WaywardHouseWayward House is an independent publishing project dedicated to restoring geography as a systems discipline.
We explore the dynamic relationships between people, place, ecology, and economic structures — and we make those relationships understandable.
Our work builds practical on-ramps to the mathematics, models, and computational tools that underpin environmental and spatial thinking. Wherever possible, we favour open-source software, accessible hardware, and reproducible methods.
Wayward House exists to equip a new generation of systems thinkers with the intellectual tools to understand — and responsibly shape — the world we share.
What Gets Published Here
Wayward House publishes structured work at the intersection of geography, environmental systems, and political economy.
The material is organised into two complementary streams.
1. Long-Form Systems Analysis
Extended essays that examine how place, ecology, infrastructure, and power interact.
These pieces are narrative and analytical. They draw on data, but their purpose is structural clarity:
- How economic activity is spatially organised
- How environmental constraints shape regional outcomes
- How energy and trade systems influence political decisions
- Who benefits from particular arrangements — and who bears the cost
This is geography as explanatory infrastructure.
2. Computational Geography & Environmental modelling
A structured series of models that rebuild environmental and spatial reasoning from first principles.
Each piece develops:
- A clearly defined question
- A conceptual model
- Governing equations
- Worked mathematical examples
- Interactive visualisation
- Explicit prerequisites and difficulty level
These pieces bridge three domains:
- Mathematical foundations
- Spatial and computational methods
- Earth system processes
They are designed to lower the barrier to quantitative geography — not by simplifying it, but by building on-ramps to it.
Over time, these models will evolve into:
- Reproducible computational notebooks
- Open datasets
- Transparent modelling workflows
- Modular learning sequences
The goal is literacy in systems — not just a passing surface familiarity.
How the Pieces Fit Together
The long-form essays explore structure.
The models build the tools required to analyse that structure.
Together, they form an integrated body of work:
- Theory connected to computation
- Computation grounded in environmental reality
- Environmental reality situated within political economy
Design Principles
- Mathematical clarity without intimidation
- Open-source software and affordable tools wherever possible
- Reproducibility over rhetoric
- Modularity that allows cumulative learning
- Geography treated as a technical discipline with human consequences
Editorial approach
This is independent work — no institutional affiliation, no funder to satisfy. Analysis follows evidence. Where there are contested empirical questions, they’re treated as such. Where there are genuine value disagreements, those are distinguished from empirical ones.
About the author
Paul Hobson. For more, see the contact page.