Course:Urban Permaculture Design
From PermaWiki
Please note that this is a more in-depth lesson plan created by the facilitator(s) of the class so that you may better prepare for it, and may be subject to change the closer we get to the class date.
Date: Jan 14th
Summary
- Traditional focus (homesteads, rural areas) vs. urban application, Scale (balcony, house, garden, neighbourhood, city)
- Urban Site Assessment. Let the site speak to you, don’t impose your desires upon it. Use whatever materials are readily available to you on or near the site. Understand the constraints and turn them into opportunities eg. Don’t think about shade in terms of preventing you of growing certain veggies, but as an opportunity to grow mushrooms and other shade tolerant plants.
- We will take you through an integrated design process using the MUCS space as the main example to deepen our engagement with it.
Feel free to bring in your own projects so you can think about how to apply Permaculture site assessment and design principles to your own space.
Course Plan: Urban site analysis and intro to the design process
The goal of this course is to familiarize participants with the various phases of the permaculture design process in such a way that they may begin mapping out and planning their own projects. Rather than focussing on specific design elements or techniques, we will explore ways of assembling the pieces of the puzzle into a functional whole. Using the projected improvement of the MUCS building as an example, we will look at strategies for articulating our goals, organizing and mapping our observations of the site, and developing a “cohesive yet adaptable plan of action”1 .
Intro:
- Review permaculture principles as discussed in previous course.
- Introduce the design spiral, briefly describing each step.
Defining the project
- What are your purposes, needs and wants?
- Generating and sorting your ideas
- Some questions to ask yourself
- Effectively articulating your goals
Information Gathering
OBSERVATION AND SITE ANALYSIS
- Undirected observation
- Thematic observation
Where are the problems/challenges/opportunities with regards to:
- Climate
- Landform
- Water
- Access & circulation
- Vegetation & wildlife
- Microclimate
- Buildings & infrastructure
- Soil quality
- Aesthetics / experience of place
BASE MAP
- How to generate a base map and use overlays to consolidate your observations, i.e. sector analysis.
RESOURCES
- Revisit your goals articulation and for each goal ask yourself; what’s there (existing resources on the site and within the community)? What do we need? Where can we get if for free/trade, or with minimum output?
BREAK
Schematic Design – what goes where
- Input/output analysis
- Random assembly
- Bubble/flow diagram
- Zones of use
Design development
- Refine specific design components and break down into projects
- Develop a schedule of implementation for each project
Implementation
Maintenance & Evaluation
End with a question period, allowing participants to discuss their own projects.
1. H.C. Flores, Food not lawns (White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, 2006), 161
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