For some reason, I am reminded of my character Lyria, who visited Earth some time in our era and got lots of ideas from it. She uses magic in her fortress to mimic Earth technology, like using "sun crystals" for lightbulbs (only, sun crystals put light bulbs to shame) or making magic microscopes that put electron microscopes to shame. Lyria is like a mad scientist without the madness or the science. More of a determined, dark, true neutral sorceress with mysterious goals and a scientific aspect to her magic.

BTW, I also borrowed your "living knowe" idea from the Toby Daye books, and mixed it with the dimensional expansion of Doctor Who's TARDIS, for Lyria's fortress. She mentions in one story that a Fae friend taught her how to do it.