Scale of Permanence in Design
I just finished my design project for the Permaculture Design Certificate program. It was awesome having Andrew Jones at the last session and his suggestions on using the Scale of Permanence as a guide for design was very, very helpful.
The scale goes like this, from biggest effect and most difficult to change down:
- Climate
- Landform
- Water
- Legal
- Access and Circulation
- Wildlife and Vegetation
- Microclimate
- Structures
- Zones of Use
- Soil
- Aesthetics
In permaculture, we start at the top of the list and work down. Changes at the top have the largest effect, but are most difficult and should be designed carefully. Stuff at the bottom is much easier to change. In our culture we generally do this backwards, starting with aesthetics and then trying to make everything else fit with that. Many times, permaculture seems to be the exact opposite approach to how things are done in the larger, unsustainable society. I’m thinking we should start calling the current paradigmTempculture in order to reframe it. Sometimes I think the hegemony of the current way as too ingrained to change, but viewed from a higher level it appears to be surrounded by history on both ends. At least it does now in the moment I am writing it.
There is a lot of gray area in the ordering of the Scale, for example buildings can be used to create microclimate. Generally speaking, though, each level defined and determined a number of issues at the lower levels. For example, legal considerations around access points to the property and how the site was zoned determined a huge amount of the design. By the time I got around to siting buildings, they almost situated themselves. This process makes design much simpler and more coherent in that it progressively eliminates choices at lower levels.
I found this applied to my own site after I laid out and dug the swales (landform, water) and paths (access and circulation), planting areas started to define themselves.
May 28th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
tip jar:
BTW, the design is for a 33 acre site which includes open field, scrub and pine trees, lots of water and very acid soil. Permaculture is supposed to scale to any size and this suggests that, at least on paper, the principles apply at least to the medium scale. The largest site I’ve worked on before that is about 1/3 of an acre.
Also, if you have any inclination to post a comment, please do. All comments are moderated, but I check pretty frequently.