Permaculture Design

For the HangArt project we are using a lot of concepts that come from the method of Permaculture Design. This is a concept that was developed by a guy named Bill Mollison. It is a way of developing human habitats that are ecologically sound and sustainable. Some basic info about permaculture can be found here, though there is a lot more to the study of permaculture.

One of the first steps we take in this design process is to analyze what is going on at the site we are designing. Rather than going right into the process of designing new things for the site we take a step back and look at what is going on at the site already. Who uses the site? What do they do there? Where does the sun come from? Where does the water flow? Where does the wind blow? Where are the utilities? What inputs are being given to the site? What outputs is the site giving us? There are many more questions we ask as well.

After we understand what's happening we can start to look at what works and what doesn't work. What do we need? What do we need to get rid of? What can be changed?

We also want to look at how one thing serves many different functions. The more functions that we stack, the more sustainable and functional our sit will be. We can install a bench that's just for people to sit on, or we can design it in a way that it also helps aid flood prevention, storage, and aesthetics. We could think of many other functions this bench could serve as well and try to incorporate it into the design. We can do this with physical things as well as social and economic aspects. This makes the design process much more complicated than drawing a plan on a piece of paper, but in the long run it makes the project much richer.