permaculture

["HS" <wal@pc.jaring.my>]

I was involved in a small way, in a design for an apartment development
based on permaculture principles.  The Asian financial crisis put paid to
that dream.  But you are right, it has to be project based, not individual
apartment based.  And it has to be developer driven, not architect driven or
even consumer driven.  You have to educate developers and get  one, just
one, to start the ball rolling.
First off, water - most apartment designs in my country, Malaysia, design
for rainwater to be discharged out to the project site rapidly.  In some
projects 70 to 80% of rain water is designed to be flushed out to monsoon
drains.  This leads to flash floods and affects rainfall patterns in highly
developed parts of the country.
The project I was involved in designed for 80% of the water to be retained
within the site, and some of it to be used.
Second, the use of wind and air movement to facilitate ventilation, cooling
and to reduce humidity.  A lot of energy costs are incurred by households
here to move air or to cool air.  A lot of chemicals are used to get rid of
mold, fungus, etc growing inside nooks and crannies, your leather clothes,
etc. due to the high humidity.
We design for air to move within the apartments, and within the project
itself.  We look at creating wind tunnel effects, etc.
Third, we designed for community interaction.  We design for residents to
get out of their individual apartments and to come down to interact and to
work together, eg., morning garden vegetable areas, fruit forest areas, etc.
Hope the above is a start as to what is possible.

Regards

HS

----- Original Message -----
From: <treaclemine@intranet.org>
To: "permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sunday, June 08, 2003 2:37 PM
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Permaculture Apartment


> Greetings,
>
> I suspect that it is going to be very important to understand
> how apartment dwelling can fit into a permaculture designed
> settlement, even if the world population does stablize at 10 billion
> people.  It will be useful to collate the design and solution ideas
> which come up on this list, for starters.  However, it's obvious that
> an apartment cannot be a self-sustaining unit in isolation - the
> apartment dwellers will need some kind of community gardening at the
> very least.
>
> Is there anyone on the list who is a permaculturist in an
> apartment?  I always find real case studies to be the most interesting
> learning tool :-)
>
> The idea of growing guinea pigs could be problematic, as there
> will be lots of by-products to be dealt with, and possible health risks
> too.  Could a composting worm bin deal with all of these?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Amanda in the UK
>
> --
> treaclemine@intranet.org
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