Some people think the permaculture flower is a remnant of the hippie’s flower power movement, or that it has something to do with New Age – just another consumerism idea to be sold to the confused and rich people of the middle classes. Oh no, the ‘flower power’ of the permaculture flower has real power. It has the power to reunite humanity with the complex systems of nature, so they can live in symbiosis, enriching each other. Nothing else possesses this power.

The petals’ colours are given by the pattern languages they cover. These adapt to place and culture, giving the flower a local color. The seven petals together support all aspects of life. It is not just a flower of beauty, or with a pleasant smell. No, this flower can provide you with everything you need, for all aspects of life. Nothing else I know can do that.

In the core you find what are most valuable, the basic ethics and the guiding principles. The core is like the heart of the flower; every permaculture design has its origin here. The evolutionary spiral path is the sign of the permaculture flower – it’s visionary, integrated into its genes. It starts with ethics and design principles, and it starts with you at a local level. The path is then moving outward connecting all the fields of the society into integrated patterns and pattern languages, making the world a living whole. And this spiral is eternal, like evolution is.

Even though I’m not a permaculture designer I’ve put some consideration into these guiding principles. Before I learned about permaculture these thoughts were hidden from me, but when I see the world from a permaculture perspective it looks different. Very different. But keep in mind these are just some loose thoughts from me, a deeper understanding are to be found at David Holmgren’s home page.

Observe and Interact

Good design starts with observation and interaction with place and history. Here we see the difference between permaculture projects and other projects – the time and energy spent to observe and understand the patterns of time and place, before implementing any new design. This is why I set up a list of criteria that should be met before you invest your time or money in a project. For example, an aid project:

1. The project is using time and energy in observing the patterns of place, nature, culture, community and history. This is done in cooperation with the native people they are intended to help.
2. The project is paying a lot of respect to the patterns of place, nature, culture, community and history, being very careful not to disturb any of these patterns, and that any new systems of design will enrich and strengthen the existing patterns.
3. The project leader should be skilled / experienced in decoding and implementing patterns.

Design from Patterns to Details

In a pattern language you start with the whole and put in the details as you go, if not the whole cannot evolve.

Every pattern has to be unfolded; a living process is by nature morphogenetic, using generative codes. A flower is made this way and nature works this way to avoid trillions of errors – errors that unavoidably occur if you try to force a design upon nature or a community.

If an embryo were shaped by fabrication, and not generated, the number of mistakes would be unbelievably large.

The human embryo is created by 50 doubling of cells. Starting with a single cell (the fertilized egg), after 50 doublings, the embryo has 250 cells. During this doubling process that occurs 50 times, each cell has the opportunity to adapt itself, and to remove possible mistakes by position, adaption, pushing and pulling. The total number of opportunities for correction, then, in the growing embryo, is (1+2+2²+2³+….2⁵⁰) = 2⁵¹. Reversing the argument, we may express this by saying that the assembly of embryo cells, if not given a chance for adaption and instead made by design and fabrication, would typically have 2⁵¹ mistakes – a truly enormous number, roughly 10¹⁵, or a thousand trillion mistakes. That is what would happen if an embryo were designed and built, not generated. If an embryo were built from a blueprint of a design, not generated by an adaptive process, there would inevitably be one thousand trillion mistakes. Because of its history as a generated structure, there are virtually none. – The Process of Creating Life, by Christopher Alexander, page 187-188

And the fundamental answer is, that there is a fundamental law about the creation of complexity, which is visible and obvious to everyone – yet this law is, to all intents and purposes, ignored in 99% of the daily fabrication process of society. The law states simply this: ALL the well-ordered complex systems we know in the world, all those anyway that we review as highly successful, are GENERATED structures, not fabricated structures.” – The Process of Creating Life, by Christopher Alexander, page 180

Always keep this in mind; a living structure cannot be fabricated, it has to be generated!

Integrate Rather than Segregate

The core of the pattern practice is to integrate rather than segregate. This means to use and value diversity, all in a meaningful relationship with each other. A completely integrated pattern language produces no waste, especially by not wasting human capital, which is the largest waste problem in our western societies. Our so called “modern societies” produce almost nothing but waste, and the more waste, the more “modern” according to most political and economical theory. Even recycling, which for the most part means downcycling, is mainly a waste of time and energy. See also.

A modern city like Brasilia is based on the completely opposite – segregate rather than integrate – which is the core of modernism. And this is a tragedy, because this is the opposite of an integrated life, and to live an integrated life is the meaning of life.

The world’s leading anti modernist, Christopher Alexander, has dedicated his life to creating an integrated world, which means a world that consists of a deep wholeness. Just take a look at pattern 9 in A Pattern Language.

Conflict

The artificial separation of houses and work creates intolerable rifts in people’s inner lives.

Resolution

Use zoning laws, neighborhood planning, tax incentives, and any other means available to scatter workplaces throughout the city. Prohibit large concentrations of work, without family life around them. Prohibit large concentrations of family life, without workplaces around them.

There is nothing I despise more than these monocultures of houses so common today; I hate them even more than lawns. To make the situation even worse are houses ordered in rows, like a plantation of houses, every house separated from one another, while in nature most things are ordered in clusters or guilds. Urban and rural design should have been based on house clusters.

Conflict

People will not feel comfortable in their houses unless a group of houses forms a cluster, with the public land between them jointly owned by all the householders.

Resolution

Arrange houses to form very rough but identifiable clusters of 8 to 12 households around some common land and paths. Arrange the clusters so that anyone can walk through them, without feeling like a trespasser.

Why can’t people understand that monocultures make life monotone?!?

The opposite of this madness is the ecovillage, but because of individualism (which today is identical with consumerism) and sectorialism (most visible in bureaucracy), people find it almost impossible to create something so nice today.

Still, my dream is someday to live in an ecovillage by Lake Mjøsa.

Use Small and Slow Solutions

Using small and slow solutions is maybe the most neglected principle today. There is a lot of talk about renewable energy and green technology, but almost nothing about using small and slow solutions, which could have been the most important solution. I recently learned that the amount of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas consumed every year within the European Union equals 12000 times the annual hydro power production of Norway. Where in the world is the EU going to get 12000 Norway’s worth of renewable energy to replace this? Maybe we have to reintroduce the slave trade, because this abuse of fossil fuels equals roughly 1000 energy slaves for each one of us.

Our large and fast solutions are enormously resource hungry, and not just for energy. For example, the amount of macadam necessary for the EU infrastructure equals 10 – 15 tons for every person every year. With an average life span at ca 75 years this means 750 – 1125 tons per person. Try to crush 1000 tons of granite by using a sledge hammer, and you might get an idea about how dependent we are upon fossil fuels to sustain our lifestyle.

Quite a lot of this is taken from the Norwegian mountains. When they find a proper mountain close to the Sea they produce the macadam this way:

First they drill a vertical hole down to sea level, where they make a cave inside the mountain for the crushing mill. Then they start crushing the mountain from above in a large circle around the hole, into which they pour the bigger stones going to the crushing mill. The macadam is transported from here to a ship – one ship every week. The hollowing of the mountain is placed in such a way that it’s not visible from the sea, so not disturbing the mountain’s profile and the tourists view from a cruise ship.

