This is a living document. We'll update as the model evolves. It was written by Le Moulin founders, and edited with help from Claude Ai.

I. THE WATERMILL

Imagine: dawn at a watermill within two hours of Paris. Water rushes through mechanisms carved centuries ago, the same force that once ground wheat now capable of generating electricity for something the original builders couldn't have imagined: a biotechnologist and a textile artist arguing about mycelium structures while a historian traces pattern systems from medieval tapestries and a coder maps it all into generative algorithms.

Light filters through ancient stone walls. Outside, acres of land unfold, wild in places, cultivated in others, bordered by the same river that's been flowing since before France was France. This is not picturesque countryside for weekend retreats. This is infrastructure. Heritage architecture powering radical futures.

This is Le Moulin. A watermill we're actively searching for, the place where the work that matters gets made. We’ve set out to respond to what we were seeing.

Over the past years, through inspiring work with diverse practitioners and building new networks across disciplines, a pattern emerged. The most interesting people we met were frustrated by the same things. The technologists who wanted to understand culture. The artists who wanted to engage with systems. The historians who felt irrelevant to the present. The designers who wanted to address root causes, not symptoms. The current state of things made it clear: the infrastructure doesn't exist for these people to work together. And watching them try to bridge disciplines alone, without support, without space, without resources is what made this feel urgent. We saw what doesn't exist but needs to: a place where the future gets built by people who understand the past.

In that clarity, the kind that only comes when you're forced to face what's finite, we saw what doesn't exist but urgently needs to: a place where the future gets built by people who value the past. Where technology amplifies humanity instead of threatening it. Where making beautiful things isn't self-indulgent, it's essential. Where the next generation of makers aren't trained to fit into existing systems, but equipped to create the ones we need.
This isn't theory. We're building it. In a watermill within two hours of Paris. Starting today.

II. WHY THIS MATTERS RIGHT NOW

The Renaissance Only Few Are Talking About

We're living through a Renaissance. Not metaphorically, literally. Every few centuries, humanity experiences a period of such intense cross-pollination and creative upheaval that entire fields of knowledge get rewritten. The Italian Renaissance gave us polymaths who moved fluidly between art, science, engineering, philosophy. The Harlem Renaissance created new forms of expression through the collision of music, literature, visual arts, political thought.

Right now, technology is advancing exponentially. AI is rewriting what creativity means. Biotechnology is redefining what's natural. Digital fabrication is democratizing production. Cultural evolution is happening in real-time across global networks. The boundaries between disciplines are dissolving whether we're ready or not.

But here's what's different about this Renaissance: it risks leaving us more fragmented, not more integrated.
We've watched brilliant people, people we know, people we've worked with, express a desperation that goes something like this:

"I'm an AI researcher and sometimes I feel like I'm building weapons. I don't know how to think about the cultural impact of what I make. Nobody taught me."

"I'm a ceramicist. My work is beautiful but feels irrelevant. The world is changing so fast and I don't have the vocabulary to engage with it."

"I'm a designer at a tech company. I solve surface problems all day. I want to address systems but I don't know how."

"I preserve archival materials. I love my work but it feels like I'm documenting a past that nobody cares about while the future is being built without any sense of history."

These aren't separate problems. They're the same problem: we're creating specialists who can't see the whole system.

The Stakes, At Their Worst

At the current pace, we'll have perfect technology for a world no one understands how to live in.
We'll have AI that can generate anything but lacks cultural grounding to know what's worth making. We'll have artists creating beautiful work that exists only in gallery echo chambers. We'll have innovation labs producing solutions looking for problems. We'll have heritage institutions preserving the past while feeling disconnected from the present.
And the gap between them, between technologists and artists, between makers and thinkers, between heritage and innovation, will keep widening until the only people who can navigate it are the ones who've never had to choose a specialty in the first place. The privileged few.

That's not a Renaissance. That's a cultural crisis disguised as progress.

III. WHY CURRENT MODELS FAIL

We've been through them all. We've experienced firsthand why the existing infrastructure can't solve this.

Traditional Artist Residencies:

We've seen them. Peaceful studios in beautiful locations where artists create in isolation. The work is often stunning. And then it goes back to the gallery, seen by the same 200 people who go to gallery openings, disconnected from the world that urgently needs different ways of seeing. These programs offer time and space but rarely interdisciplinary collision. They're designed for personal practice, not collaborative transformation.

