The Business of Consultation – David Spicer & Nick Huggins Out on the Job
Commercial Farm Projects, Courses/Workshops, Energy Systems, Land, Project Positions, Retrofitting, Waste Systems & Recycling — by Nick Huggins July 22, 2011
by Nick Huggins
I just purchased a farm in the New South Wales Southern Tablelands, 30min south of Goulburn and 50min east of Canberra, the Australian Capital, and a good friend of mine and of permaculture, David Spicer, has set his sights on the development of his consultancy business in the town of Tumut at the base of the Snowy Mountains, NSW. In moving to a new bio-region there is also an element of adjustment and making yourself known to the good people within it. As such, David and I have set ourselves individual goals that overlap so that we can both compliment each other’s skill sets to take permaculture to our wider communities.
Comments (7)A Lesson from the Cheonggyecheon Stream Restoration Project
Community Projects, Land, Retrofitting, Urban Projects, Village Development, peak oil — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor
This Korean tale of an ancient stream which got paved over to make a freeway, before becoming a nightmare of congestion and stress for inhabitants, and then being painstakingly restored, at great expense, back into a stream and pedestrian zone again, is an excellent case for permaculture observation, planning, ethics and design.
A little history on this:
Comments (4)Building Systems for the Developing World – Perspective and Opportunity
Aid Projects, Building, Courses/Workshops, Energy Systems, Land, Retrofitting, Village Development, Waste Systems & Recycling — by Doug Weatherbee May 21, 2011
Note by Owen Hablutzel: This article from Doug Weatherbee speaks to why the skills and approach of Permaculture are becoming increasingly recognized among international development communities as being necessary and often more useful on-the-ground than conventional ‘development’ approaches for achieving often complex and practical goals in the difficult circumstances often encountered where people, livelihoods, basic needs, and struggling economies intersect. The Permaculture approach can broaden the scope and greatly increase the ‘toolbox’ available, while keeping these elements related and connected through attention to the context and larger whole. Now, more than ever, the world is ready for more Permaculture! What can you do to further prepare to meet this expanding need?
by Doug Weatherbee, Center for Appropriate Technology and Indigenous Sustainability
To a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail.
In many development aid projects around the world, not-for-profits (NFPs) are doing valuable work solving problems for communities and regions. Many of us who have done some sort of development aid work come to these communities with the NFP’s focus area (for example, clean drinking water, sanitation, or agricultural projects) and a set of NFP aid workers who are trained in the NFP focus area. However, when we land on the ground, in real communities and regions, the problems don’t necessarily stay contained within the narrow box of the NFP’s focus or the expertise of its workers. "The real world of people living, eating and growing food, having shelters, dealing with sanitation, having clean drinking water, staying warm or cool, creating families and communities, all of this is a rich mixture, and its problems and solutions don’t often fit into tiny neat boxes," says Jim Hallock, of Tierra Y Cal, who has experience building sustainable shelters in Haiti, South and Central America, and Africa. "When I show up in Haiti to help build a school or a clinic I’m asked about how to grow a food garden or deal with drinking water contamination."
The conundrum so often experienced is that NFP workers are unprepared to deal with aspects of the larger community or regional problems outside the scope of their skills or the not-for-profit’s focus. Sometimes aid workers need a screwdriver, and all they have is a hammer.
Comments (2)First Earth – A Cob Building Film for Inspiration
Building, Consumerism, People Systems, Retrofitting, Waste Systems & Recycling — by Oyvind Holmstad March 17, 2011
First Earth: Uncompromising Ecological Architecture by David Sheen is meant as an inspirational film about earthen buildings, or more specifically, what they call ‘cob’. Cob is the oldest and easiest way of building from earth. You can find information and relevant literature here, and inspiring pictures here.
The architect Rolf Jacobsen at Gaia Tjøme, Norway, has, together with his son, built an experimental cob building on their property. Because of the cold climate they chose a two layer wall with perlite in between for insulation. You can read a discussion about cob in humid climates in this article, looking especially at the comments thread.
No matter whatever you live — in a hot, cold, dry or humid climate — lean back and watch the video below. If you enjoy it the DVD can be ordered here. (The DVD version of the film has high-quality video and audio and includes extras.)
Chapter 1: What’s Wrong With Architecture
Design Exercises in Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) Courses
Building, Courses/Workshops, Energy Systems, Land, Retrofitting, Waste Systems & Recycling — by Geoff Lawton March 3, 2011
Melbourne PDC Design
Photo © Craig Mackintosh
It is standard format, in the PDC curriculum, that students are given an exercise to design a landscape with a design brief so they can make the move into design while being mentored by their Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) teacher. This is not a test but an exercise, enabling students to make the first step into design while still taking part in the PDC program.