I came to think that our “modern societies” are like these mountains, just an illusion.

Much of this macadam is mixed with asphalt, and this way the people of Europe drive on the top of the Norwegian mountains every day, not even giving it a thought.

But macadam is also used as a bed for pipelines all over the continent, for transporting water and sewage in huge systems. Here where I live they catch the water from ca 200 meters below the surface of Lake Mjøsa, from where they pump it to people living up to 400 meters above the lake. For some of these remote dwellings there is no pipeline for the sewer, so they pump it into trucks driving it down to the sewage cleaning plants from where the water is finally pumped back to Lake Mjøsa.

You maybe call this a sick pattern, but it’s not a pattern at all, because a pattern is something which is in a meaningful connection with something else.

Part of the solution is pattern 178, a compost toilet. This small and slow solution uses no energy at all, still producing both compost and negawatts. Small and slow solutions produce a lot of negawatts – saving megawatts – the easiest way to “produce” new energy. In some countries 30-40% of the energy consumed by society is invested into the delivery of potable water and the removal of sewage. Pumping fluids is extremely energy intensive.

In addition about half of the 15 million tons of phosphorus exploited each year ends up in the oceans. Much of this flushed down the toilet. The world’s known phosphorus reserves can only supply us for another 30 – 80 years.

Our “modern societies” are almost completely running off large and fast solutions. Small and slow is mostly laughed at, as if they were romantic little dreams with no connection to reality.

Small and slow solutions give people control back over their own lives, and in this way giving them back their dignity. Large and fast solutions are left in the hands of specialised ‘experts’ only, destroying the dignity and responsibility of ordinary people.

I cannot think about anything more packed with small and slow solutions than an earthship. It’s a completely integrated system, ready to meet the collapse of our large and fast solutions – a collapse that is getting closer every day.

The symbol of this principle is a snail, known for its slow speed and small house. More than ever it is time for going to the snail to become wise.

Use Edges and Value the Marginal

Here I’ll just say a little about the last part of this principle – to value the marginal. The word marginal has many meanings. I’ll concentrate on the meaning “not of central importance” for the beauty of the area. This according to pattern 104, site repair:

Conflict

Buildings must always be built on those parts of the land which are in the worst condition, not the best.

Resolution

On no account place buildings in the places which are most beautiful. In fact, do the opposite. Consider the site and its buildings as a single living eco-system. Leave those areas that are the most precious, beautiful, conformable, and healthy as they are, and build new structures in those parts of the site which are least pleasant now.

I hardly think anything has destroyed the beauty of our world more than the violence against this pattern. It’s horrible to see how the rich and privileged people have put their holiday residences and mansions at the most beautiful spots along the Oslo Fjord. And this way they destroy both the beauty of the fjord and the access for ordinary people to these places.

We, the permaculture people, are designated to heal our world. This is why we should pay a special attention to this pattern.

But still I’m just a permaculturist by heart, not by diploma, so please forgive me my limited understanding. I have just started my walk at the evolutionary spiral path of permaculture. How I wish I had been given this path by birth. And please, share the permaculture flower, so that the world can recover. Let us create a new kind of world, a world sustained by real flower power.

by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom

No one is immune to it; in some respects it is the foundation of our lives. Magical thinking is a universal affliction. We see what we want to see, deny what we don’t. Confronted by uncomfortable facts, we burrow back into the darkness of our cherished beliefs. We will do almost anything – cheat, lie, stand for high office, go to war – to shut out challenges to the way we see the world.

I spend much of my time confronting one aspect of denial: the virulent repudiation of environmental constraints by those who admit no challenge to their vision of the world. But it pains me to report that denial and wishful thinking are almost as common on the other side of the argument. I find myself at odds with other greens almost as often as I find myself fighting our common enemies. I’ve had bruising battles over a long series of miracle solutions supported by my friends: liquid biofuels(1), hydrogen cars and planes(2), biochar plantations(3,4), solar electricity in the UK(5), scrappage payments(6), feed-in tariffs(7). But no green delusion is as crazy as the one I am about to explain. The idea itself might not interest you. But the insight it gives into the filtering techniques human beings use is fascinating. So please bear with me while I spell out the latest madness.

That there’s a problem is undeniable. As some of the papers published yesterday by the Royal Society show, farmland is in short supply, water shortages could impose ever tighter constraints on agriculture and there are grave questions about whether or not a growing population can continue to be fed(8). There are a number of plausible solutions. But none of them appeals to some environmentalists as much as the towering lunacy promoted by a parasitologist at Columbia University called Dickson Despommier.

Despommier points out that while horizontal space for growing crops is limited, vertical space remains abundant. So he proposes that crops should be grown in skyscrapers, which he calls vertical farms(9). These, he claims, will feed the growing population so efficiently that ordinary farmland will be allowed to revert to forest. Vertical farms will feed the urban populations that surround them, eliminating the need for long-distance transport.

You can, if you shield your eyes very carefully, see the attraction. But even a brief reading of Despommier’s essays reveals a few trifling problems. He proposes that 30-storey towers should be built to feed local people in places like Manhattan. You wouldn’t see any change from $100m, possibly $200m. The only crop which could cover such costs is high-grade cannabis. But a 30-storey hydroponic skunk tower would be quite hard to conceal.

Without offering any explanation for this amazing claim, Despommier asserts that his system will require “no herbicides, pesticides, or fertilizers”(10). Perhaps he has never seen a fungal infestation in a greenhouse. And what does he expect the plants to grow on: water and air alone? He also insists that there will be “no need for fossil-fueled machinery”, which suggests that he intends to farm a 30-storey building without pumps, heating or cooling systems.

His idea, he says, is an antidote to “intensive industrial farming, carried out by an ever decreasing number of highly mechanized farming consortia” but then he calls on Cargill, Monsanto, Archer Daniels Midland and IBM to fund it(10). He suggests that “locally grown would become the norm”(11), but fails to explain why such businesses wouldn’t seek the most lucrative markets for their produce, regardless of locality. He expects, in other words, all the usual rules of business, economics, physics, chemistry and biology to be suspended to make way for his idea.

But the real issue is scarcely mentioned in his essays on the subject: light. Last week one of my readers, the film maker John Russell, sent me his calculations for the artificial lighting Despommier’s towers would require. You can read them in full below the references on this article. They show that the light required to grow the 500 grammes of wheat that a loaf of bread contains would cost, at current prices, £9.82. (The current farm gate price for half a kilo of wheat is 6p(12).) That’s just lighting: no inputs, interest, rents, rates, or labour. Somehow this minor consideration – that plants need light to grow and that they aren’t going to get it except on the top storey – has been overlooked by the scheme’s supporters. I won’t bother to explain the environmental impacts.

None of this has dented the popularity of Despommier’s dumb idea. It has featured in the New York Times(13), Time magazine(14), Scientific American(15), and on the BBC(16), CNN(17), Discovery Channel(18) and NBC(19). Three weeks ago the Guardian published a supportive piece, whose author appeared to be unaware that nutrients don’t magically regenerate themselves in an agricultural system(20). Environmentalists love it. Treehugger.com claimed that vertical farming would “help us stop the use of pesticides, herbicides, oil-based fertilizers”(21) and suggested, again unhindered by evidence, that it could produce a net output of energy(22). The Huffington Post said the idea is “so simple, so elegant that you wonder why you didn’t think of it yourself.”(23)

In my grouchier moments I feel that only those who grow some of their own food should write about food production. Horticulture, with its endlessly varied constraints and disappointments, is an excellent corrective to wishful thinking. But this is about much more than ignorance and inexperience. It’s about seeing something you like – local food for example – and allowing that idea to crowd out everything else. This is how we all live.

