"Change is the only thing we can count on."
Last week Jesse Hernreich came to talk to us about permaculture and the way in which you can (and should!) embody permaculture principles in everything you do. Permaculture is an ecological design system that can be applied to all aspects of human efforts, such as building homes, growing food, creating communities, etc. Its principles include things like designing aspects to have multiple uses (stacking functions), observing a lot, starting with small and slow solutions. Learned TONS from her - both large scale themes as well as technical information. She is great! She studied ecological design at Prescott College and now has her own permaculture farm in southwestern Colorado (we're trying to plan a trip out there!). To continue with my listing trend.. here are some of my favorite things she discussed:
Permanent culture & permanent agriculture.
Sustainability is simply a baseline. Regenerative living systems have the ability to evolve and renew themselves; generative systems are able to sustain livelihood without any energy contribution to evolution and are vulnerable to change; degenerative systems are those that are unnatural or incomplete and create wasted energy, or pollution. What do we want to be "sustaining"?
Sense of place. Culture is developed from a place, and as designers we are working on and must always be conscious of this sense of place. It is important to find out as much history as you can about the site (or whatever topic) for both the physical and cultural significance of what has occurred there.
Permaculture is common sense that we have forgotten.
Designers must be a temple of non-judgement. Clients are going to want what they want - how we adapt their desires is up to us.
Change is the only thing we can count on.
Design for convenience. The point of permaculture is not to return to drudgery - the point is to make it easy for us to treat the environment with a regenerative ecological lifestyle.
There is a time and place for everything. Things like advanced technology are definitely useful, but should be used only when appropriate.
Everything gardens.