Permaculture is an ecological design process. Design is our opportunity to observe the situation and create a plan of action that will allow us to make best use of available resources and create a more productive system, that meets more of our needs and creates less pollution.

There are a range of techniques and processes that are used. They are used in conjunction with permaculture principles and ethics to create an overall pattern or design. Below are some of the processes and techniques that are used.

Design Processes

‘O’BREDIM’ – this is an acronym for:

Observation – key to permaculture is good observation. Use all of your senses. Record observations systematically. Try to observe land over the four seasons and in different weather, especially extremes – frost, heavy rain, very warm, etc. Where does the snow clear first? Where does frost collect? Where does it stay wet or boggy longest? What is the wind like in the winter, and in the summer? Where do cats like to sit (the warmest spots!)What wildlife is there? What is the soil like and does it vary over the site? etc....

Boundaries – What are the boundaries of the site? Walk them and see what you find. What is over the fence, how will this affect you? What are the boundaries of the project – its ‘scope’.

Resources – What resources exist? Financial resources – what money is available to invest in the project? Is it available in a lump sum or small amounts over many months? What skills are there? What plants, structures or other resources are available? Is funding available from outside bodies?

Evaluation – Analysis of what you have got – how do elements interact? Evaluate your resources, will they make a big project possible, or do you need to design a long programme of small changes?

Design – This is where you can play with all your colouring pencils! A base map of what exists can be overlayed with tracing paper and you can start to look at how different aspects of the design might look. Many design techniques exist and most are relatively easy to use.

Implementation – Consider how your plans can be made real, consider the timing/phasing of the project. Create a plan of action and ensure that everyone knows what the plan is. (Best to involve them right from the start, if it doesn’t reflect what they want to happen, it won’t!)

Maintenance – Make sure that you consider what maintenance is involved when you are designing. There is no point creating a system that needs 3 days a week to maintain, if there are only 2 days available.

Another simpler process is ‘SADI’

Survey

Analysis

Design

Implementation

Design techniques

Sector Planning

The site is drawn and lines showing north, south, east and west are added (sectors). Winds, path of the sun (in winter and summer), water movement, wildlife patterns and movement, vehicles and other energies are added to build up a picture of how things flow. By understanding this we can devise strategies to trap the useful energies and build fertility and yields.

Zoning

This is a way of designing to maximise energy efficiency in which activities are put in different zones, depending on frequency of use, maintenance, visits etc.

Generally, activities and structures are placed as follows:

Zone 0: Centre of activities – the house. This is high maintenance, high use and requires considerable investment of time and energy.

Zone 1: Annual plants, herbs, compost, bike store and other high use activities.

Zone 2: Chickens, other animals, orchard, greenhouse.

Zone 3: Water storage, main crops, field shelters.

Zone 4: Forestry, pasture, dams, forage.

Zone 5: Wild zone, where nature is in charge and where we go to learn and harvest only that which is abundant.

Input-output analysis

Input-output is a process to establish what a system needs and what it produces. It can also help to measure the viability of a plan.

What are the costs involved in implementing the design? £/$, time, available resources etc

Ditto for maintenance.

What yield will the system produce?

Where is there a shortfall in resources as things are at present?

SWOT analysis – Identify the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats of the project.

Use of the Pattern Language This is a book by Christopher Alexander et al (Oxford University press), that has uncovered patterns that can be observed in the way we create places to live and work. Highly recommended and an invaluable source of inspiration and guidance.

Yeoman’s Relative Permanence scale This proposes that there are scales of permanence that guide the order in which we place attention to the design of the landscape. The first point at which we can generally make an intervention is water (since we cannot control the climate, or determine the broadscale landscape.) On this basis, the first thing to do when designing is to consider how we can guide and use water to best effect, and how we can get it to perform as many functions as possible before it leaves the site. P.A. Yeoman was an Australian who developed the Keyline System, and this has been used widely to good effect, and has transformed many previously degraded landscapes. It is a key strategy used within broadscale permaculture design.

Climate

Land shape

Water

Roads

Trees

Buildings

Fences and boundaries

Soil

Ecological footprint analysis This can be used as a design tool, in particular to check ecological impact of different designs and existing situations.

The McHarg Exclusion Method Ian McHarg is a Scotsman who has spent most of his working life in North America as a professor of landscape design. He was once asked by a group of local residents to support them in objecting to the route of a proposed road. In working towards a proposal for an alternative route, he came up with his exclusion method. The basis of his method is to ask not where something should go, but where shouldn’t it go. A base map is drawn and a series of transparent overlays are prepared, each one mapping areas which are excluded for a specific reason. In his original work on the road proposal the subjects for overlays included: too near to residential areas, forest, areas of wildlife value, marsh, and areas incurring extra expense, e.g. a bridge. When all the overlays are placed over the base map at once any area which remains blank is ideal, and areas which have the least constraints can be considered if the blank area is not sufficient. The method can be used for placing new structures or plantings in the landscape, including: settlements, individual houses, farm buildings, new woodland and orchards.

http://www.permaculture.org.uk/mm.asp?mmfile=pcdesignmethods