In a recent essay in New Scientist the psychologist Dorothy Rowe explained that none of us can see reality(24). We have to construct it from our interpretation of what we perceive, tempered by experience. As a result, each of us exists in our own world of meaning. It is constantly at risk of being shattered by inconvenient facts. If we acknowledge them, they can destroy our sense of self. So, to ensure that we won’t be “overwhelmed by the uncertainty inherent in living in a world we can never truly know”, we shut them out by lying to ourselves. Though it challenges my sense of self, I am forced to accept that my allies can lie to themselves as fluently as my opponents can.

References:

1. http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2004/11/23/feeding-cars-not-people/
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2005/12/06/worse-than-fossil-fuel/
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/03/27/a-lethal-solution/
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/11/06/an-agricultural-crime-against-humanity/ http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/02/12/the-last-straw/

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/04/15/the-pleasures-of-the-flesh/

2. George Monbiot, 2006. Heat: How to stop the planet burning. Penguin, London.

3. http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/03/24/woodchips-with-everything/

4. http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/03/27/pyrolising-the-planet/

5. George Monbiot, 2006. Heat: How to stop the planet burning. Penguin, London.

6. http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/03/10/scrap-it/

7. http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2010/03/01/a-great-green-rip-off/
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2010/03/05/treachery-or-common-sense/
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2010/03/12/the-german-disease/

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2010/03/19/jonathan-porritts-strange-slurs/

8. http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/current/

9. Dickson Despommier, no date given. The Vertical Farm Essay. http://www.verticalfarm.com/essay.htm

10. ibid. Listed under Advantages of Vertical Farming.

11. Dickson Despommier, November 2009. Growing Skyscrapers: The Rise of Vertical Farms. Scientific American.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-rise-of-vertical-farms

12. World prices in July were roughly $194/tonne – http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=wheat
That means 9.7 cents per 500g, or 6.2 pence.

13. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/health/15iht-15farm.14494470.html

14. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1865974,00.html

15. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-rise-of-vertical-farms

16. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6752795.stm

17. http://money.cnn.com/2007/09/10/technology/farming_vertical.biz2/index.htm?section=money_topstories

18. http://watch.discoverychannel.ca/daily-planet/april-2009/daily-planet-april-23-2009/#clip164926

19. http://www.nbc.com/The_Tonight_Show_with_Jay_Leno/video/episodes/#vid=1021161

20. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/29/vertical-farms-urban-food

21. http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/06/vertical_farmin_1.php

22. http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/04/skyfarming_new.php

23. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacqueline-leo/food-fuel-and-farming-the_b_104192.html

24. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627651.000-liar-liar-why-deception-is-our-way-of-life.html

……………………………………..

John Russell’s calculations:

First to establish how much energy a crop needs to grow from planting out to maturity.

“In the UK when the latitude and cloud cover is taken into account we can expect a crop to be receiving an average of 150W/square metre during daylight hours during the growing season. [Source page 38 of — http://www.withouthotair.com/ * ] In the UK daylight hours are typically 12 hours/day averaged during the summer which would mean, for each square metre, 1.8kWh per day. Let’s assume a typical crop needs 90 days to reach maturity, so sunlight requirement (90 x 1.8) = 162kWh per square metre of crop.

Of course some food crops need less light — mushrooms for instance — but most food crops prefer not to be in the shade. [Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/htbg/module7/setting_up_your_plot1.shtml & http://www.pots2plots.com/Growing%20%20in%20Shade.htm ]

So having established the amount of light crops need, the next question is; what is the yield of a sq metre?

The yield of wheat crops in the UK is on average 7.8 tonnes per hectare. [Source: http://www.defra.gov.uk/evidence/statistics/foodfarm/enviro/observatory/indicators/b/b11_data.htm ] As there are 10,000 square metres in a hectare, this is equivalent to 0.78kg per square metre. ( 207kWh light requirement per kilo).

Here are some other crops and their yields …

Potatoes: 4.4 kg per sq metre. [Source: http://www.ukagriculture.com/crops/potatoes_uk.cfm ] … 36kWh light requirement per kilo.
Sugar beet: 5.6kg per sq metre. [Source: http://www.ukagriculture.com/crops/sugar_beet_farming.cfm ]… 29kWh light requirement per kilo.
Oil seed rape: 0.33kg per sq metre [Source: http://www.ukagriculture.com/crops/oil_seed_rape.cfm ] … 490kWh light requirement per kilo.
Peas: 0.35kg per sq metre [Source: http://www.ukagriculture.com/crops/peas_uk.cfm ] …462kWh light requirement per kilo.
Beans: 0.35kg per sq metre [Source: http://www.ukagriculture.com/crops/field_beans_uk.cfm ] …462kWh light requirement per kilo.
Oats: 0.55kg per sq metre [Source: http://www.ukagriculture.com/crops/oats_uk.cfm ] …294kWh light requirement per kilo.

A loaf of bread contains 500gm of wheat (current approx cost at the farm gate: 10p) . Each square metre of land produces approx 1.5 loaves of bread and has required 162 kWh of sunlight to grow. This means each loaf of bread embodies 108 kWh of energy.

So that’s conventional growing now growing the same amount under artificial light…

To grow these crops indoors, the same amount of energy –162/kWh per square metre — will be required in the form of electricity.*

However ‘grow bulbs’ are not 100% efficient; I kW of light output at the bulb requires 1.3 units of electricity at the socket. This means all figures for power need to be lifted by 1.3. [Source: http://urbangardenmagazine.com/2010/02/plasma-grow-lights-the-promises-of-full-spectrum-plant-lighting/ ]

Assuming the commercial price of electricity is 7p/unit the costs for a crop such as peas — for light alone will be 462units x £0.07 x 1.3 = £0.42 per kilo. For a single loaf of bread the electricity required just for the light will cost £9.82 (108 units x 1.3 x £0.07). [Source of electricity price http://www.businessenergyprices.com/ ].

*However it seems that the energy issue might be reduced by the introduction of a new generation of LED grow lights which reduce the energy required by just providing the plants with the part of the radiation spectrum that they require for growth. [ http://www.ledgrowlight.co.uk/?page=better ] Currently they are very expensive [ http://www.growlightsled.co.uk/hydroponic-lamp-225-led-grow-light-panel-board-bulb-kit-p-36.html ] but in the long term they might provide significant savings in power consumption. [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode ].”

Conventional greenhouse growers spend immense amounts of money and oil or natural gas to heat the greenhouses during winter whereas in Jerome’s greenhouses the heating is powered with a couple of 90 Watt fans – equivalent to the old light bulbs. They run his Subterranean Heating and Cooling System, SHCS, aka "climate battery" which utilises the excess heat produced in the greenhouse in the middle of the day and during summertime when air temperature exceeds ground temperature and stores it underground by a ventilation system. Conventional systems vent the air outside losing it as a potential heating resource. This way he is able to grow everything from winter greens to bananas and papayas and figs with minimal energy inputs at his site. "This fig is twenty years old now. We’re eating fresh fruit from it four months a year" he explains in the mediterranean greenhouse which is attached to the main house (picture inset).

