PERMACULTURE is an intelligent Design System of living. It is an evolution in human history towards nature and balance. Permaculture is a Tool and Knowledge with its Ethics and Principles that we, the humans can live on this planet without harming any other living being but caring instead. In abundance of food, health, shelter and intelligent life style. Permaculture is a set of tecniques and principles for designing sustainable human settlements.
The Name: The word Permaculture comes from Permanent and Culture. It was initially taken the Permanent Agriculture as a base, later it developed into a whole design philosophy and it is mostly regarded a shift in human consciousness towards a new lifestyle, living in harmony with nature.
The History: Permanent agriculture is actually thousands of years old knowledge and application in all parts of the world. It was practised naturally without giving a name to it. Families, tribes, villages managed small to mid range gardens, which were the modified versions of natural forest vegetation, such as productive trees, vines, shrubs, herbs and vegetables grow together.
The conscius idea of Permaculture and the word itself were formulated in the 1970's by two Australians, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren. Permaculture has developed since then and it became a worldwide movement. In every part of the world there are leading teachers, groups and communities. Apart from David Holmgren and Bill Mollison from Australia, there are great teachers, such as Geoff Lawton, Paul Wheaton also from Australia, Sepp Holzer's Permaculture from Austria, Masanobu Fukuoka from Japan, Patrick Whitefield from the UK, Toby Hemenway from the US are very known names.
The Ethics:
1. Earthcare - Caring for the nature and it's living beings with their needs as equally important as human needs
2. Peoplecare - Care for self and Lifestyle
3. Return of the surpluses - Reuse of metarials, catching and storing of the renewable energy
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The Principles: 1. Observe and Interact 2. Catch and Store Energy 3. Obtain A Yield 4. Apply self regulation and accept feedback 5. Use and value renewable recources and services 6. Produce No Waste 7. Design from Patterns To Details 8. Integrate rather than Segregate 9. Use small and slow solutions 10. Use and value diversity 11. Use edges and value the marginal 12. Creatively use and respond to Change |
This diagram has been taken from Permacultureprinciples.com website. Please click on it to visit that website for further details.
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Permaculture Designer:
Permaculture designer is actually the planner, creator, artist and the person who has the skill of end to end imagination for the solutions. The Permaculture Designer considers many different aspects about the design and constantly searches the connections between the dots. He/She uses Permaculture ethics, principles and Permaculture design tools to transform the thoughts into reality. With Permaculture Designs, the thoughts and ideas of Ecologically peaceful life style comes into reality. These designs consider how we can make peace with nature and the nature can manifest itself and abundantly serve us and the environment around us.
What is Permaculture Design ?
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Permaculture Designs, when we look at it on a paper, they represent an idea, a drawing of a thought. These thoughts come from people's visions, imaginations and their inspirations. The designs show how it will look like when it is established. The designs are based on a knowledge. This knowledge is based on Permaculture Principles, which suggests to live mindfully, respectfully, sustainable and productive. As a Permaculture Designer, I'm connecting the knowledge and visions of people in one place.
The designs show the grown state of plants and trees, also buildings in their scaled sizes from a bird view point. We structure and place the pieces on the right places with the knowledge of Permaculture Principles and Ethics. When the elements are correctly placed and visible on the Design Map, then people can see what the thought is, where it is leading to, where will be the pieces of elements. This map is critical to success. |
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What is the value of having a Permaculture Design ?
A Permaculture Design means, it is for a permanent establishment. We are designing a model which can support both nature and human needs, therefore it should be designed with ecological sense. Every structure on the design has a purpose and functionality for establishing that. There are a few points we can say on the value of having a Permaculture Design;
1. Ecological Compliance: The designs leads to self sustainable, ecologically sound, wild life supporting human settlements. It is critical to position the pieces on the design in a way that makes sense as it is in the nature. The connection between these pieces are the main idea. Wind, sun, soil quality, functionalities of the plants, the trees and the other aspects give guidance towards structuring these pieces in to the right places.
2. Unproductive To Productive: We can turn many land structures, gardens, small plots in to productive places. There is a knowledge to do that with Permaculture. The designs help to visualize the ideas and knowledge. For example, having Ivy as your garden wall to have privacy between 2 backyard gardens, we can suggest vertical gardening ideas. It serves to the same purpose of your privacy but it adds value and become also fruitful.
3. Providing Clear Understanding to all parties: The design provides a clear visualization, which shows How the land will look like at the end of this establishment and every aspect in grown sizes(Trees, etc). The design shows exactly the location of each piece and it helps to all involved parties to asses the idea easily. It provides the end picture with stages.
4. Cost Assesment and Financial Plan: The design provides a clear understanding of the space usage for the individual aspect. For example trees, bushes. It shows how many and what kind of trees you can use and where it is best place to position them. If you can asses how many and what type of tree can ecologically fit that land, the costs can be easily calculated and a financial plan can be easily implemented.
5. Man Power and Time Assesment: The design provides how much work is involved as the space usage with the number of aspects can be seen in the design map. Then, how much man power(or machine power) is needed and how long it is going to take to implement this design.
1. Ecological Compliance: The designs leads to self sustainable, ecologically sound, wild life supporting human settlements. It is critical to position the pieces on the design in a way that makes sense as it is in the nature. The connection between these pieces are the main idea. Wind, sun, soil quality, functionalities of the plants, the trees and the other aspects give guidance towards structuring these pieces in to the right places.
2. Unproductive To Productive: We can turn many land structures, gardens, small plots in to productive places. There is a knowledge to do that with Permaculture. The designs help to visualize the ideas and knowledge. For example, having Ivy as your garden wall to have privacy between 2 backyard gardens, we can suggest vertical gardening ideas. It serves to the same purpose of your privacy but it adds value and become also fruitful.
3. Providing Clear Understanding to all parties: The design provides a clear visualization, which shows How the land will look like at the end of this establishment and every aspect in grown sizes(Trees, etc). The design shows exactly the location of each piece and it helps to all involved parties to asses the idea easily. It provides the end picture with stages.
4. Cost Assesment and Financial Plan: The design provides a clear understanding of the space usage for the individual aspect. For example trees, bushes. It shows how many and what kind of trees you can use and where it is best place to position them. If you can asses how many and what type of tree can ecologically fit that land, the costs can be easily calculated and a financial plan can be easily implemented.
5. Man Power and Time Assesment: The design provides how much work is involved as the space usage with the number of aspects can be seen in the design map. Then, how much man power(or machine power) is needed and how long it is going to take to implement this design.