Accelerators & Innovation Labs:

We've been in these rooms. Brilliant people from different fields forced together for weeks to "move fast and break things." The focus is entirely commercial: scalability, metrics, pitch decks. Technology comes first, culture is an afterthought. By week 3, the biotechnologist and the designer aren't talking anymore because they've been told their role is to "execute on the vision." The thing they're building might work, but nobody stops to ask if it should exist.

Academic Programs:

We've sat through these seminars. Lots of theory about systems thinking. Dissertations about interdisciplinary practice. But the timeline is years, the output is credentials, and by the time you graduate, the tools have changed and you don't have a portfolio, you have a thesis nobody reads. The world doesn't wait for perfect analysis.

What All These Models Miss:

None of them honor both deep craft mastery AND real-world application. None create space for personal artistic vision AND collaborative making. None are structured to produce tangible work that addresses actual challenges while building the makers' careers and portfolios simultaneously.

None of them are optimistic about technology while remaining centered on human values, artisanal skills, and cultural wisdom. None of them are building the kind of makers our moment demands: people who can understand code AND understand craft traditions. Who can design for AI AND think about the five-generation impacts. Who can make exhibitions AND build products AND write policy AND create cultural movements.

Systems thinkers. Polymaths. Not Renaissance people in the historical sense, Renaissance people for right now.

IV. THE PLACE: FINDING THE RIGHT WATERMILL

Geography as Philosophy

We're searching for a watermill within two hours of Paris, close enough to access the capital's cultural infrastructure and funding networks, far enough to actually think. The specific location matters less than the balance it provides: rooted in heritage, connected to contemporary flows, autonomous enough for deep focus.
This is not accidental geography.

We're looking in regions where making has happened for centuries. Small-scale agriculture, artisanal craft, textile traditions, architecture that evolved slowly over generations. Places that are preserved without being precious about it. Rural without being isolated. France, but not the France of top-five companies and Parisian gatekeepers.
This matters because location shapes output.

The fellows won't be in a city where the pressure is to network and perform and optimize every interaction. They won't be in total isolation where ideas have nowhere to land. They'll be in a place that models the balance we're teaching: rooted in heritage, connected to contemporary flows, autonomous enough to think freely.

What We're Looking For

The ideal watermill:
 

• Built centuries ago, still standing, still functioning

• Active water system capable of generating electricity

• 200-400 square meters of living/working space across multiple levels

• Stone outbuildings that can become workshop spaces

• 2-4 acres of land for gardens, outdoor studio space, gathering grounds

• Within 2 hours of Paris by train

• In a region with existing craft traditions and artisan communities

But here's the thing that matters most: the watermill will be an argument made in stone.

It will prove that heritage infrastructure can power contemporary work. That beauty and function aren't in opposition. That you can take something with centuries of history and make it relevant without destroying what makes it valuable. That energy autonomy, the river powering its own systems, is a model for creative autonomy.

When fellows arrive, before we talk about anything else, we'll show them the mill mechanisms. We'll explain how water becomes power. We'll say: This is what you're here to learn. How to take what already works, cultural traditions, craft knowledge, human creativity, and power something new. Not replace it. Power it.

Why France, Specifically

France is brilliant at preservation and hesitant about entrepreneurship. It values artisanship and is suspicious of innovation. It has LVMH and Hermès proving that craft-based models can compete globally, and simultaneously a system that makes it nearly impossible to start something new unless you're already connected to the right networks and most importantly, inheritance.

We're not leaving France. We're proving you can build the future here without conforming to corporate structures or fleeing to startup capitals.

The regions we're exploring represent something important: places where people still make things by hand, slowly, because quality matters more than speed. Places that also need new economic models because traditional farming and craft work alone can't sustain communities anymore.
Le Moulin won't "disrupt" its region. We'll build infrastructure that benefits from local values and contributes to regional evolution.

Local artisans will become visiting practitioners. Regional heritage sites will become research collaborators. The fellows' work will create new narratives about what's possible. We're not extractive, we're reciprocal.

