APD Annotated Resource Review
Here is a link to the Annotated Resources in my investigation of Applied Permaculture Desin
Applied Permaculture Design Curriculum
1. Create at least 10 designs utilizing different design methodologies showing awareness toward permaculture ethics and principles.
• Each design must demonstrate awareness around Permaculture Ethics: People Care/Earth Care and Fair Share.
• Each design/project must explicitly articulate the utilization of at least 6 Permaculture Principles.
2. Real life application and business utilization is encouraged for each design. You must show how the permaculture design is implemented in real life scenarios and ideally demonstrate financial viability for industrial application.
3. All 7 petals of the permaculture flower should be part of, and ideally the focus, of one of the design projects.
For all the designs/projects, content can vary wildly; and, it is good practice to focus at least one project on:
• Land stewardship
• Zone 0
• Community tenure
• Design
Applying myself into Permaculture Design
World Context
Applied Permaculture Design is ubiquitous on earth. With "Information as a Resource" and open sourced designs and sharing of information as a core value of many permaculturalists, we can see the application of permaculture design in countries all over the world. Whether we are retrofitting suburbs in America or Greening the Desert in Syria, the opportunity to apply permaculture design on home scale and massive scale is very present right now. Another point of leverage present now that is often talked about is that in this age of very cheap energy (read as fossil fuels), this is a great time to design and implement complex systems that can take care of themselves. So projects like "Greening the desert" requires quite a bit of input (earthworks, plants) at first and then the organic nature kicks in and succession of evolution allows the system to govern itself.
Partix Busting
Awareness: Permaculture questions the status quo of our societies. Much like a Buddhist holding his experience up to the dogma, a permaculturalist looks at the results of a design and tweaks results based on experimentation and awareness. The art of design in many ways is about consciously observing systems, discovering opportunities for intervention, and intervening with the least change for the greatest effect.
Resiliency: Diversity yields Stability is the principle that most greatly questions the efficiency of the industrial revolution. At it's heart, applied permaculture applies principles of resiliency for the earth and mankind into industry where efficiency has reigned supreme and unquestioned since the revolution in the 1850's. Whether we look at the industrialization of beehives in 1853 or of monocultured farming in the 1950's, people with power and money could scale up and do things more efficiently; however, often at the cost of resiliency. The greater and greater needs of fertilizer and pesticides decry the health of mother Gaia and our communities for the sake of "efficiency and profit." We must redefine the criteria with which we wish to value our decisions. Permaculture gives us the language to value community, personal and global health while creating resilient systems that can build desirable futures and earn profit.
Applied Permaculture Design Spec
Within Gaia University's MSc degree of Integrative EcoSocial Design, I am applying for a specialization in the field of "Applied Permaculture Design." Applied Permaculture Design is a term used both within the educational subfield of permaculture design and in the world of business for the myriad concrete applications of Permaculture Design. Many students after a 72 hour Permaculture Design Course PDC crave more concrete expeience in applying knowledge and gaining proficiency and experience in applying the ethics and principles from their PDC into real world situations. Additionally, the term is used in business and industry for many different techniques, scales and regions in which permaculture design is applied to a host of ecological environments. Akin to the fields of physics, mathematics, linguistics, arts or science, the term "Applied" refers to "practical application, use in industry or use in real life" as opposed to solely an academic setting. Applied Permaculture Design is a rapidly growing field as the numbers of designers trained in permaculture design continues to rise and the application of these principles and ethics is being applied to many diverse ecosystems. Applied Permaculture Design signifies action-oriented strategies intervening in systems for the benefit of the earth, humanity. Applied Permaculture Designers work in diverse environments: scale can range from backyard gardens to large-scale multi-village projects in Africa. Applied Permaculture Design businesses can be multi-output/resource farms with animals, products, chickens, canning, teaching seminars, natural building or it can be a single industry such as an aquaponics or PV solar design/installation. Permaculture design is applied to many aspects of our society, industry, and lives with known and unknown good benefits for ourselves and our planet.
Validating my Specialization in Applied Permaculture Design
As outlined above, my projects through my Master's program fall very much in line with the major ethics of permaculture: Earth Care, People Care, and Return the Surplus. In addition, I utilize and make an effort to demonstrate how the permaculture principles are reflected in my projects. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, is applying these projects that I am designing through a permaculture lens to real world problems and opportunities and discovering business applications. I have spent four years with an action learning attitude of applying permaculture design to current projects and developing future business models. Indeed, I successfully engaged both the educational model of Applied Permaculture Design and am actively incorporating Permaculture Design into my professional career. With synchronicity, each of my projects insure that the permaculture form/process (permaculture design tools) holds the design for permaculture content (Holmgren’s permaculture flower).
After assisting several 2-month-long Permaculture Design Courses and completing 2 Teacher Training Courses in Permaculture Design over 4 years ago, I wanted to further my pathway through personal and industrial application of the permaculture design lens and utilize it in projects in my life. This is what led me to Gaia University. Applying permaculture design tools and methods with the ethics and principles of permaculture is the primary thrust of the projects I have designed for my 4 year Master’s degree pathway. My life journey integrates the design of economic, ecological and social systems through a lens of permaculture design. My applied design projects that I have documented with Gaia University exhibit applying design to each of the petals of the permaculture flower. My designs often incorporate the petals of Land & Nature Stewardship, Health & Spiritual Well Being, and Culture & Education. See APD & Permaculture Flower below.