Living Permaculture
Adventures in designing for Earth care, People care & Fairshares
Introduction:
I began my diploma journey in the summer of 2010 It's taken me 4.5 years to reach accreditation.
The competance learning cycle really says it all about my journey. In one sense I feel capable & confident as a Permaculture Designer, in another sense the gaps in my knowledge & skills seem bigger than ever!
Key learning points for me have been around clarity of functions, communication & judgement of the realistic potential of a project. Also designing for real life rather than permaculture fantasy. Working with my natural rythms & communication skills with clients & collaborators. I've also learnt & continue to learn hugely about soils, trees, plants & animals as well as design solutions in other contexts. Learning to learn.
My ALP design outlines my journey in more detail, in particular the pitfalls of the first section were highlighted & then the focus from thereon is on the last 6 months or so where things speeded up somewhat!
Main content:
My design experience throughout the diploma has been quite varied,
In ten designs, I've been active in areas from community activisation to garden design, to teaching, to administration, to self education & personal development.
So I've not had one main focus, instead I've tried my had at afew things & learnt lots in the process.... I've grounding in these areas
Ive been very inspired by my latest design project -Interior Design'- which focuses on 'zone 00' and the way it impacts on the rest of my life & work. In particluar the patterns I used in this design such as 'spirals of erosion' & 'the four quadrants' I've found to be fundamental to change making so I'll be giving more consideration to these in my upcoming work.
All of my diploma designs have been implemented either by the client or by myself & this has increased my learning considerably, I've had to reflect on the practicality of the designs, & the challenges that come with translating design theory into real life.
Lesons here have been around working in harmony with natural & established rhythms such as seasonal patterns (ALP, Interior Design, Food Garden).
This links in to my previous point, & the big learning here is to understand & design for the involved humans energy, focus, time, skills, comfort zones & expectations as well as the culture that they may be within, what their supports are socially & culturally.
This learning curve began near the beginning of my diploma with the compost loo design, followed by the community skillshare network design, it was an issue I perhaps didn't completely resolve back then & so I've had to deal with it again more recently in my ALP design, my own Food Garden design & finally my Interior design where I feel I finally got a better undertanding of how it works!
Throughout each design I've had to do lots of research, reading books, online and going to courses to gain the required information to fullfill the needs of the design, this has enourmously increased my own knowledge around plants, soil, trees, tools, composting, community organisation tools, and so on.
As far as designing is concerned, one of my main issues is technological limits. I've identified it in more than one design but up until now I've managed to get away without addressing it properly. Mapping & drawing maps takes me a long time by hand, even though I would prefer to spend less time than I currently do in front of a screen I can seee how digitalising this skill would bring my work up a notch or two in terms of efficiency. I will look for a way of learning that efficiently.
My main
Networks/events etc I've been involved in
Conclusion
I've had a very interesting diploma journey, I've learnt loads, I wish this approach to learning was taught in schools so I would have had an easier time adjusting to it at the beginning!
While my design skills, practical skills & knowledge have come up to scratch in terms of being able to competently do a permaculture design for myself or for a client, I know the learning will continue.
As for my next steps I am working towards setting up my own business based around permaculture design, permaculture teaching & a productive land based enterprise as part of my family farm so I can see my next personal design being a financial one. I've already started the observation stage of by doing money mapping in my Interior design
I have fallen in love with community led initiatives too thanks to my involvement in the seed keep or which I am very grateful & I would like to centre my future work -including here at the farm- around community wherever possible.
In terms of actual next steps, my most important step as a designer is to learn digital mapping & design programs so that I can speed up my work.
& finally, I'd recommend anyone to do the diploma, with afew 'notes' around expecations & using resources wisely (like tutor contact). I would like to look into what it would take to register as a tutor so that I could share the benefit of my experiences with other people doing the diploma in Ireland.
I'm very grateful to have been on this journey, in a way, it's really only beginning!!
Review of Relevant Activities
Principles & Ethics rant
I've become familiar with using the principles in everyday life as well as in my design work.I've used both Mollisson & Holgren Principles interchangeably depending on the situation. Designs such as Food Garden, Incredible Edible, & Compost Toilet, have called for more directly practical principles offered by Mollisson whereas my ALP design, Portfolio, & Interior Design were more suited to the Holmgren set. In my teaching designs I've used both together & at times adapted them to suit the site & people that I'm working with as in Blarney Park design.
If you hover your mouse over each design photo portal on the homepage you'll see that I have aligned each design with one particular principle, the principle which kind of charatcterises the design such as 'produce no waste' for the compost toilet design.
In relation to my diploma journey, 'Edge' has been a constant theme, I've been stretching my comfort zone through design, teaching, community & personal development. At times I've been far beyond my comfort zone & these times have given me the opportunity to really see what I'm capable of & where I need to learn more.
The ethics however have been more challenging, this is partly to do with my own conditioning, habits, & expectations and partly to do with societal & cultural norms, expectations, perceptions & (lack of) support structures.
For example, I am quite involved in a Seed Keep group which is a shining example of the Permaculture Principles in action however it is based about 35 kilometres from where I live so I almost always drive there (opportunity for transport design? or a more local Seed Keep?), not only do I have to buy fuel, I'm also obliged to maintain a vehicle.
Similarly sometimes implementing projects has required sourcing materials that from an ethical point of view I would prefer not to buy such as polytunnel plastic
(opportunity for a design for seasonal food abundance) and tar paper.
Often it comes down to economy -of time & of money, sometimes creativity, & other times as I said, cultural conditions.
It seems there are many compromises to be made, apparently Permaculture is a direction not a destination or so I hear! Maybe I have high standards but I don't see the point of taking from Peter to pay Paul. So I think I have a way to go to figure this out.
