The permafacture institute is dedicated to the development of accessible tools and processes for a post-industrial world. The design of these tools is informed by the historical project of technology in general: The alleviation of misery, the reduction of toil and an increase in the productive capacity of free individuals. This project is global as all individuals are essentailly free.

These tools begin as simple tools, but not primitive ones. They are tools informed by the industrial revolution, but used by individuals in their own lives on a scale that does not tower over them.

Permafacture is a cultivation of natural potentials. This contrasts modern industry which calls upon nature as an obediant and predictable source of materials and energies. The Permafacture Institute recognizes direct use of solar thermal energy (slightly pressurized steam) and aluminosilicate chemistry as having special significance in this next phase in the unfolding liberty of humanity.

Examples of these technologies include aluminosilicate adsorbant processes (for refrigeration and chemical purification) driven by solar generated steam and the manufacture of tools and goods from geopolymers using the gentle (or concentrated) heat of the sun. The products of combustion, such as heat, activated carbon, combustible gasses, sulfuric and nitric acids, soda and pot ash and amorphous silicates (ashes) are also recognized as being significant to this project.

The historical project of increasing, not only free time, but the creative capacity of humans within that freedom from toil is multidimensional. It is founded not only on an understanding of the chemical elements and physical forces at play, but also upon an appreciation of the historical and social forces shaping the use to which this technical capacity is put. The external analysis of technology as it relates to the project of human freedom is set forth by Herbert Marcuse, Ivan Illich, Martin Heidegger, Robert Pirsig and others.

We have inherited industry and technology, as it now exists, from others. Common place facts are the result of a long series of experiences and a by-product of unique personalities. Thus, to accept the condition in which we find ourselves today in much of the world is to acquiesce to the serendipity of history – some of it good, and some of it oppressive. It is the responsibility of members of the permafacture institute to claim knowledge from its roots and not simply accept it as it is currently presented. The natural philosophers of old were tinkering with natural phenomena, which only later in the hands of industrialists became the matters-of-fact with which we are now presented.

The original papers of Michael Faraday, Sir James DeWar, Lord Kelvin and Lord Rayleigh, and hundreds of others (and not just English men from the 1800's) are necessary primary texts to understanding the chemical elements and physical phenomena we use and depend upon.

The first use of the term permafacture is attributed to Vinay Gupta, discussing the working of glass using fuels grown through permaculture.