Jacob Benbunan, founder and CEO of the prestigious Saffron Brand Consultants, was faced with a none-too-easy but extremely exciting challenge: realising the dream of one of the most highly internationally acclaimed Spanish scientists, the paleoanthropologist Juan Luis Arsuaga.

Meeting for the first time in Madrid, the conversation between Juan Luis and Jacob flowed easily, enthusiastically addressing varied absorbing topics from igloos, to Ukrainian bison and human beings. The latter being an area of great interest to both men, and one which each of the studies in totally different fields. “I´m a humanist, as my work and research is always focused on human beings”, Arsuaga said. In turn, Jacob is a great advocate of user-centric design: the most important factor in his work is the end user, or in other words, human beings.

This thrilling exchange of ideas led Juan Luis to the concept of the biology which would later become the name of his dream: the limiting factor. “A limiting factor – as he explained to us – is an element or condition which determines and limits the development and evolution of a process, and without which the life of a human being would not be possible under certain circumstances”. To cite a very simple example, warm clothing in Siberia is a limiting factor, due to the fact human beings would not survive in those surroundings without it.

Moreover, while Juan Luis was explaining this concept to us, he was taking us one step closer to his dream, until he revealed it completely: he would like to have a wooden cabin containing just the necessary basic things (or limiting factors) to enable a person to spend a weekend there in the hills, enjoying nature.