Dan Palmer has been studying and practicing permaculture for a little over ten years. Along the way he helped start the now global permablitz movement, a well-respected permaculture design, implementation and education company, and several overseas permaculture projects in India and Africa. He has taught or co-taught perhaps a dozen permaculture design certificate courses, read and written a lot about permaculture, and learned from many senior designers and teachers within permaculture and in related fields. In the last year he has started running what he calls Advanced Permaculture Design courses, in which he gets to work with folks that already have some training and experience in permaculture (and want to take it to the next level). He also continues to design, with several hundred professional design projects behind him.
A Delightful Day of Designing with Dave Jacke
By Dan Palmer, Making Permaculture Stronger
For those that aren’t aware, Dave Jacke is a world class ecological designer, writer, and teacher. Lead author of the acclaimed two-volume Edible Forest Gardens books, I have long respected Dave’s sophisticated and comprehensive grasp of design process. While he prefers the phrase ecological design process1 over permaculture design process, he unquestionably has helped / is helping permaculture lift its game in terms of a design process that not only starts by deeply tuning into people and place, but embodies the principle of starting with patterns and ending up with details.
Darren J. Doherty on Design Process, the Regrarians Approach, and Making Permaculture Stronger (E05)
By Dan Palmer, Making Permaculture Stronger
In this episode Dan Palmer from Making Permaculture Stronger enjoys a wide-ranging conversation with Darren J. Doherty from Regrarians.org.
In Dialogue with Ben Falk
By Dan Palmer, Making Permaculture Stronger
In this episode Dan Palmer from Making Permaculture Stronger enjoys a rich dialogue with Ben Falk from Whole Systems Design.
Advanced Permaculture Planning and Design Process 2017: The Fourth Day
By Dan Palmer, Making Permaculture Stronger
My opinion that the design process at the core of permaculture currently lacks soundness and coherence. As a result, in spreading permaculture (which is above all else a design system), we are unintentionally spreading ideas that are unsound and incoherent. Ideas that will, if inadvertently, undermine the ability of permaculture to deliver real solutions in different domains. To deliver on its incredible promise.
Advanced Permaculture Planning and Design Process 2017: The Third Day
By Dan Palmer, Making Permaculture Stronger
It was downright thrilling to see David uncovering, literally dusting off, and sharing the initial sequence of Melliodora design diagrams. David was putting design process on the table, when in my opinion it has been far too long hidden away in the cupboard (or in some cases swept under the rug!).
Advanced Permaculture Planning and Design Process 2017: The Second Day
By Dan Palmer, Making Permaculture Stronger
I explored the parallels with reading landscape in that you are not only iterating between inspecting, aspecting, and sidespecting as you get to know your clients, but you are iterating between what you observe or feel and guesses about what this is indicating, which you then test with further questions and so on. As you immerse in the parts of the clients being shared with you, you slowly build up an increasingly complete and coherent picture of the whole. This process is integral to sound design process and has traditionally not been a strong point in permaculture.
Advanced Permaculture Planning and Design Process 2017: The First Day
By Dan Palmer, Making Permaculture Stronger
I’m grateful for how everyone rode out this session, which as you’d expect had a tentative and exploratory feel. It also broke with any expectation the course was going to be about David and I simply sharing stuff we’d already worked out in the past, and was a direct taste of actually exploring new territory together. However I knew then and know now that this session was a first step for a way of integrating design principles and design process that I feel in time will have great potential to help strengthen permaculture’s design process weak link.
On the Relation between Designing and Implementing in Permaculture – Part 2
By Dan Palmer, Making Permaculture Stronger
Though the high-level side-by-side comparisons I shared in the last post have their place, it would feel inappropriate to reduce each of the design process treatments we looked at in the last post to only one column in a table.