There are four greenhouses at the site, which demonstrate three different climatic zones – warm temperate, mediterranean and subtropical. Two of them are integrated directly into the living spaces which adds another beneficial quality to them – the heating season of the houses is reduced by several months every year. The biggest one, named Phoenix, is a 26×72 foot (8 x 22m) free standing unit and a subtropical food forest demonstration site.

The greenhouses are planned using integrated permaculture design, taking into account location and aspect, making the best use of the site’s sloping terrain, and including plenty of thermal mass and rainwater harvesting features. Phoenix is also building its own soil since the raised beds are simultaneously vermicomposting factories, where autumn leaves, coffee grounds from the local café and rabbit beddings from the yard turn into a fertile growing medium for the plants with very little human labor required.

The Subterranean Heating and Cooling System is a result of research and development done at CRMPI based on Jerome’s greenhouse work and John Cruickshank’s additional technology. Some of John’s work can be seen on SunnyJohn.com, where the SHCS is explained. John has also worked with Michael Thompson and Jerome from EcoSystems Design to refine this technology.

So how does it all work? Under the soil layer there are several layers of plastic pipes buried into the ground, where air circulates from the greenhouse, controlled by a thermostat. In the hot season the fans draw warm air into the ground where the heat (and extra moisture, which helps control the negatives of an overly humid environment) is collected into the soil, and the cooled air is returned into the greenhouse. In the winter, when needed at nighttime, a different thermostat turns on the same fans, pulling the cooler air down into the warmer soil, warming the air and thus warming the greenhouse. The soil temperature stays constantly at +20°C which helps the plants tolerate potential frosts in the coldest winter nights when the temperature outside can drop all the way to -32°C. When there isn’t enough heat stored in the climate battery, Jerome and the interns heat up the sauna attached onto the north wall of Phoenix, and while maintaining their own health this way, the greenhouse plants are nurtured with warmth as well.

We visited CRMPI in May for a solar greenhouse design workshop and did some volunteer work for Jerome. It was indeed a unique feeling to curl up in a hammock after a lunch that we had harvested just earlier, and have a little nap on a chilly and rainy May afternoon listening to the drops hit the roof and watch the tomatoes ripen.

by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom

It took me a while to recognise what I was seeing. It was an ordinary campsite in Pembrokeshire: a square field with tents around the perimeter. But it had a curious effect on the children staying there. Young people who had seldom experienced daylight slowly emerged from their tents and were drawn towards the centre of the field. Bats and balls left on the grass mysteriously appeared in their hands. Children with no prior interest in sport started playing football, cricket and rounders. Little kids ran around with older ones. As children of all classes played together, their parents started talking to each other. It hit me with some force: we had reinvented the village green.

Source: Wikipedia

We are, to a surprising extent, what the built environment makes us. Academic papers show that many of the problems we blame on individual behaviour are caused in part by the places in which we live. People are more likely to help their neighbours in quiet areas, for example, than in noisy ones(1). A long series of studies across several countries, beginning in San Francisco in 1969, shows unequivocally that communities become weaker as the volume of traffic on their streets increases(2,3).

Other papers show that people’s use of shared spaces is strongly influenced by the presence of trees: the more trees there are, the more time people spend there and the larger the groups in which they gather(4,5). A further study shows that, partly as a result, vegetation in common spaces strengthens the neighbourhood’s social ties(6). In greener places, people know more of their neighbours, are more likely to help each other and have stronger feelings of belonging. Social isolation is strongly associated with an absence of green spaces(7).

One fascinating paper shows that crime rates are also strongly affected by vegetation. In housing projects in Chicago with equal levels of poverty, taking account of factors such as the size of the buildings and the vacancy rate, there’s a clear association between the absence of greenery and both property crime and violent crime(8).

Another set of studies demonstrates a relationship between urban planning and body mass index. Where settlements are dense (and therefore able to support public transport) and close to shops, work places and recreation places, people are more likely to walk and cycle and less likely to be fat(9). One paper shows that women living in mixed places (where houses and amenities are close together) have a risk of coronary heart disease 20% lower than women living in areas which contain only houses(10). Suburban sprawl is partly to blame for obesity.

Build loose suburbs carved up by busy roads and without green spaces and you help to create a population of fat, lonely people plagued by criminals. Build dense, leafy settlements with mixed uses, protected from traffic, and you help to create safe, fit and friendly communities.

In Sunday’s Observer the doctor Steve Field blamed public health problems squarely and solely on sufferers and their parents(11). It’s true that we must take as much responsibility as we can for our health. But Field, like most conservatives, ignores the social and political context, condemning people for problems they cannot tackle alone. He lambasts us for eating junk food, for example, while saying nothing about manufacturers who ensure that it’s as addictive as the regulations allow(12). He suggests that we should encourage children to get outside and play games. Of course we should, but if there is no safe place nearby in which they can do so we’re wasting our breath.

Here’s one picture of what a fit, safe and functional community might look like. There’s nothing either radical or new about it: similar developments have been built for centuries (and most have now been monopolised by the rich). Houses or apartment blocks are built densely around a square of shared green space. It is big enough for playing ball games, but without fixed goal posts, allowing both children and adults to define the space for themselves. It could contain trees; perhaps some rocks or logs to climb on. There might be a corner of uncut meadow, or flowerbeds or fruit bushes: the space will work best when it is designed and managed by the people who live there.

Most importantly, the houses face inwards, and no cars are allowed inside the square: the roads serve only the backs of the buildings. The square is overlooked by everyone, which means that children can run in and out of their houses unsupervised, create their own tribes and learn their own rules, without fear of traffic accidents or molesters. They have a place in which to run wild without collecting ASBOs.

There’s a council estate a bit like this across the road from my house. Whenever I pass through it on a dry day in the holidays, I see dozens of children playing there. On the other estates here you seldom see children out of doors, for the obvious reason that there is nowhere to play. Proximity is everything: if a park is far away, most families won’t go there(13). Walking across a city with a small child is no one’s idea of entertainment.

Those who need such spaces most are the socially excluded. Because of poverty, unemployment and poorer health, they leave their neighbourhoods less often than the affluent(14). But they tend to have the least access to green spaces. A study of Greater Manchester, for example, shows that wealthy parts of the city have tree cover of around ten per cent, the poor neighbourhoods just two per cent(15). Housing built around village greens need be no more expensive and no less dense: just better planned and better regulated.

Instead, whenever I visit a new estate, I see only lost opportunities: houses that turn their backs on each other; spaces that should be dedicated to playing reserved instead for parking; loneliness and exclusion built into the plan. We have allowed property developers and weak planning to define who we are and what we shall become. As the government launches a new scheme for ensuring that more houses are built(16), we must demand that it recognises a truth all these studies point to: that there is such a thing as society.

