design

Common Sense Prevails...

The shortest day of the year in Chile and the rain is coming down. It is cold and wet. As we celebrate the new year and the return of the sun, thousands of people in the surrounding region are living in government supplied shacks....affectionately termed ´´Mediagua´´ or half water. Most of them are leaking with the rain, and the wind is coming in. You can find photos here.

Local and Healthy Shelter by the Community for the Community

These fotos were produced by Craig Mackintosh of the Permaculture Research Institute. You can see his work here.

The work is now underway in el manzano, with the foundations being put in in the last few days using available and affordable local materials and innovative simple construction techniques.

Design for Resilient Human Settlements

This is the second story from the learning process in Millenrama. You can read the first here.

The week 5-9th of May 2010 team El Manzano was hosted in Millenrama, Mantagua, 5th region to run an Applied Permaculture Design course.
As El Manzano tests ideas for assisting people and communities to engage in transition and design for resilient human settlements, the team develops competency in the delivery of catalytic learning events, in facilitation and leadership by design. As the experience is reviewed once again it is confirmed that there is no power equal to a community deciding what it will become.

Those who are willing must choose transition now (Español)

Liora and Andy will make a live appearance to El Manzano via skype conference. Students of the Permaculture Design Course will have the opportunity to think and listen together with two of the plantes finest ecosocial regenerationists, and to explore the role of higher education and action learning in mobilising our people to engage in action for sustainability.

Getting Started in Permaculture (Español)

As we develop the Chilean branch of the Permaculture Research Institute, assiting people and communities to self organise for sustainability, we find ourselves working more and more in intensive design conversations. We are learning clearly that dreaming together is the first step, that by standing beside colleagues in conspiracy to design, we make sense together. Our consciousness is raised, and we can move on with a higher level of intention. What follows is a story from Enrique, participant in the a new community project Milenrama in the 5th region of Chile.

Start the Design Process Today

If you want us to work with you, you can start the design process by completing this initial survey and gathering the information required. 

This is a draft! Design Consultancy Services

A great Permaculture property plan can save you years of effort and thousands
of dollars you otherwise may have wasted on poorly conceived “improvements”. Our design services will help you make the most of your site and get you working in the right direction from the beginning. Start now by filling in the client forms here.

What’s Included

1. Property Visit (1-2 days)

If you can provide us with adequate maps (contour, soils, cadastral), the “visit” can be
also be performed remotely. The outcomes of this Stage Include;

(a) Initial Consultation - client survey 

This means defininging the overall project and getting very clear about our role and yours.

• Goals for the property.
• Available resources.
• The project timeline.

(b) Property Assessment - site survey

This includes a basic assessment of the opportunities and limitations of your site including; 

Viene Pronto!

We have bueen busy in Chile working on many and various projects as we learn about the application of regenerative design science. We are documenting our process in order to make our experiences useful for others, and as a way to demonstrate our ability to make things happen. Here you can see some of our work. We intend this section to provide a searchable information resource. Have a look around here in this google map.

Ecoescuela El Manzano

- Houses and Appropriate Technology

- Waste Management & Nutirent Maintenance

- Food Process Plant for Fair Trade

- Intensive Gardens

- Mediterranean-Temperate Food Forest

- Agroforestry

- Small Animal Systems

- Water Systems

- Ecological Restoration

- Broadscale Carbon Farming-Cropping-Grazing

- Farm Forestry 

Ecological Design Science

By Joanne Tippett. The aim of this work is a cross-disciplinary integration of ideas specifically relevant to permaculture design and the physical structure of human settlements. Although this work is ambitious in scope, I feel this is an important element of the writing, to present an overview such that the reader is able to see the inter-relations of many ideas relevant to design. This is a synthesis of a kind which I believe has so far not been attempted.

1.0 Introduction

1.1 Structure

1.2 Core principles

A PATTERN LANGUAGE

Summary of a book by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, Murray Silverstein, with Max Jacobson, Ingrid Fiksdahl-King and Shlomo Angel. Published by Oxford University Press.

The original book contains much essential detail behind each of the following patterns and is recommended reading.

We begin with that part of the language which defines a town or community. These patterns can never be "designed" or "built" in one fell swoop- but patient piecemeal growth, designed in such a way that every individual act is always helping to create or generate these larger global patterns, will, slowly and surely, over the years, make a community that has these global patterns in it.

It has been said that we are the most useless generation that ever walked the earth (Hopkins, 2008). Our cosy western lifestyles have led us to reliance on the supermarket, and food transported thousands of kilometres around the planet. As we have chased economic growth at all costs, we have rejected a lifestyle where we had to take care of our own needs, and many of the basic skills that go along with resilient simple living. We forgot once common knowledge, common sense, like how to cook and preserve, to grow our own food, build our own homes, how to fix things when they break, how to live in community.

A NEW INITIATIVE IN PUCÓN CHILE

By Jose Castro student of the Applied Permaculture Diploma

A large part of central Chile from the Biobio River to north of Santiago is described as a Mediterranean Climate, or more precisely Chilean Matorral. We can use these unique conditions to mimic plant and animal strategies to design and create living landscapes that yield an abundance of goodness.

The Mediterranean manifests around the world in Chile, the ´´Mediterranean´´, California, South Africa and Australia. If you look at this link to Biomes you can see where the Mediterranean fits in.  

This is a Draft

El Manzano is in the business of design. We teach others how to do it and support them to develop design skills. But more importantly we design and implement resilient and productive systems. If you want to learn about Permaculture, then you’ve come to the right place! Our approach is to enable you to do it yourself.

We are developing a national and regional team of designers to implement solutions in homes and communities. We are working in an international context with the wider sustainability community, being mentored and supported to develop our capacity. We work with Darren Doherty of Permaculture.biz, Geoff Lawton of the Permaculture Research Instiutute, Gaia University and the Transition Towns Network.

This material is from our cooeagues at http://www.small-farm-permaculture-and-sustainable-living.com/permaculture_landscape_design.html.