a food forest, vegetable production, technical details of how the token functions and how the platform is meant to operate and so on.Over the spring, we worked together with Zebra Growth on our go to market strategy, and how to execute this token sale. One of the insights that came from this collaboration is that we needed to provide an on-ramp for getting started with crypto, and being able to access TDF without necessarily being a web3 expert.
As our token launch approaches it is now time for me to move on and relinquish this executive power that I was granted. On May 13, 2023 (the initial planned token launch date), I announced that I would step down as executive director of the TDF project, and from any executive role within the project. This is part of broader move towards decentralisation, the start of our exit to community strategy. This project was never designed to be “my” project and I recognise that the overlap of powers between serving as founder, token holder and executive director was bringing too much centralisation and that it was time for me to let the baby walk. I am deeply committed to keeping the ethos of this project alive, and proving that we can build a regenerative way of life. I am remaining an advisor to the TDF project and will be supporting the new executive team (led by our amazing Bea) in bringing this vision to life, without holding the project back by having mixed powers. The separation of powers that happened in democratic states is one that I cherish (see The Theory of the Separation of Powers as Expressed in the French Constitution of 1791), and I believe DAOs still have much to learn from traditional political ideas. I will also serve as Guardian on the OASA association, to hold the not for profit accountable to its regenerative principles.
Exit to Community (E2C)
What do I mean by Exit to Community? I mean that TDF ownership will be transitioned from being mainly founder led to being a multi stakeholder entity that distributes power based on a predetermined set of principles.
This includes distributing legislative voting power through our governance mechanics with a weighed approach accounting Proof of Presence, Proof of Sweat and $TDF holding (5x5x1 voting weight respectively according to OASA White Paper). This legislative power is used to determine the evolution of our roadmap (what do we build after the current architect plans are completed?), how we allocated excess resources (if we get other sources of funding than token sales or if our construction safety buffer isn’t used up - do we want to buy a boat or more land with excess funds?), and updating our common values & what we stand for (our Pink Paper). Certain actions may require higher quorum than others (for example changing our tokenomics).
It also includes distributing the executive power to a team that is executing the vision (overseeing the development of the digital platform, growing our product - but also executing our architectural phases, building our coliving & planting our food forest).
The OASA network was designed to only maintain our conservation and regeneration principles as close to immutable. The DAO does not have the jurisdiction to decide on changing what rules apply to land conservation, though it will have a voice in how those rules evolve through it’s delegates that will represent it in the OASA not for profit - alongside other DAOs in the future.
An Exit to Community is a way to formerly pass on the governance and benefits (access rights) of this project to the wider community that will benefit from it. If you want to learn more, here’s a community primer.
Looking forward
While I will be making some space from turning a crazy dream like TDF into reality, I am still a huge believer in the ecosystem we are pioneering together with many more bright souls around the world that want to believe we can create a more beautiful future. A future that’s not the cyberpunk, concrete plastered, AI overlords, rat race at infinitum that some see.
No. I believe humans are good by design. I believe we are a part of nature, and that we have a role to play to creating a more beautiful world.
I believe that technology can be a tool for to unleash more human creativity, to drive better planetary coordination. I believe that our future as a species isn’t to serve eternal financial growth that benefit the few, but rather to work in service of Nature. Regeneration is a purpose we can all get behind. We need to work towards building a society where we can build belonging through connecting with humans that share our values and desires. We need to shift from an extractive economy to one that leaves a positive trace on our natural environment and on our collective well being.
So what’s my role in all this? Well first I want to give myself some time to breathe. After 5 years building up OASA from scratch to first conservation token giving access rights to housing, I want to take some time to reflect and grow.
I will be continuing to develop Closer - the platform which enables lands based DAOs such as TDF to issue access rights to real estate while enabling Proof Of Presence based governance. And I make myself available to support new projects that could use my skills in an advisory position. And who knows - maybe I’ll even help build another OASA sometime.
I wish you much courage if you are on this journey - whether you are a supporter of TDF, building a village of your own, or doing your own path to bring us to a regenerative future. We need you. Our planet needs you. We have no time to waste, let us re:build our economies, living systems and cultures. Let us re:learn to care for our one and only home.
PS: I haven’t taken any compensation for my work as executive director, nor any other positions within TDF since January 2023. If you appreciate my work, you can buy a collectible NFT of this article to support me ❤️