Further Reading:

• The Tragedy of Suburbia
• Parking Lots to Parks: Designing Livable Cities
• Reclaiming the Streets

References:

1. This was first documented by S Cohen and A Lezak, 1977. Noise and inattentiveness to social cues. Environment and Behavior, 9, 559-572.
2. D Appleyard, 1969. The Environmental Quality of City Streets: The Residents’ Viewpoint. Journal of the American Planning Association, 35, pp. 84-101.
3. Subsequent work on this issue is summarised and reviewed here: Joshua Hart, April 2008. Driven to Excess: impacts of motor vehicle traffic on residential quality of life in Bristol, UK.
4. RL Coley, FE Kuo and WC Sullivan, 1997. Where does community grow? The social context created by nature in urban public housing. Environment and Behavior, 29, 468-492.
5. S DePooter, 1997. Nature and neighbors: Green spaces and social interactions in the inner city. Unpublished master thesis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Cited by FE Kuo et al (see below).
6. FE Kuo et al, 1998. Fertile Ground for Community: Inner-City
   Neighborhood Common Spaces. American Journal of Community Psychology, Vol. 26, No. 6.
7. ibid.
8. FE Kuo and WC Sullivan, May 2001. Environment and Crime in the Inner City: Does Vegetation Reduce Crime? Environment and Behavior vol. 33 no. 3 343-367
   doi: 10.1177/0013916501333002
9. Andrew Rundle et al, 2007. The Urban Built Environment and Obesity in New
   York City: A Multilevel Analysis. American Journal of Health Promotion, pp 326-334. This paper also summarises several similar studies.
10. Lee R Mobley et al, April 2006. Environment, Obesity, and Cardiovascular Disease Risk in Low-Income Women. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Volume 30, Issue 4, Pages 327-332.e1. doi:10.1016/j.amepre.2005.12.001
11. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/08/steve-field-patient-responsibility-health
12. See David A. Kessler, 2009. The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite. Rodale Press.
13. AE Kazmierczak and P James, 2007 cite research which suggests that ” for most people the distance between 500m and 1km is the furthest they would walk to a park”. Role of Urban Green Spaces in Improving Social Inclusion.
14. A.E. Kazmierczak, P. James, ibid.
15. B Rudlin, and N Falk, 1999. Building the 21st century home, Architectural Press, Oxford, cited by A.E. Kazmierczak, P. James, ibid.
16. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10910048

The modern-day education system is almost entirely bent on creating an army of university professors and other specialists. We have been systematically trained to specialize, and as a result we approach problem-solving by studying parts of a whole, where the connections between them are commonly ignored.

We’ve all likely been seeing the headlines these days about the floodwaters in southern Alberta. Flooding is almost always an indicator of deforestation. Forests provide for water storage and use, and moderate runoff from large rain events. Think about what would happen if you were to pour a bucket of water on a sidewalk. You would get a short-lived flood of water to the storm drain. But if you took that same bucket of water and poured on a vegetated area, you would have noticed that the water is retained, and only a small but steady spring of water will dribble out once saturated. Through destructive monoculture agriculture, we are systematically patterning Alberta like a sidewalk.

We have trained ourselves to work amongst each other as individuals, and we approach design and solve problems by addressing the parts. This has led to conflict, instability, and awkward and dysfunctional designs. Pattern is the connections and relationships between things. Understanding pattern helps us get to the root cause of challenges and guides the way to creating lasting human settlements that produce for the needs of people, while harmonizing with ecology.

A pattern is essentially an ordered arrangement of objects or events in time or in space. Everything from numeric sequences, cloud formations to economic boom and busts are all great examples of patterns.

Everything in nature is defined by a limited set of patterns! All of us have the power to understand the seemingly infinite complexity of the world around us through pattern understanding. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by huge environmental, social and economic problems, whether it’s about finding an ethical line of meaningful work, cleaning up a river system, or everything in between. The good news is that all the systems where these issues might lie (whether environmental, social, economic, or whatever) are all defined by these common sets of patterns. By understanding the world through how these patterns work, you can quickly start figuring out how to get started on addressing challenges and put your positive energy to work!

Every pattern we see has an associated message attached to it. Many patterns are sign posts of events that are going to happen. Yet other patterns are indicators of underlying and past conditions that are responsible for present conditions and events. The more we understand and decode the messages embedded in patterns, the more we can find effective solutions to problems, and create designs that harmonize with ecology. Pattern is central to design, and design is the topic of permaculture.

Here’s the best news of all: you already know just as much as I do about pattern! Humans as a species have highly evolved pattern recognition skills. Just observe any child and you’ll see it. All we have to do is dig back into our minds and start re-embracing this ancient ability.

Patterns are both predictive and postdictive

Plants that have evolved to grow in compacted and carbon-deficient soils commonly have tap roots. This kind of root in effect is a slow-motion pickaxe that breaks up the soil, allowing water and air to get in. When the plant reaches the end of its life cycle, the root itself decomposes into a rich column of compost, adding carbon to the soil. Whenever you see this kind of plant, you know right away which technique ecology is using to repair itself, as compacted carbon-poor soils are commonly those heavily disturbed by industry.

We all know that when we see a big white cloud that looks bubbly on top with a dark bottom that we should take shelter from impending rain. We know this and yet we don’t need a degree in meteorology! We all seem to associate that particular cloud pattern with storms. By seeing this particular cloud pattern, we can make a fairly accurate prediction about what the weather conditions will be in the near future and base choices around that. Pattern in predictive in that it help you understand upcoming and associated events that precede other indicative events.

Here’s another simple example: Let’s say you have a team member who’s always late. When doing planning, you’ll likely be figuring that person’s chronic lateness into the plan. This seems very obvious, but I say it because it’s a clear example of how we make sense of things by understanding pattern.

Now think about the dandelions growing in a section of your yard that you want to turn into a garden. Dandelions are a type of plant that have tap roots, which effectively break up compacted soil. Chances are really high that wherever you see dandelions, they are indicating an area of compacted soil. In essence, dandelions are a response to soil compaction. So the appearance of dandelions gives you a lot of clues to the past use of the land, and insight on how to go about repairing it. For example, densely seeding beneficial plants like daikon radish, which have well-developed taproots, will quickly break up areas of soil compaction and return life to the soil. So pattern understanding is postdictive, in that many patterns you see are in fact responses to particular conditions.

Here’s another example: think about chronic traffic delays. Is it just an indicator of too much traffic and we should widen the roads? Or is it postdictive indicator that our communities are shaped in such a way that we cannot meet our needs on our properties anymore and must drive to distant locations to fulfill them?

Fairy circles, as shown here, are tufts of extra vigorous grass commonly seen on lawns. Certain kinds of fungal mycelium function in a beneficial relationship with plants. While the plant provides sugars and starches for the mycelium, the mycelium harvests and transports minerals back to the plant’s roots from great distances. The grass in the fairy circle is visible evidence of this exchange at work.

Perhaps the best way to get started with pattern recognition is through observation. Careful observation can lead to a lot of information about the meaning of pattern. For example, a past permaculture student had parents running a blueberry farm in Nova Scotia. The problem they were facing was all sorts of competing plants growing in between the blueberry bushes, stealing their nutrients and sunlight. The parents dealt with this problem through herbicides, but the student was concerned about the application of these chemicals. Blueberries thrive in the wild in Nova Scotia. So she decided to go out into the wild to see how the native blueberries were doing it. She quickly found that blueberries thrived in acidic and fungal-based soils. Back at her parents’ farm, the soil was everything but this, and those herbicides kept killing more biology in the soil, which was more bacterial in nature. Many of the competing plants in her parents’ farm thrived in bacterial soils.

