Session 5 – Permaculture Design Principle “Use & Value Renewable Resources & Services” Links: Vertical Forest Buildings – www.technocracy.news/index.php/2017/02/07 Forest Gardening, Busoga, Uganda – http://www.sector39.co.uk/blog/?p=6851 Energy, Oil, Economics – https://ourfiniteworld.com/ Atmospheric CO2 – https://www.co2.earth/ Climate Change – https://skepticalscience.com/ Calculator for angle of sun & other info. – http://www.suncalc.org Videos: “Worms […]

PDC Reading 3/6 – P 5 Natural resources

Permaculture Design Principle: “Apply self-regulation and accept feedback” Topics and key points included: “The sins of the fathers are visited on the children of the seventh generation” – long-term impacts of activities Feedback is key to how nature operates in self-regulating systems in dynamic equilibrium Oxygen is a key element […]

PDC Reading 2/6- P 4 – 5th February 2017

Client interviews Summerpool Garden Economies presentation We didn’t quite to the end where I present an alternative Macro economic model, based on the ideas presented in Sh ort Circuit by Richard Douthwaite

Chester PDC: Session 10

Links: Thrive – Reading-based charity, gardening therapy, education – http://www.thrive.org.uk/ Erleigh Road Community Garden, Reading – https://www.facebook.com/erleighroadcommunitygarden/ Videos: Ron Finley, Guerilla Gardener – http://www.ted.com/talks/ron_finley_a_guerilla_gardener_in_south_central_la Graham Bell, Orchard Management – http://grahambell.org/consultancy/orchard-management/ Water: The Strangest Chemical In The Universe, Guardian Explainers – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0q0ApYZrMTk Potato Control, Michael Pollan – http://www.pbs.org/thebotanyofdesire/potato-control.php Food Inc., Michael […]

PDC Reading; weekend 2/6 P3 Yields

We begin our design challenge in our 9th session with a walk around the site to the Retreat house garden and also underneath the city walls to the falconry garden. The first is an enclosed private space, more for staff than visitors which provides the course team with a wonderful […]

Chester PDC: 9 Cathedral gardens design challenge

water and soil Weekend two of the Reading PDC focussed on the principles 3 and 4, Obtain a yield and Apply limitations and accept feedback. Feedback is the force the drives evolution and principle 4 leads us into systems thinking, reminding us that ecological systems gain their stability from a complex […]

Reading 2/6 P3+4 Yields and Systems

principle 8
Here is the presentation from the session Permaculture and people By putting the right things in the right place, relationships develop between them and they support each other. This icon represents a group of people from a bird’s-eye view, holding hands in a circle together. The space in the centre […]

Chester PDC: 8 Lets work together

risc roof
Through obsevation and interaction Permaculture design can reveal how to turn problems into solutions. The Overview effect: to se the view we need to change our perspective, and where better to start that with the testimony of 5 astronauts who gained the perspective of seeing the earth from space, as […]

Reading PDC: 1/6 Permaculture and the city

afristar permaculture posters
Hear the permaculture principles put to music by the Formidable Vegetable Sound System Secret Life of Chaos, Dr Jim Al-Kalili makes sense of the complexity of patterns and chaos, the understanding of which represents the leading frontier of our scientific understanding.   Patterns in nature, PowerPoint from session 7 Patterns presentation. […]

Chester PDC: 7 Pattern language

Links: UN: Only Small Farmers and Agroecology Can Feed the World – http://permaculturenews.org/2014/09/26/un-small-farmers-agroecology-can-feed-world/ The Organic Research Centre, Wakelyns Agroforestry – http://www.organicresearchcentre.com/?go=Organic%20Research%20Centre&page=Contact%20us Colin Tudge – http://www.colintudge.com/ Oxford Real Farming Conference – http://orfc.org.uk/blog/ The Campaign for Real Farming and The College for Enlightened Agriculture http://www.campaignforrealfarming.org/ School Global Gardens Network – http://www.globalgardens.org.uk/ Food4Families, […]

PDC 1/6 – Sun 22/01/17 – “Catch & store energy”

Principle: Nature runs on cycles. There is no waste. The outputs of one process or system are the inputs for another. Pay attention to Inputs and outputs, think of them as relationships Compost and other strategies to process and hold on to nutrients Designing cyclical systems, by linking outputs and inputs […]

Chester PDC: D6 Waste not want not

Links: Braziers Park, Oxfordshire – http://www.braziers.org.uk/ Holzer Permaculture, Sepp Holzer – http://www.holzerpermaculture.us/ The Chikukwa Project, permaculture in Zimbabwe – http://thechikukwaproject.com/ Chickenshack Housing Co-operative, Wales – http://chickenshack.co.uk/ Atmospheric homeostasis by and for the biosphere: the Gaia hypothesis, James Lovelock – http://www.jameslovelock.org/page34.html Videos: The Overview Effect – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHMIfOecrlo Suggested Reading: Permaculture: A […]

PDC 1/6 – Sat 21/01/17 – “Observe & interact”

  Energy is the driver of a system. In nature the energy in is always solar power and natural systems tend to be energy efficient – natural selection culls inefficiencies and rewards those that operate on local and natural resources. Energy occurs in patterns: day and night, seasons, etc. and efficient systems tends […]

Chester PDC: Day 5 – Appreciating natural materials and services

The design team for the project was comprised of PDC students in the second part of their two week course. Among their number is a chef, a concert violinist, an architect, a rocket scientist (yes really), a forest school trainer, a fashion model, a care worker and an MA student. Diversity […]

Designing a vision for the Honeypot

We  kick off our 2017 programme with a 6 weekend PDC at RISC Reading. Sector39, our teaching partnership began from work done in 2002-5 in Reading at RISC, on the roof garden and in Wales at Chickenshack housing co-op. These two project gave us experience and insight enough to begin teaching […]

New PDC course dates for 2017