During the 72-hour course students receive a body of diverse knowledge which, despite covering a number of disciplines and emphasising the connectivity between those disciplines, can seem surprisingly simplistic and easy to understand until students are put into design groups and given a challenge to design an area of landscape with a design brief. If the brief is likely to be a real life scenario then the possibilities expand and the design system complicates itself into innumerable choices of interactive complexity.
Comments (17)Indoor Farm in Tokyo
Building, Energy Systems, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Food Shortages, Land, Plant Systems, Retrofitting, Urban Projects — by Cecilia Macaulay January 13, 2011
Conference room, Head office, Pasona Group Inc.
With all my Japan projects bedded down for the winter, I set out for some sightseeing in my final weekend in Tokyo (Dec 4th) with a visit to the head office of the Pasona Group Inc.
Comments (20)Integrated Design
Building, Consumerism, Eco-Villages, Energy Systems, General, Land, People Systems, Retrofitting, Society, Village Development, Waste Systems & Recycling — by Oyvind Holmstad October 6, 2010
Photo © Craig Mackintosh
Could it be useful sometimes to replace the name permaculture with something else, because some people have wrong associations with the word? I’ve heard people discussing this, but they didn’t come up with any alternative. Here I have a suggestion: “integrated design”.
In a way, permaculture principle eight – integrate rather than segregate – has become like my most precious jewel among the design principles. And in fact I think the value of this principle is inestimable. To integrate rather than segregate is the core of life, without which life cannot exist, and life has no meaning.
Luckily, permaculture is all about how to integrate.
Comments (9)How to Make an Egg Mobile
Animal Housing, Bird Life, Breeds, Building, Land, Livestock, Rehabilitation, Retrofitting, Waste Systems & Recycling, Working Animals — by Geoff Lawton September 3, 2010
So, we wanted to make an egg mobile for egg laying chickens to follow behind our dairy cows and fertilise the pasture while scratching the manure that the cows leave behind. The chickens also leave behind their own manure whilst free ranging across pasture. This technique allows the chickens to supplement their diet and produce some good eggs for us to enjoy.
So, first we started off with a 6 by 4 foot derelict old car trailer. Here is the trailer in our workshop with our current internship students learning how to do some metal recycling work to create a good solid egg mobile. This egg mobile is of minimal size to work on a small farm.
Comments (10)Decoding Pattern
Building, Energy Systems, Food Forests, General, Land, Plant Systems, Retrofitting, Waste Systems & Recycling — by Adrian Buckley July 31, 2010
The modern-day education system is almost entirely bent on creating an army of university professors and other specialists. We have been systematically trained to specialize, and as a result we approach problem-solving by studying parts of a whole, where the connections between them are commonly ignored.
Comments (15)From Little Things Big Things Grow
Consumerism, Courses/Workshops, Food Forests, Food Plants - Perennial, Food Shortages, Land, Markets & Outlets, People Systems, Retrofitting, Social Gatherings, Society, Trees, Village Development, Waste Systems & Recycling — by Matt Lees July 30, 2010
Have you ever grown your own food? Studies have shown that people who eat organic produce from their own garden have an increased sense of well being and good health.
In September 2007 I met a group of motivated, hardcore volunteer gardeners. When I say hardcore, some of these guys where involved with the guerrilla gardeners. They turn unused trashy areas and transform them into edible, self-sustaining gardens.
It started like this….
Some groups even go to extremes like dressing up in council uniforms or go out in the middle of the night and load their vans armed with fruit tree seedlings, compost and shovels.
Comments (4)The Transformation of Our Urban Home
Biological Cleaning, Building, Energy Systems, Retrofitting, Urban Projects, Waste Systems & Recycling, Water Harvesting — by Rob Avis May 28, 2010
by Rob Avis
In August 2008, my wife Michelle and I returned to Calgary, Canada, after spending one year traveling abroad in search of sustainability solutions. With backgrounds in mechanical engineering, our “sabbatical” started off in Denmark – we were drawn there by the lure of technological solutions to energy issues. After several months of volunteering and filling our brains with information (wind energy, solar applications, passive buildings, biogas, plant oil engines… and more) we ended up back in North America prepared to explore the U.S. and Mexico in our plant-oil powered Westfalia.