V. THE PROGRAM: WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENS (A proposal)

Duration: 12 weeks intensive
Cohort Size: 7-10 Fellows per session
Frequency: 3 cohorts per year (Spring, Summer, Fall)

Each fellow arrives with a question, something they're genuinely wrestling with. The biotechnologist wants to understand how indigenous ecological knowledge could inform synthetic biology. The luxury brand strategist wants to explore how blockchain could create new artist economies without replicating extractive financial systems. The textile artist wants to learn parametric design to create patterns that respond to environmental data.

No application requires previous interdisciplinary experience. We're not looking for people who already know how to bridge worlds. We're looking for people who are desperate to learn and produce.

Phase One: Collision (Weeks 1-3)

This phase is designed to be uncomfortable.

Everyone presents their question to the full cohort, not a polished pitch, a real articulation of what they don't know. Then we assign collaboration pairs intentionally: the person least like you becomes your primary thought partner.
We bring in visiting practitioners, a master leatherworker from Hermès (assuming our dream partnership) spending a day teaching hand-stitching alongside an AI researcher explaining machine learning models. A historian specializing in medieval textile guilds followed by a Web3 developer talking about DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) as modern guild structures.

The goal is productive friction.

Fellows learn each other's vocabularies. They challenge each other's assumptions. The ceramicist explains to the coder why a glaze formula from the 12th century still matters. The coder shows the ceramicist how the same pattern-making logic governs algorithmic design. They start to see systems.

By week 3, working groups have formed organically around emergent themes. The program structure loosens to support what's trying to be born.

Phase Two: Deep Making (Weeks 4-9)

This is where the work happens.
Each working group commits to producing something tangible: an exhibition, a product prototype, a research publication, a campaign, a functional tool, a cultural intervention. The output matters less than the requirement that it's REAL and USEFUL and demonstrates systems thinking.

We provide:
 

• Workshop infrastructure: Digital fabrication tools, traditional craft equipment, research resources

• Expert mentorship: Weekly sessions with practitioners in relevant fields

• Production budget: €5,000 per working group for materials, prototyping, production

• Access to networks: Connections to galleries, publishers, manufacturers, cultural institutions who might commission or exhibit work

The work happens in the mill, in the outbuildings, in the gardens, in town when fellows need specific resources. We create conditions for deep focus but don't enforce isolation, Paris is within two hours when someone needs to visit an archive or meet with a potential collaborator.
Every Friday: Full cohort critique. Everyone presents progress. We don't pull punches. The work has to be good enough to matter.

Phase Three: Launch (Weeks 10-12)

The work goes public.

We host a weekend symposium at the mill: fellows present their work, invite their networks, demonstrate what 12 weeks of interdisciplinary collaboration produces. This isn't a private event, we want press, we want funders, we want institutions seeing what's possible.

Each working group leaves with:
 

• Completed work (exhibition-ready, publication-ready, prototype-ready)

• Documentation (process journals, video documentation, research findings)

• Portfolio materials they can immediately use for applications, commissions, funding

• Network access to everyone who came to the final presentations

• Ongoing support from the foundation for developing work further

The final presentations aren't just for external audiences. They're for each other. Because the most valuable network isn't the institutions, it's the other seven to eleven people who went through this with you. We're building a permanent community of practice. The first cohort will mentor the second. By cohort five, we have 40-60 people who know how to collaborate across disciplines and will keep doing it for the next 40 years.

VI. THE PHILOSOPHY: WHY THIS APPROACH

1. Aesthetics and Environment as Radical Act

We're designing this to be beautiful because we can, not because we have to. That's what makes it necessary.
In a world optimized for efficiency, choosing beauty is a political statement. It says: human experience matters. Craft matters. The space you work in shapes the work you make. If you're going to spend 12 weeks reimagining how interdisciplinary collaboration could work, do it somewhere that demonstrates what happens when you refuse to compromise on quality.
 
2. Art Saves Artists (And Blockchain Is Infrastructure)

We're committed to funding young artists, helping them build sustainable careers beyond the privilege economy or gallery gatekeeping.

Here's something nobody talks about: most artist residencies are accessible only to artists who can afford to take 3-12 months off. Most emerging artists can't survive on gallery representation alone. Most cultural production happens because someone has generational wealth or a partner subsidizing their practice.

This is not sustainable. It's not just. And it limits who gets to shape culture.

Le Moulin provides full fellowships: Housing, food, materials budget, stipend. But we also do something else. We embed blockchain infrastructure invisibly into the program, not as hype, not as speculation, but as utility.

