Permaculture, a design framework drawing on the principles & patterns of nature has been acclaimed to support the design of anything and everything. The resources available to help designers re-design their gardens or farms are abundant; processes are clear & methods are well tried and tested. So how does one design for Zone 00? Where do you start & how can you begin to process the multiple layers of your life from your love life to your livelihood? During this output period I was gifted with the opportunity to review a new upcoming book about People Care - the third permaculture ethic packed full of resources & activities to craft designs for your self and people based systems.
In Looby Macnamara's book 'People and Permaculture - caring and designing for ourselves, each other and the planet', she presents a tool called the Design Web, which is illustrated to the right. Permaculture Association | Principles. Permaculture principles provide a set of universally applicable guidelines that can be used in designing sustainable systems. These principles are inherent in any permaculture design, in any climate, and at any scale. They have been derived from the thoughtful observation of nature, and from earlier work by ecologists, landscape designers and environmental science. The principles have recently been reviewed by David Holmgren (one of the co-originators of permaculture) in his book Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability.
We have decided to use this new set as a way of presenting more in-depth information and examples. We make links and connection to previous principles and show how they combine to create a powerful new way to think about our interaction with the world. The principles encompass those stated in Introduction to Permaculture, by Bill Mollison & Reny Mia Slay: and those in Permaculture, a Designers' Manual, by Bill Mollison: Principles of Permaculture. Since its inception, the Principles of Permaculture have undergone refinements. As Permaculture is about modeling nature, the basic core of Permaculture really cannot change.
Our understanding of nature improves with more observation and research. As our understanding is refined, so then the guiding Principles of Permacuture are refined. Bill Mollison In 1988, Bill Mollison outlined five Principles of Permaculture in his book Permaculture, a Designers' Manual. Here they are: 1. Work with nature rather than against (assist, don't fight against, natural development). 2. In 1991, Mollison wrote Introduction to Permaculture. David Holmgren Finally, in 2002, David Holmgren, the co-originator of Permaculture (along with Mollison), restated the Principles of Permaculture in his book Permaculture: Principles and Pathways beyond Sustainability. Twelve Principles of Permaculture Every few days, I will highlight one of Holmgren's principles in a post, and expound upon it a bit. Permaculture Ethics. (first published 21 June 2011) Any philosophy has its own set of principles or ethics whether they are written or not.
Permaculture is no different. When Bill Mollison and David Holmgren developed the formal ideas of Permaculture, they also developed three guiding ethical principles. These principles were designed by evaluating indigenous, sustainable civilizations from around the world through history. One of the things that kept these civilizations going for so long, sometimes for over a thousand years, was that they had some set of ethics to guide them in the decisions and actions they made. The ethics from these civilizations could be distilled down to three core guiding ideas. Permaculture Ethics Earth CarePeople CareReturn of Surplus Now first, let me point out that these principles are all EQUAL in value; one is not more important than the other.
Earth Care The Garden of Eden, Jan the Elder Brueghel – 1612 Which leads me to the next ethical principle… People Care Return of Surplus. Permaculture Design Principles. The Permaculture Design Principles are a set of universal design principles that can be applied to any location, climate and culture, and they allow us to design the most efficient and sustainable human habitation and and food production systems. Permaculture is a design system that encompasses a wide variety of disciplines, such as ecology, landscape design, environmental science and energy conservation, and the Permaculture design principles are drawn from these various disciplines.
Each individual design principle itself embodies a complete conceptual framework based on sound scientific principles. When we bring all these separate principles together, we can create a design system that both looks at whole systems, the parts that these systems consist of, and how those parts interact with each other to create a complex, dynamic, living system. Now that we know what the design principles are, and what their purpose is, let us explore each of the design principles in detail. Like this: Permaculture Design Principles. The foundations of permaculture are the ethics (centre) which guide the use of the 12 design principles, ensuring that they are used in appropriate ways. These principles are seen as universal, although the methods used to express them will vary greatly according to the place and situation. They are applicable to our personal, economic, social and political reorganisation as illustrated in the permaculture flower.
Each principle can be thought of as a door that opens into whole systems thinking, providing a different perspective that can be understood at varying levels of depth and application. Click on each of the principles icons to find out more, including a catchy tune about each of them – available from the album Permaculture: A Rhymer’s Manual. A free poster download of the principles is also available. For a deeper insight make sure you read the Essence of Permaculture, a summary of David Holmgren’s seminal work Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability. Design Principles | A Permaculture Design Course Handbook. The principles above are laid out in Bill Mollison’s later book “Introduction to Permaculture”.
There he presented a concise form of the concepts he laid out in the Chapters 2 & 3 in Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual. A summary of them can be seen below and even downloaded here: BM PC Principles summary. The principles seem to be patterns laid out on how nature’s inherent intelligence is formed in time and space. They are a great tool for interpreting ecosystem establishment and functions and from there designs can unfold. Summary of Permaculture Principles from TreeYo Permaculture (click on each Principle for further pics and explanation, more coming) from Introduction to Permaculture by Bill Mollison 1. Functional Analysis: is a tool to realize the full potential of each element by examining products and behaviors, needs, and intrinsic characteristics. 2. 3. 4. Zone Planning refers to the placement of elements based on their intensity of use and management. 5. 6. A schematic of coppice 7.