So there was the solution right in front of her eyes! The student knew then that in order to solve the competitive plant and herbicide problem, she had to take the wild blueberry soil pattern and bring it to her parents’ blueberry farm. She had to change her soil from being basic on the pH scale and bacterially dominant to acidic and fungal dominant, so that her blueberries would thrive, and those competing plants would not. She observed a pattern in nature and applied it to the design of her parents’ blueberry farm!

Here’s another example: I went out walking the other other day on a roadside in Calgary. The road stretched through open parkland. On the side of the road were numerous leguminous plants: all sorts of cow vetch, alfalfa, and yellow sweet clover. The pattern of the sweet clover was particularly interesting. It only grew directly on the edge of the roadside and didn’t grow further into the field next to the road where the vetch, alfalfa and grass was growing. So I went on the internet for some possible reasons why. After a short search, I found that yellow clover favours nitrogen-deficient soils that are alkaline. This is important because having information about your soil is key to understanding how you will go about designing your garden to building better topsoil. But I’ve just saved myself lots of money on soil testing just by observing the particular pattern of yellow clover as a soil quality indicator.

Pattern as a means to design

The herb spiral is a design inspired by nature and coined by Bill Mollison. The spiral is the most efficient way of storing things and saving space. The herb spiral can fit a large amount of growing bedding in a compact structure that is easy to fit outside your kitchen door. By understanding the advantages of the spiral, the herb spiral not only offers space-saving, but also provides a variety of habitat in one space for different kinds of herbs!

There is no coincidence that just about everything you see in the world (and beyond) is patterned in a certain way. Ecology has evolved to become the best engineer on the planet, with billions of years of experience on its resume. Just about all resource, planning and engineering challenges have been solved by ecology. Whenever we have to employ fossil fuels and lots of human labour to something, chances are really good that the design is wrong. If we pattern our designs correctly, the work needed is provided by components of the design itself, just as we saw in the blueberry example above. We need only to look to ecology as our teacher when redesigning human settlements, because all the answers of good design can be found there!

Think of pattern as another word for design. Whether we are designing our lives, our businesses or our gardens, we are in effect patterning them. As I mentioned above, patterning is the ordered arrangement of objects or events in time or space. A pattern emerges when two or more things are in some kind of meaningful connection with one another. For example, if I’m the owner of a cafe, I need fresh food for my sandwiches. I have a nice piece of land out back that has a lot of solar gain, so I’m going to provide that land for a community garden and greenhouse in exchange for fresh produce. Both parties benefit, and this will lead to the design of this community. You’ll find that everything in nature is arranged in two-way partnerships; ecology is inherently designed on cooperation and not competition.

This is Part 1 of 2 of Decoding Pattern. Stay tuned next month for Part 2, where you’ll learn about one general pattern model that explains and puts into perspective just about everything you see on this planet. You’ll never see everything around you the same again after you read Part 2!

I am happy to announce Earthen Hand has a slough of great workshops coming up on many natural building skills. The first ever earthen paints class through Portland Community College is next week, plus fun Cob projects in Portland, and then two workshops back to back in Puerto Rico this September. Full schedule below.

Please help us make all these happen by spreading a link to this post to others. Printable flyers downloadable here and here (PDFs).

These workshops are packed with information, fun, and leave people with practical skills that will last them a lifetime.

10% off for bringing a friend, 20% for groups of 4 or more.

Sign up for courses here!

All the best,
Scott Howard
Earthen Hand Natural Building

Several years ago I was living and working at Dalpura Farm in Moriac,Victoria a 100 or so acre silvapastoral project. The client, George Howson, was interested in implementing an aquaponics system so we all went for a day and a half trip to Melbourne to attend a seminar on the subject.

Leading up to this I had started gathering chickens and roosters from the local area, from people giving them away for one reason or another, to start using as workers on the farm. At that time I had sourced 21 birds, a third being roosters. The plan was to eventually separate them into tractoring groups to reduce the competition and fighting between roosters. Long term they would go into a set of 4 cell grazing areas and rotate with crop systems. Even longer term the roosters would be our meat source and hens kept for egg production. (I have always been an avid poultry enthusiast and had raised a good flock in past years in Humpty Doo, NT. I always loved to just sit and watch new chicks making their way and learning from their parents. The breed I had were ‘Old English Game Fowl’ and the hen (Ruby) and rooster (Rudy) were a fantastic pair for parenting and protection of their young.)

We had always been present on the farm during the day and the chooks would free range after being let out of their house in the mornings. Everything was great and eggs were coming daily and the animals seemed happy. Unbeknownst to us though, there was a menace lurking.

On the day we left for the seminar our next door neighbour Carley was asked to close the door on the chooks in the evenings around 6pm on her way past the property. We set off and didn’t give the farm another thought. Everything was in good hands.

On returning to the farm from Melbourne I found chicken feathers everywhere. Carley was on hand and explained that when she came to close the chicken house door the previous evening there was one rooster running around scared and the rest had been attacked by a fox(s). She was clearly upset as she felt responsible for the event but she was not to blame. I was devastated as the flock I was rearing was now gone. A huge feedback loop. The fox had obviously been casing the joint and the first opportunity of no action on the farm and he took his chance.

So with this I had to redesign the system to still do the same function as before but to include fox proofing as well. For one, the old cattle race being used would need to be made secure as this is where the 4-cell grazing pens were. More importantly, the chicken house needed to be located somewhere a bit more user friendly to reduce the amount of time it took us as workers to put the chickens to work. I considered a chicken tractor within the cell grazing pens but this would have meant a lot of moving so I went back to the drawing board.

Ralph our next door neighbour is a collector of all things from the rubbish dump and I found an old trailer with a very rusted floor in amongst his collection and asked if I could have it. Ralph being a great bloke brought it over to our workshop. I hadn’t a clue what I was going to do with it yet.

One day when driving home from the store I noticed an old water tank rusting away on another property and went and asked the owner if I could salvage it. She was ever so pleased to have it taken away as it was no longer serving its purpose of keeping firewood dry. It had been turned on its side with the roof cut out and fire wood stacked inside. The entire bottom side was rusting out but I could use it for something. When I got it back to the farm I unloaded it from the trailer and for the moment just set it atop the old trailer Ralph has dropped off in front of the workshop till I figured out where I would put it long term.

It’s funny how some things just click. The next day I walked past the workshop and a creative light came on in my head as I noticed the tank and the trailer sitting there. The rusted part of the tank was about the same size as the dimensions as the floor space of the trailer. What if I set the tank on the trailer and put a door on it,would this keep the chickens safe and be mobile? I went about putting my idea into action. No design or sketches, just a vision in my mind.

I cut the rusty floor out of the trailer and it revealed that the rest of the body was in not too bad shape. Not good enough for highway use but good enough for the farm. I then cut the rust out of the tank and inserted some 2m garden stakes to prop the tank from collapse.

There was about 60mm surplus length on the tank and when it sat atop the trailer that 60mm was panel beaten to sit inside the trailer body.