Every fellow leaves with:
 

• Provenance for their work (documented on-chain, establishing creation date and authenticity)

• Ownership structures that protect their IP while enabling collaboration

• Access to networks that value cultural production beyond traditional markets

• Smart contract templates for commissioning future work

• Education on how Web3 tools can create artist sovereignty without requiring them to become financiers
   

We're not making artists learn crypto terminology. We're making tools that serve artists, invisibly. Life imitates art, let's make it beautiful, thought-provoking, intentional, and economically viable.

3. Energy Autonomy = Creative Autonomy

The watermill's self-sufficiency models what we teach: build systems that free you to make.
The river powers the mill. The mill houses the program. The program produces work that shifts how people think about what's possible. This is function.

When fellows see that the electricity running their laser cutter or charging their laptops comes from water that's been flowing here since before electricity existed, something clicks. You don't have to choose between heritage and innovation. You can understand traditional systems deeply enough to power contemporary tools with them.

This is systems thinking as practice instead of theory:
 

• How does energy flow through a building?

• How does knowledge flow through a community?

• How do you create circular systems instead of extractive ones?

• What's the relationship between autonomy and sustainability?

These questions apply equally to mill mechanics and organizational design, to craft traditions and technology development, to artist economies and cultural movements.

4. Building Environments Worth Living In

We're not just serving capitalism. We're creating conditions for legacy, family, and futures worth building.
Most innovation spaces optimize for economic output. Accelerators measure success by exits and valuations. Academic programs track publications and citations. Artist residencies count exhibitions. All of these metrics serve systems of extraction and accumulation.

Le Moulin measures something different: are we creating environments where people want to stay, build, plant roots? Where having children feels possible instead of irresponsible? Where legacy means more than portfolio or net worth?
This matters because the future isn't just built by what we make, it's shaped by how we live while making it.

When fellows spend 12 weeks in a place that models:
 

• Beauty over efficiency

• Autonomy over dependence

• Craft over speed

• Community over competition

• Long-term thinking over quarterly returns

• Human rhythms over productivity metrics

They don't just learn new skills. They experience an alternative to the extractive, anxiety-producing, family-hostile environments that dominate both corporate and startup cultures.

We're building infrastructure that makes people think: This is how I want to live. This is how I want to raise kids. This is what healthy values look like in practice. This is worth protecting and replicating.

The optimism here is structural. When you build systems that generate their own power, grow their own food, make their own culture, support their own makers, you create conditions for genuine flourishing. Not as individual achievement, but as collective possibility.

This is what gets lost when we only measure economic value: the spaces where people feel safe enough to build legacy, secure enough to have families, rooted enough to stay and shape their communities over decades.
Le Moulin is an argument that you can build the future without sacrificing the things that make life worth living.

VII. THE SURPRISE: THIS ISN'T A PROGRAM

Here's what we haven't told you yet. Le Moulin isn't training the next generation. We're becoming them alongside our fellows. This isn't hierarchical, we're not established experts teaching younger people how to replicate what we've done. We're practitioners who are figuring this out in real-time, and we're inviting people to figure it out with us.
Every cohort is an experiment in a living question: How do you create conditions for meaningful interdisciplinary work? We genuinely don't know yet. We have hypotheses. We have frameworks. We have values. But we're building the plane while flying it, and we're not pretending otherwise.

This means:
 

• Fellows shape the program based on what they need

• We adapt infrastructure based on what actually produces good work

• Failure is documented as rigorously as success

• The model evolves every time a new cohort arrives

By cohort three, the program won't look like what we're describing now, because cohorts one and two will have shown us what needs to change.

This isn't a program. It's a prototype. We're building the model for what all creative infrastructure will need to become: adaptive, interdisciplinary, production-focused, values-driven, economically sustainable for makers.
And when we prove it works, we open-source the model. Because the goal isn't to be the only place doing this, it's to be the first place that shows it can be done.

VIII. POTENTIAL RIPPLE EFFECTS: One Vision of What This Could Create

This is one of many possible futures, showing how this work could ripple outward:

2027:
A Le Moulin fellow might lead cultural integration at a major tech platform, bringing systems thinking to AI ethics policy. Their framework, developed during their residency, could get adopted by other companies.

