Design Skills

I have utilised a variety of different design processes whilst planning the ten designs I am including in this Portfolio. My main preference for a macro process has become OBREDIMET. I like the way the categories are divided up & I have become familiar now with using it. I have however used three other macro processes here: SADIM (twice), CEAP (once) & another Australian cycle (once).

 I have also used a selection of sub-strategies within my different design processes & provide one or two examples of where I have used each one:

• Analytical design (e.g. My Portfolio, Steep garden).
• Observation (e.g. Mobile home garden, Steep garden).
• Deduction from nature (e.g. Cottage garden, School garden).
• Options & decisions (e.g. Aikido, School garden).
• Data overlay - exclusion (e.g. Mountain garden, Recording studio).
• Design by application of principles (e.g. My life path, My Portfolio).
• Random assembly (e.g. Cottage garden).
• Flow diagrams (e.g. Making music)
• Zone & sector analysis (e.g. Mobile home garden, Recording studio).
• Incremental design (e.g. My life path, Recording studio)

 The details of these processes are to be found in the 'Design Process' pages of each of the ten designs.
 

 I have presented my Final designs using:

• Site drawings.
• Mindmaps.
• Flowchart.

 These are to be found in the 'Final Design' pages of each of the ten designs.
 

Theory in Action

I have integrated permaculture completely into my day to day living using my own Personal Permaculture Plan. This is all detailed in my Life Path design pages. Key relevant life choices (including before my design course):

• Adopted a vegetarian diet (1983).
• Adopted a vegan diet (1984).
• Started growing my own food (1986).
• First came across permaculture & started using ideas in my food growing (1987).
• Adopted a raw diet for personal health & a big reduction in fuel use - no cooking! (1995).
• Started buying organic food whenever I could get it - found small wholesaler (1995).
• 72 hour Full Design Course! (1996).
• Became full-time barefoot to walk lightly on the Earth & feel Her communication better (1997).
• Lived at a barefoot land-based permaculture project in S.W. Eire for a year (1997-8).
• Started eating & learning about a great diversity of salad leaves & flowers (wild & culivated) & teaching visitors to the land about them all too.
• While there I ate only home-grown food & decided that a locally grown part-cooked diet (which I had adopted) was better than an imported uncooked one.
• Living in complete cycle with the land (all food from the land & human wastes returned to the land), I realised that I had never felt more at home anywhere in my life.
• Did my first full land-based design by myself & began it's implementation - have designed & created a permaculture garden everywhere I have lived since (1998).
• On return to UK, started planning all journeys to maximise yields (1998).
• Started evaluating yields of all other energy (electricity etc) consuming activities (1998).
• Became self-employed as an organic gardener / permaculture designer (2000).
• Started Aikido (2001).
• Bought a solar panel for the yurt, but installed it temporarily in caravan for lighting until yurt was finished (2001).
• Gave up part-time gardening job as too many un-permaculture practices involved (i.e. weeding gravel drive of pioneer plants!) (2002).
• Realised I needed to express my life influences in song as it is such a powerful medium for communication & to help others do the same - bought recording equipment (2002).
• Started experimenting with vegetable oil as an alternative carbon-neutral fuel for my van, when I do use it for journeys (2002).
• Switched to using green electricity (all Paddox Farm) (2002).
• Stitched cover for yurt - low impact dwelling (2002).
• Re-launched self-employment (Aranya Gardens) as more permaculture based (2003).
• Decided to develop a poly-income to follow principle of 'multiple supply' & to work mostly from home - created Paddox Farm website as part of this process (2003).

Complimentary Criteria:

Dissemination

• Working with Hooke Court School on a educational permaculture design.
• Getting the permaculture display into local Libraries.
• Sending the questionnaire to schools & garden centres about permaculture awareness.
• Promoting two full design courses.
• Teaching college students & telling fellow C&G7307 course students about permaculture.
• Writing an article about my experiences with Action Learning Sets for the Academy.
• Putting permaculture pages on my websites (Aranya Gardens & Paddox Farm).
• Conversations I have when people visit Paddox Farm & tour my garden.
• Creating my Portfolio on CDROM & uploading to the WWW (Aranya Gardens).
• Getting best designs & ALPs onto WorkNet web pages & CDROM (current project).
• My overall lifestyle! I'm often asked things about the unusual way that I live & I inevitably end up talking about permaculture.
• Writing & singing songs about permaculture ideas.

Community Building

• Helping develop the Diploma WorkNet; instigating & performing the upload of Diplomats' best designs & ALPs onto web pages.
• Instigating & creating a website for Paddox Farm & promoting the farm as an educational permaculture site (i.e. convening design courses).
• Bringing together permaculture musicians to share songs with sustainable lyrics(!) & to compile a CD of permaculture songs to sell in aid of the Association & projects (current project).

Symmetry

• Helping Robert Hart at Highwood Hill & later from a distance.
• Serving on the Permaculture Association's Council of Management (three years so far).
• Becoming a life member of the Permaculture Association in 2001 (& funding office laptop).
• Becoming an Area Reference Person & Tutor for the Diploma WorkNet.
• Getting Diplomats' best designs onto the Diploma WorkNet pages & CDROM.

Evaluation & Costings

• 'The Next Step' has a whole section on energy accounting a raw permaculture-based diet.
• The life cycle analysis for my choice of Portfolio medium.
• The input / output analysis of my Portfolio on CDROM & the WWW via the Diploma WorkNet pages.
• The costings for Mobile home garden & partly for the School garden. Also I have documented the final costs of implementing the Recording Studio & Cottage Garden conservatory.

 I am making all theses details available to the Permaculture community via the WWW by placing my Diploma Portfolio there & providing a link from the Diploma WorkNet pages.
 

Designer's Profile:

(Major)

Site Development

  Working on developing my own gardens (three implemented to date over a total of six seasons).

Trusteeship

  Being a Trustee of the Permaculture Association for the past three years.

Media & Communications

  WorkNet Best design pages development, plus producing this Portfolio in the digital domain as a template & other website work (putting Permaculture on Paddox Farm & Aranya Gardens websites).

(Minor)

Education

  Five years experience of giving talks to school & adult groups. Attending Permaculture teachers meetings. Training to teach permaculture to adults (C&G7307 & creative teaching courses). Developing an educational design at a local school. Being part of the Permaculture & the National curriculum working group for a while. Promoting, organising & preparing to assist teaching on two full design courses that sadly didn't run. This is currently only in this section as I have to date taught just one actual Permaculture session at a local college, but I aim for this to be a much more important area of activity for me.

Community Development

  Helping to develop the Diploma WorkNet web pages. Living at Paddox Farm & promoting the farm as an educational permaculture site. Bringing together permaculture musicians for mutual benefit & improved dissemination of influential songs.