permaculture

[Chris Carnevale <c.s.carnevale@gmail.com>]

Hi all,

I helped start the Charleston Permaculture Guild this spring and since
then, teaching other people permaculture has really prompted me to go back
to the basics and reinforce my understanding of the fundamentals
permaculture design.  I've written up a brief outline of the permaculture
design process as I understand it and am looking for feedback to see if
anyone would like to share any complimentary or contradictory insight on
the outline I've proposed.  Please feel free to elaborate on what I've
said, rearrange, or disagree with what I've said.  It it likely quite
incomplete as I just typed it out over the past 20 minutes or so.

Thanks,

Chris Carnevale
Charleston, SC

Basic Overview of Permaculture Design Process

 1.     Understanding and accepting of permaculture ethics

2.     Reviewing the principles of permaculture (as articulated by
Mollison, Holmgren, Hemenway, Osentowski/Cruz—any others?)

3.     Unbiased initial site observation

4.     Visioning process (sometimes a client interview)—listing the
*items*you want or need from the landscape or the
*general characteristics or feelings* that the landscape will display (i.e.
“I want a place of relaxation,” “lots of colors,” “lots of food,” “a pond,”
etc.)

5.     Zone and sector analysis

6.     Developing appropriate boundaries, including but not limited to
boundaries of:

a.     Space

b.     time to maintain

c.     zoning or HOA rules

d.     physical capabilities

7.     Analyzing what resources are available, including but not limited to:

a.     Money

b.     Time

c.      Land

d.     Water

e.     existing vegetation

f.      wildlife

g.     manpower

h.     tools

i.      mulch

8.     Designing from patterns (big picture) to details

a.     Applying pattern language (particularly Peter Bane’s new Garden
Farming Pattern Language in the Permaculture Handbook) to identify what
elements to incorporate into the overall system

b.     Placing system elements according to relative location and
overlapping as much as possible the elements’ respective needs and yields

9.     Accepting design feedback

a.     Ask, “does this design meet the prior articulated vision?”

b.     Does this system utilize the principles of permaculture?  Are there
any place wherein the principles could be further incorporated?

c.      Does this system respect the boundaries laid out prior?

d.     Does placement of system elements rearrange zones?  Do elements need
to be rearranged accordingly?

10. Implementation

11. Maintenance

12. Continually accepting feedback from the system, tweaking design based
on that feedback, and re-implementing the new design.

I've also got a general question: Pattern language has always seemed
somewhat enigmatic or theoretical to me.  Do you have any favorite examples
of applying pattern language to a design process?