The site gets a lot of weather from the west so the back of the trailer would be placed against the weather. Some ventilation will be needed in the tank so a couple of flaps were cut into the metal and bent out. It is amazing what you can do with a 6 inch angle grinder.

Some old roofing iron was sourced from an old hay barn due for demolition on site and again the 6 inch grinder came in handy. The roofing iron was exactly the same width as the trailer as well, so it was a no brainer when fitting it. Everything was secured by metal roofing screws as they have the tip that screws into steel and made all connections even stronger.

Next came the doorway. As I have seen with so many chicken houses, it is always a struggle to get in or out as access points are always too small for most people. They seem to be designed for kids as the kids always want to collect the eggs. After a while the novelty wears off for the kids and the adults end up doing it. Thus the door is too small. I always over design what I do to make it easy for anyone who follows after me. So I took some 50mm poly pipe to use as the door jam, but it is hard to keep straight. I remedied this by taking two 2m garden stakes (1 inch x 1 inch) and slid them into the poly pipe. It took some hammering but they went. This made the door jam very straight and strong. The poly was cut in a way that the ends were a tag so they could be secured to the trailer and the top of the tank. Chicken wire was cut and secured to all openings and an old screen door was sourced from Ralph and screwed to the door frame.

Some perches were added using some off-cuts of silver oak from a recent coppicing harvest. They were sourced for the size that a chicken can get their claw around easily as well as to fit into the 50mm poly.The poly is cut to fit over the branch with a tag left on the end that is folded back and screwed to the tank. Very strong and secure. All up there can be 30 chickens housed in this structure and the perches have been placed so they assist the birds to get elevation.

Some 25 liter containers were placed on the floor for nesting boxes and straw place inside.

I was so happy with this construction and it only took me a day to build entirely by myself. It is to date my most creative construction. It was handy to have all the tools available in the workshop as well. One handy tip though. "When in doubt, tech screw it." Tech screws are an amazing invention. Even better than sticky tape. When recalling the cost of this construction it was less than $50 for materials as the tank and trailer were free. I think we had to put a tube in one of the tyres, a small amount of chicken wire (leftovers from wiring the cattle race), screws, 4m poly pipe, a cutting disc and a day’s labour.

So the chicken house went into the cell grazing system which will eventually become a walled garden of fruit trees and vegetables.

Parts of the old cattle race will be disassembled to allow access to each pen as a pathway and the chicken house will move on to develop other cropping areas. These last pics are at present state 3 years on.

Looks like happy chooks and healthy veg and fruit.

In arid regions of the world, we can often see architecture made entirely of earth. These buildings usually employ adobe bricks to create vaulted and domed ceilings, adobe for the walls, and stabilized earthen or lime plaster for the roof. These buildings require some maintenance, but are by far the most ecological architecture on earth. However, the question most often posed against this kind of architecture is whether or not it is applicable to areas beyond arid regions. In my eyes, this one of the most important questions and challenges in architecture today. Can we create viable structures of nearly 100% earth in wetter, colder areas? Whoever can solve this problem may stand to gain massive wealth with these massive buildings. Building codes aside for one moment, let’s look at some possible solutions to these questions.

1) High-tech Coatings

My first impulse was to use specially engineered layers of waterproofing coatings that also allow water vapor to escape from the interior of the earthen material. Everyone knows that applying waterproof cement to earthen material will crack and fail due to build up of condensation on the underside which erodes the earth material from the inside. Plus, with tonnes of earth overhead, we’re left wondering if there might be water getting in somewhere that could cause saturation and failure of the roof. There are, however, a few products being used and developed today that show a lot of promise for waterproofing earthen materials without problems.

Reapplication may be necessary every few years, depending on the amount of water present. Examples of such products can be found through two European companies called Keim, and Arcilla Research. The results look promising, and perhaps some of these strategies can be used to create earthen roofs in wetter climates at some point in the near future. Along a similar approach, earthen roofs could be covered with some type of high-tech goretex-like material.

2) Float the Waterproof Layer

Another option someday might be to create low-cost, small space frames above earthen roofs, and attach the waterproof roofing such as metal or EPDM there. This would allow airflow for water vapor to escape, and prevent condensation from eroding the structure. I don’t know of any examples of a building that uses this method currently. Let me know if you find one.

3) Shingles

This amazing building technique allows water to shed while still letting the earthen material underneath to breath. The shingles themselves could be ceramic, thus lasting indefinitely, and could be reused should the building ever be taken down to build a different building.

4) Skybreak Dwellings

This little-known housing strategy was thought of by Buckminster Fuller.
The entire house could be enclosed in a clear greenhouse-like structure.
This has many advantages in the northern climates. First, it could keep all precipitation from ever hitting one’s house, so if it were made entirely of earth it wouldn’t need any protective coating at all. The occupants could control the amount of water in the gardens around their house by using irrigation from possibly a catchment tank. The skybreak dwelling, although pretty high-tech, could pay off rapidly because it would heat the ground beneath the house area and over years raise the ambient temperature of that spot on earth significantly. A few degrees
could make a huge difference in temperate climates for growing season and heating in the winter.

Keep in mind that an outstanding solution may involve combining several of these methods. Now that I have shared these ideas with you, please share your experiments with me via comments below!

It’s 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.

The government has not yet started the reconstruction effort. We imagine they are trying to get through the winter with temporary emergency housing, and to begin construction in the spring, when the dust settles a little. Here in El Manzano we are doing our best to inject common sense into the debate. Many are listening. Small strategic actions can have wide repercussions, and though we cannot take the credit for the actions of others, we can be sure that our voice has resounded widely in Chile and many are following the lead.

What would you choose? A cement and treated pine box, designed and built by someone you have never met, squeezed as tight as possible with the neighbours, with very little outdoor private space? Or would you choose a beautiful home with natural materials, designed and constructed by you and your family, with plenty of space, and your own food to boot? One might assume that common sense would prevail. What’s missing? Choice? 

So then it becomes a matter of pragmatism, as the so called planner, shapes attention, and counters misinformation as best they can.  

Design with Principles

El Manzano has embarked on a mission to provide alternatives for Chileno people; to show people how they can create their own permanent, earthquake-proof housing made with local materials, local labour, at an affordable price. 

The original project was in usual permaculture style, a strategic and multifunctional intention to affect as many people as possible, to be a catalytic learning event. With the support of the Artists Project Earth (relief, recovery and resilience… we speak the same language) and the Permaculture Research Institute (now in Chile) a project was developed to assist people to meet their own immediate housing needs, to design their own resilient housing and settlements, to quickly recover from the devastating Earthquake of February 2010, and to build long-term resilience to future disaster and disruption. Having raised only a small portion of the required funding, we set out to maximise available resources, to catch and store the energy required and deliver the most bang for buck. 

When we design with principles, people and ecology in mind, our solutions are often distinct to those discovered by the logic of the mainstream system. When we design for haste and minimum cost we compromise on things like quality and materials efficiency, well being and long term security. We tend to forget about talking to local people and fitting in with the place. Permaculture design on the other hand, enables us to create low cost solutions that are much more resilient, because we see the problem and we have a long term perception. A permaculture designer sees opportunities and local resources, knowledge and skills. Coming from a systems perspective they link elements together, investing in the health of the system. Combined, work can be more efficient, we can reduce materials costs by seeing available free materials. If we put our heads together we can save time and money. Sometimes a small change will have big effects.   