2028:
A luxury fashion house could launch a sustainable materials research lab, run by two Moulin alumni who met during their cohort and discovered shared questions about mycelium and textile design.

2029:
A museum might mount an exhibition reimagining how archival materials get accessed, using a curatorial framework that came from research a fellow produced in collaboration with local heritage institutions near the mill.

2030:
Policy recommendations for AI's role in cultural production could be published in a major journal, co-authored by Moulin alumni whose research originated in conversations that started at the watermill.

2031:
The foundation's model might be replicated in other regions: a textile mill in Portugal, a printing house in Berlin, a ceramics workshop in Oaxaca, a research station in Ghana. All in conversation. A global network, locally rooted.

By 2031, when someone asks "where did you learn to think like that?" about moving between disciplines, seeing systems, making work that's beautiful and functional, the answer could be: "Le Moulin."

More importantly, by then there could be enough of us that we're not isolated practitioners anymore. We're a movement and an inevitable way of living and working. But this is just one possibility. What actually emerges will be shaped by the fellows themselves, by what they need to make, by challenges we can't yet imagine.

IX. THE PATH FORWARD: What We Need

Timeline

Now - Spring 2026:

• Secure the right watermill (actively searching within 2 hours of Paris)

• Renovate and equip facilities (12-16 months)

• Develop curriculum and visiting practitioner network

• Recruit cohort one (Spring 2027 launch)

Spring 2027:

• First cohort begins

• Document everything

• Build partnerships with cultural institutions, commissioning organizations

2027-2029:

• Refine model based on first six cohorts

• Expand visiting practitioner network

• Launch publication documenting methodology and outcomes

• Begin conversations about replication in other regions

Funding Required: €2.5M Initial Capital
Breakdown:

• Property acquisition & renovation: €650K (estimated property cost €200-300K depending on location/condition, renovation and infrastructure €350-450K)

• Equipment & infrastructure: €300K (workshops, digital tools, traditional craft equipment, energy systems)

• Operating capital (first 3 years): €1.2M (staff, programming, fellow stipends, visiting practitioners, materials budgets)

• Reserve & contingency: €350K

Revenue Model (Years 4+):

• Commissioned work produced by fellows (shared revenue with makers)

• Licensing of model to other institutions

• Partnerships with brands/institutions for specific research or prototype development

• Small cohort fees for fellows who can afford to pay (full scholarships always available based on need)

What This Buys You
For Funders: You're funding the prototype for what creative infrastructure needs to become. You're getting:

• Seats on our advisory board

• First access to fellows for commissions, hiring, partnerships

• Documentation and research that demonstrates impact

• Association with a model that proves craft and technology, heritage and innovation, aren't in opposition

For Cultural Partners: We need 10 organizations willing to commission work from fellows. You get:

• Custom research, prototypes, or creative production addressing your specific challenges

• Access to interdisciplinary thinking that doesn't exist internally

• Documentation you can use for your own programming or publications

• First relationships with emerging makers who'll be leading their fields in 5 years

For Fellows: Applications open Spring 2026 for first cohort. If you're a practitioner who's frustrated by disciplinary silos, who wants to make work that matters, who's willing to be uncomfortable in exchange for transformation, this is for you. No previous interdisciplinary experience required. We accept questions, not portfolios.

X. INVITATION

This is an invitation.

We're building infrastructure for the Renaissance we're already in. A place where makers don't have to choose between craft and code, heritage and innovation, personal vision and collaborative action. Where the work that gets made is tangible, useful, beautiful, and addresses real challenges. Where artists can build sustainable careers without privilege as prerequisite. Where technology amplifies humanity instead of threatening it.

We're building this in a watermill within two hours of Paris. We're starting in Spring 2027. And we need people who believe this matters as much as we do.

If you're a potential fellow: Watch for application launch, Spring 2026. Follow our build process as we renovate the space and develop the program. [social media links]

If you're a funder or partner: We're raising €2.5M to launch. We're in conversations now. Contact us at office@lemoulin.xyz to explore how your support shapes this.

If you're a cultural institution: We're seeking commissioning partners who want access to interdisciplinary research and production. Let's talk about what fellows could make for you.

If you're just someone who thinks the world needs this: Share this document. Tell the people who need to know about it. Help us find the first cohort, the funding partners, the collaborators. Infrastructure gets built by communities, not individuals.