We knew that something thus far in our sustainability search was missing and were starting to suspect that the missing link might be permaculture (although we didn’t really know what it was quite yet). Our travels brought us to several eco-sites, including an ecovillage near Mexico City. We stopped to do some WWOOFing at a permaculture farm and then headed further south to visit the indigenous Mexicans of the Chiapas, interested to learn about their agricultural practices. An Earthship workshop and geodesic greenhouses in New Mexico and an education center and CSA project in Colorado to name a few other adventures. And to culminate this amazing year we signed up for a Permaculture Design Course at Bullocks Homestead in Washington. The entire experience was nothing short of amazing.
Next task – put all of this information to productive use! Oh boy.
Comments (9)Letters from Chile – the Adobe House and Potty Training
Aid Projects, Biological Cleaning, Building, Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Eco-Villages, Education Centres, Potable Water, Rehabilitation, Retrofitting, Soil Conservation, Urban Projects, Village Development, Waste Systems & Recycling, Waste Water, Water Contaminaton & Loss — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor May 9, 2010
Editor’s Note: This is Part IV of a series. Be sure to catch Part I, Part II, and Part III.
The ‘Adobe House’, El Manzano’s ecological demonstration house.
All photos © copyright Craig Mackintosh
In the middle of the little El Manzano village, on display to all in the community, is the ‘Adobe House’. This demonstration house is a project by Eco Escuela El Manzano to demonstrate to the community several low-tech but effective techniques for improving quality of life whilst reducing a home’s impact on the environment.
Comments (12)Letters from Chile: Visiting Dichato – the Town That Was
Aid Projects, Building, Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Developments, Education Centres, News, Retrofitting, Society, Urban Projects, Village Development, Waste Systems & Recycling — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor April 30, 2010
Editor’s Note: This is Part II of a series. Read Part I here.
A former beautiful, bustling and touristy coastal town in Chile clings to an uncertain future after being engulfed by the 2010 tsunami.
A Dichato fishing boat scene, in waning evening light, exudes a serenity that
belies the realities of the almost complete destruction behind.
All photos © copyright Craig Mackintosh
Up to 90% of the buildings of Dichato were destroyed, creating a graveyard
of rubble, peppered with dilapidated buildings – many of which may soon end
up the same way.
Yesterday I visited the little coastal town of Dichato. A few months ago, such a trip might have included a bare-footed wade along the town’s tranquil beach, and, depending on the time of day, could have included a friendly wave or greater interaction with some of the smiling local fishermen bringing in their hauls. Afterwards I might have had a nice meal at one of the sun-drenched seaside restaurants or a coffee break in one of the town’s modest cafes, frequented by sea-loving tourists from near and far. It’s the kind of place many could envision themselves retiring in, or where you might establish a small business to accommodate a more leisurely lifestyle choice. Framed by green hills and groves, lined by a long sandy beach, and embraced by a beautiful natural cove that passively calms the restless South Pacific ocean, Dichato was, simply put, a very nice place to be.
Comments (6)Life at Zaytuna – Permaculture Ag Bicycle 1.0
Demonstration Sites, Education Centres, Retrofitting, Village Development — by Patrick Blampied March 18, 2010
by Patrick Blampied, who is currently interning with the Permaculture Research Institute
Since the main shed was moved up to the top of the property we’ve been running up and down in the ute more often.
Most Australian farmer use a petrol powered Ag bike to do these smaller trips but on a Permaculture farm where you don’t travel a lot of steep slopes because of the swales a pedal powered bicycle would be perfect, not to mention more environmentally friendly.
Geoff knows I like playing with bikes so he asked me if I would be able to design a bike to get us around the property. The design brief goes like this:
Comments (6)Urban Design Patterns in Melbourne
Biological Cleaning, Land, Retrofitting, Society, Urban Projects, Water Harvesting — by Dan Palmer July 4, 2009
by Dan Palmer, Very Edible Gardens
As more and more people become aware of the many reasons to provide for more of their needs at home, we are finding more and more demand for permaculture design consultancies. We are currently doing two or three in Melbourne each week, and in this article I wanted to share some of the general patterns that are emerging as we go along.
To paint a picture of the average design brief we’re faced with, though the client group is diverse, including younger couples, older couples, single house owners, and young families, almost all our clients ask for some combination of the following:
- Intensive vegie gardens for salad green and kitchen herbs
- Larger vegie gardens for tomatoes, potatoes, corn etc (or the option of adding this in future)
- Water tanks to catch, store and redistribute rain water
- Fruit trees
- Chickens
- An open area for socialising / pets / children
- Simple greywater reuse systems
- Some natives
