#futurethinking

People laughed at reusable rockets.

People laughed at the idea of humans living on another planet.

Debate Question:

Is risking everything for an idea bravery… or stupidity?

#ElonMusk

As the Materials World team noticed several questions being asked in the comments about the Cortex Shelter, we reached out to the architecture and design studio behind the shelter design, Cutwork, to ask for some more information. 

Image courtesy of Cutwork. 

By Idha Valeur  Here we talk to Cutwork Chief Marketing Officer, Bryce Willem, about infrastructure, cost and the shelter’s toilets. 

How will the toilet, shower and water aspect work?

The toilet is a dry toilet system. A container underneath it seals in waste, which then can be collected at a sanitation station within the camp. The whole idea behind including the toilet in the design is that public toilets in refugee settlements have been conducive to lots of problems, assault, and insecurity, particularly at night for women and children. The in-house option ensures security, privacy, and greater stability in these settlements. The shower and sink run using a gravity shower – essentially a large water container that is placed higher than the faucets to harness gravity without any pumps needed. The grey water from the sink and shower are collected in another container which can be collected and processed at a settlement’s sanitation station.

How can the shelter work in areas where there is no infrastructure such as a water and drainage system?

To this effect, the drainage tanks will need to be collected in sanitation stations within these camps on a routine basis.

Who will be paying for these shelters?

Governments and humanitarian organizations are in the best positions to acquire and distribute the Cortex Shelter. We are exploring how we can improve the design and production process as well to make cheaper at smaller volume orders for other applications as well.

And how much does one shelter cost approximately?

The Cortex Shelter has not yet reached the market and is currently moving through the final phase of development. We are working to reduce production costs even further in this phase. At this point, the target price point is under $4,000 USD per unit, and we are on track to reduce this further.

What is the next step for Cutwork and the Cortex shelter?

Real Change Happens When Thought Becomes Action

We live in a world full of ideas, insights, and endless research. But real change doesn’t live in documents—it lives in action.

When deep research meets practical execution, something powerful happens: ✨ Ideas turn into impact ✨ Strategy turns into results ✨ Vision turns into real change

It’s not about how much we study the problem. It’s about how much we solve it.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it actually means to limit AI—not in the sci‑fi sense, but in the very real, very practical sense of keeping humans at the center of the systems we build.

AI is getting faster, more capable, more confident. But it’s also missing the things we take for granted in ourselves: hesitation, moral intuition, the ability to learn from lived experience instead of pure optimization.

So the question isn’t “How do we stop AI from becoming too smart?” It’s “How do we make sure it doesn’t outrun the parts of humanity that matter?”

In my latest piece, I talk about why we need real boundaries: hardware limits, transparent public servers, adaptive laws, and models that embrace uncertainty instead of pretending they’re always right.

Not because AI is dangerous by default— but because unbounded systems drift. And if we don’t shape the limits now, we might end up living inside someone else’s logic.