Specification and Contents
Review Specification This is a summary of my projects in Collaborative Ecological Design Process. The sections all link to Google Drive documents with photographs and stories. The sections are in chronological order, however some of the sections tell a longer and fuller story than others. Recommended reading if time constrained, Hugh Popenoe Agroecological Garden, and Tree Covered Learn By Doing. Sections as follows:
Hugh Popenoe Agroecological Garden
Tree Covered Learn by Doing
UC Davis Dome Welcome Garden
Design for Sustainability
UC Davis Domes Ecological Design Process
Challenges
Hugh Popenoe Agroecological Garden
Hugh Popenoe Agroecological Garden This is the story of the fullest documentation I have done on a project I have cocreated and cofacilitated. That is a navigation document that goes to my ongoing draft of the story, a summary and a slideshow presentation, feel free to visit whichever your time constraints allow for or the one that best suits your preference, not it is the ongoing draft of this that is represented in the word count of this OP.
My friend, Diego Moscoso expressed a desire to restore the compacted landscape left behind between two dorms, I offered to team up! This is Diego's TEDx talk where he talks about our project, and the work he has gone on to do.
Insight Harvest
The thing this story gave me that changed my life, and its in the written and slideshow versions of the story: seeing the moment in our implementation where the landscape begins to look like the design on paper. There is a picture of it and it is so cool. It is what Dave Jacke refers to when he says that when you articulate goals and analyse and assess the site, the design begins to emerge. Our site analysis showed us what areas were being used, where the water was flowing, where the people were walking and to what. Seeing those energy flows become paths, and water holding beds, and an outdoor study room. That was life changing for me and everyone involved.
UC-Davis Domes Welcome Garden
A short document introducing the Domes at UC Davis and a few pictures illustrating the domies engaging in design process for a small garden next to the office dome.
Insight Harvest
Ecological Design Process is natural and organic. What that means to me in light of this small project is that the community had expressed a desire to sheet mulch beds, lay down paths, and add some intention to the space in that corner of the Domes. Our process allowed that all to connect, the goals were articulated, we learned from the landscape, designed the spaces, and over a couple work parties there were new paths. It is something we might call development or unfolding, but applied to larger systems as described by Christopher Alexander in Timeless Way of Building.
Tree Covered Learn by Doing
Tree Covered Learn By Doing is a short summmary of my Jose Miguel Holguín's Zamorano thesis project. My role was of co facilitator and main advisor, which meant I had to write the methodology for the thesis. It is important to note that Learn by Doing Modules at Zamorano are the University Enterprises at which students spend half their structured time gaining hands on work experience. The Integrated Crop Management and Climate Change Module is what we applied Ecological Design Process to with the collaboration of 64 students from that year's graduating class.
Aplicación de Proceso De Diseño Ecológico... This is the link to the actual paper. The Zamorano online library with archives of the thesis project papers has been unreliable lately. This paper is not only the first Permaculture thesis at Zamorano, Jose Miguel won best thesis in 2014 which brought wide international attention to Ecological Design Process.
This is my evaluation grid from when I was organizing my documentation of this project:
Update of 2019 Jose Miguel is in the Masters in Sustainable Tropical Agriculture Program at Zamorano, where he continues working on Regenerative Agriculture and Ecological Design projects. Another amazing outcome is that he wrote the curriculum for the Zamorano Agroecology Farm Learn By Doing Module, based on the ecological design process methodology from his thesis.
Insight Harvest
This project built on the Hugh Popenoe Agroecology Garden in a lot of ways, yielding a peer reviewed paper that won best thesis at Zamorano in 2014. Noteworthy in the thesis was the excercises adapted from Pattern Language and from Holistic Management, asking students to vision and think about quiality of life at school, in community, and on the landscape. This was new to most of the students we were asking this to. Most of us grow up in cultures that do not teach us to consider 'what we want' or what quality of life we desire and are taught that money is the sole defining measure of success. This was a way in which we formally, methodically, and in peered review scientific paper were modeling that difference of approach, ethics, and worldview.
Design for Sustainability
Design for Sustainability Was a class I cotaught in spring 2015 at UC Davis, with my friend Bob Adams. He is an amazing designer and teacher and welcomed me into his class because for the quarter they were taking on the design of a courtyard at the university.
Other Outcomes and Evidences:
Syllabus, Deliverables We created the syllabus combining the Human Centered Design and Ecological Design Process Models. The deliverables Bob and I would write each week and email out to the students to work on and bring in to the next class.
Book Basically a collection of patterns created by the students throughout the class, which was the final deliverable they put together.
Bob also wrote me an amazing recommendation based on our work together.
Insight Harvest
The redesign of Cruess Hall shows the versatility of Pattern Language and how pretty much all our deliverables, assignments and design work revolved around its use. The overlaps between Human Centered Design and Ecological Design Process were laid out from the first week of the class and we were able to note how Ecological Design Process gives the landscape a voice, through its Site Analysis and Assessment using the Scale of Permanence.
UC Davis Domes Ecological Design Process
The Domes Long Term Vision Paper is one of the main outcomes of the UC Davis Domes Collaborative Ecological Design Process was a project that I got permission to include in the D-Lab 1 and 2 classes of 2016 with the justification that I needed to do a trial of a multiple person community design process before IDDS Amazon that summer. I got the go ahead but no reduction in responsibilities so it became a gigantic burden to do this in an academic context. The paper is a work in progress in final stages. This is a Presentation prepared following the process I laid out. Note I am a coauthor on the paper, the presenation was prepared and delivered by Parkhurst and Godkin, under my direction, for the D-Lab 1 and 2 classes at UC Davis, winter and spring, 2016. Finally this is a Pattern Language for the project. Because there are parallel and overarching projects that involve the domes it is a useful resource that myself and one of my collaborators intend to refine and offer that community.
Insight Harvest
The Domes Ecological Design Process attempted to integrate its residents into the Goals Articulation, Site Analysis and Assessment, and Concept/Schematic Design Phases with one patch Detail Design and Implementation, over 22 weeks (2 quarters in the UC Davis system.) The work in progress paper reflects some of the challenges of doing this kind of work in a big university setting, the inclusion of a "power map" came from the suggestion of Dr. Kornbluth from D-Lab, and was an interesting flavor that this design process took on, the recognition of power imbalances in that academic environment. Also the inclusion of resident students meant that there was a diversity of knowledge of place, with some folks having been there for a couple years and others freshly moved in. The Domes form part of the larger Sustainable Living and Learning Communities on campus and so this kind of process built on previous applications of Human Centered Design by previous students, and of course the mini garden design we had engaged in just 2 years prior.
Challenges and Next Steps
These big projects at the university scale present huge opportunities and challenges. I think the biggest challenges which are recurring questions in all my work but have been especially significant here are:
1. How do we get students to care about long term questions when their life is lived class to class and quarter to quarter and then they leave?
2. How do we get institutions to care in the same way?
3. How do we get both the people served by the institution and the people serving on behalf of the institution to consider degrowth?
Whatever opportunities these questions and challenges are posing, my biggest insight is that cannot tackle them on them on my own. Of all this work only Robert Adams actually gave me monetary support, basically sharing his paycheck with me. In the context of D-Lab my exploration of the Domes project was treated like extracurricular work (even though it was funded I did not see the benefits of that funding) all my other work unrelated to this was made prioritary and this work I had to make time for out of my spare time which was limited.