Design & Construction  

The design was made as participatory as possible, with the community an integral part of the design and decision making team. A participatory approach takes time, and will often lead us in unexpected directions, but in the end a better solution can be found. You can read about the design stages here. And here about the El Manzano in Transition process here. 

Construction started in the first week of May. You can read about the first stage here by Craig Mackintosh. Using local materials, unmilled timber cut directly from surrounding forests with a chainsaw, straw harvested nearby, recycled adobe from the earthquake collapses, and the soil beneath our feet we trained a local team in the use of roundpole and earth construction techniques. The community has awakened to a new possibility for their own homes in the future, and is learning together, that many hands make light work.

The superadobe technique has been modified a little, using sand from the site (a resource we have in abundance) to fill sacks, mixed with 10% cement and laid as a foundation wall. This same technique was used to make the floor, with a thin layer of cement and very little steel on top. We have tried to minimise the use of cement and steel at every step, but have been hindered by the locals who won’t imagine standing on anything made of clay in the next earthquake, and the need to get the house habitable as soon as possible.

The roof went up quickly with a 22 cm layer of light clay straw compacted into the cavity between roof joists. We have heard of this technique being used locally without clay with 60+ years of life. If it stays dry we are hopeful it will provide insulation for a long time to come… another research project. 

The walls are up, two non-load bearing layers of 2×2 pine (we could have used small diameter pseudo acacia and eucalyptus cut from the forest to reduce costs) with a 25 cm sandwich of light clay straw in between. With all the rain our primary concern is the drying time of the straw. Based on the experience of friends with the same technique in Chile, we are concerned about fungus growing in the straw and affecting the timber. Oh for a dry season. Chile is well known for its dry sunny winter periods… we have our fingers crossed and are exploring other options for drying the walls efficiently. 

Budget

The final budget for materials and labour is 2 million pesos or $US3700, around US$125 per square metre. This is an affordable house. The main cost has been the roofing, the cement for the floor and labour. We haven’t managed to stretch the budget to pay the professional services of the design team, but intend that the house is a model that can be improved and replicated, a product we can offer in coming months.

The gains have outweighed the cost, and we don’t need a cost:benefit analysis to tell us. A community team has developed itself as a competent unit able to deliver on time and under budget. The house is beautiful. It will last a few good 8 point earthquakes yet. Wanna bet?           

Learning

Many small mistakes have been made, reviewed and redesigned for the next house. This has been a continuous learning event for the community and the team. In coming weeks the team moves its focus to begin construction of a second house. We feel more prepared and more experienced for a spring and summer construction process ahead, with tested materials and techniques in the construction of a living university campus. You can be involved in this catalytic learning event. Stay tuned. Happy new year.

In August 2008, my wife Michelle and I returned to Calgary, Canada, after spending one year traveling abroad in search of sustainability solutions. With backgrounds in mechanical engineering, our “sabbatical” started off in Denmark – we were drawn there by the lure of technological solutions to energy issues. After several months of volunteering and filling our brains with information (wind energy, solar applications, passive buildings, biogas, plant oil engines… and more) we ended up back in North America prepared to explore the U.S. and Mexico in our plant-oil powered Westfalia.

We knew that something thus far in our sustainability search was missing and were starting to suspect that the missing link might be permaculture (although we didn’t really know what it was quite yet). Our travels brought us to several eco-sites, including an ecovillage near Mexico City. We stopped to do some WWOOFing at a permaculture farm and then headed further south to visit the indigenous Mexicans of the Chiapas, interested to learn about their agricultural practices. An Earthship workshop and geodesic greenhouses in New Mexico and an education center and CSA project in Colorado to name a few other adventures. And to culminate this amazing year we signed up for a Permaculture Design Course at Bullocks Homestead in Washington. The entire experience was nothing short of amazing.

Next task – put all of this information to productive use! Oh boy.

Luckily, my mother-in-law is a good sport and agreed to allow us to use her home as an outlet for ideas and a test case for a permaculture transformation project. Our goal – grow as much food as possible on this urban site and retrofit the home to reduce fossil heating energy by 90%.

Our first task was to asses the property and get productive food systems up and running. We invited friends and family over for a work party, sheet mulched the yards and planted over 100 plants in the front yard mimicking a forest ecology. As we were covering the yard with heaps of composted manure and cardboard the neighbours would slow down as they drove by in awe to see the vast quantity of materials and the number of people running around like ants building a nest. By the end of the day we had a fully sheet mulched back and front yard and a food forest ready to burst next spring.

In the spring we decided that our garden needed to have some swales and trails – shovel in hand we got to work digging. Within a day or so we had shaped our garden beds, filled the trails with mulch from a local arborist and got ready to plant the garden once we were sure that there would be no frost. Calgary has very limited precipitation (300mm) and only about 100 frost free days so we had to be on top of the garden as soon as we were able to make sure we didn’t miss and inch of rain or a day of sun. In late Spring we covered the garden with 20kg of inoculated field pea and shortly thereafter planted the rest of our garden with seedlings started earlier in the year.

With the garden progressing on its own we started on the energy retrofits. Our primary focus was on improving the thermal envelope, heating appliance and thermal mass of the building as we had been inspired by a previous visit to the German Passiv Haus Institute while in Europe. The first project was to blow-in one meter thick of cellulose insulation into the attic. Although the salesman thought I was crazy (new built homes usually have 20-30 cm), I wanted to meet the Passiv Haus Standard with an R-value of R70. Also, cellulose is relatively inexpensive and is an easy “do it yourself” project.

Next we went straight to work on siding of the house. Being that the home was built in the 70’s the wall insulation was approximately 1.5” thick fiberglass insulation (R8) and leakier than a sieve. We first removed the siding, sheathing, old mouldy insulation and vapour barrier to expose the studs and plywood inner wall. Next we blew-in high density foam into the cavities between studs. To prevent thermal bridging from occurring through the studs we added a layer of 2” rigid foam sheathing before replacing the siding. And it only seemed fitting that the new siding color be green! The steps above reduced our air infiltration over 5 times and brought our net R-value from 8 up to 31.

We then installed triple glazed low emissivity & insulated fiberglass frame windows. These windows have a net R-value of R7 which means that they act as a thermal appliance and allow more energy in than energy lost per annum.

Another project we managed to squeeze in was the basement. The basement has also always been very cold in the winter in part due to the lack of insulation in the floor. We attacked this problem by laying a subfloor of rigid insulation.

Based on these upgrades, I calculated that we could replace our 29 kW furnace for a 3 kW one. However, when researching furnace options, the smallest available on the market is a 95% efficient 15 kW. This certainly illustrates how poorly we build our homes!

The retrofit is almost done with a few minor exceptions. This summer we will be installing a solar hot water system to heat all of our domestic water. With the siding off earlier in the year we also took the opportunity to install connections for a future grey water system to feed our new garden.

And so, we have learnt some great lessons from our transformation project and are excited to see how the house performs over the winter. Most exciting of all – our neighbour has requested that we extend our front yard food forest into his yard (he never did like cutting grass). Perhaps we will inspire many others in our neighborhood to do the same.