Permaculture...Supersized!

By Nic Tuff

            As permaculture continues to permeate the agricultural and ecological landscape – in backyards, farms and eco-villages – some forward-thinking practitioners are seeing the potential of this revolutionary design philosophy to be utilized at a more far-reaching macro scale.

            In this vanguard are Yestermorrow instructors Andrew Faust and Lisa DePiano, and the recently completed first offering of their Permaculture for Regional Planning: Ecological Models for Economic Development course could be considered a landmark moment in the evolution of this innovative design practice.

The crux of the course focused on how to create resilient, self-reliant communities which maximize the potential of the respective eco-region. In an age when extreme weather and petroleum dependence are increasingly threatening the fragile fabric on which our socio-economic systems are based, this class explored how this holistic practice can offer a solution-based response to even the direst issues threatening the health and wealth of our social, economic and ecological systems.

Focusing on a bioregional approach, Faust and DePiano emphasized that every backyard, every watershed and every bioregion has within it a potential – some hidden, some realized, some unrealized (much in our current land economy that remains unrealized).  Solar gain, soil fertility, existing infrastructure and so many other factors contribute to the potential of a respective land, region or city.  Through this lens, permaculture offers an expansive means to understand the potential in applying socially and ecologically sound techniques to help communities reclaim the means of production and to catalyze microenterprise to help make their place more resilient and sustainable. 

This class cultivated the insight and offered the tools to make our communities more healthy, self-reliant, and resilient; by diversifying their economic and ecological foundation in a way that is both efficient and capitalizes on their potential.  Through case studies, field trips and hands-on learning, students were offered a paradigm for professionals and citizens alike to apply the design methodology and principles of permaculture to retrofitting infrastructure at a regional scale.

The next offering of this course is not yet scheduled, but if you would like to be notified when it is, click the “Early Bird Registration” button on this page:

https://yestermorrow.org/workshops/detail/permaculture-for-regional-planning

Regenerative Design Certificate Redux by Jesce Walz

Yestermorrow's Regenerative Design Certificate program, led by Joel Glanzberg (www.patternmind.org), expanded my sense of possibility and hope. It drew connections between my interests in design, building, community, and process, it provided practical ideas for application, and offered examples of projects done by individuals with deep senses of integrity, justice, and harmony. The course honed my project plans by helping me to let go of some of the questions I arrived with, “How can a building be regenerative? How can my project be regenerative?” replacing these with understandings.

One of the most valuable of these understandings is that humans have a role in nature: we are naturally disturbers. The world is in need of healthy disturbance, and nature actually needs us to remember our role. Currently, we disturb in a destructive way. We can, however, learn from the past and disturb more symbiotically, with attentiveness to what needs to be burned, harvested, repaired, etc. If we cease to produce “for the sake of producing,” and begin to create what is essential, what is of lasting value, we will begin to heal many rifts.

Ultimately there isn’t a “regenerative building.” Rather, a building is regenerative if it is designed in relationship to its context and the values of its inhabitants, and in a way that allows it to evolve with changing needs. This kind of design makes a building essential to those who dwell in it. If it essential, it will be maintained, cared for, and will adapt beyond the lifespan of a “sustainably designed” building that is simply an idea projected into the world.

“Sustainability is a floor we can all stand on, not the ceiling that we are reaching towards.”

Tools and Frameworks:

There were several tools and frameworks we were given in class that I will carry with me indefinitely, and hope to continue building upon.  These frameworks were developed by Joel Glanzberg and his associates at Regenesis Group, specialists in living systems, place-baced planning, design, development, and education.

Nested Wholes:  
“Whenever I draw a circle, I immediately want to step out of it." -- Buckminster Fuller. 
In thinking about a project it is tempting to list, pie chart, and struggle to define an area of working. However, life is more dynamic and multi-dimensional than this, and nothing quite fits into these boxes. Often when working on a project, I get stuck trying to understand its scope. How much context does the project need to respond to? My vision for sustainability? The needs of the neighborhood? My watershed? Addressing systematic oppression? This was a good way for me to feel jumbled, discouraged, and lost. In reality, everything exists within nested wholes. Imagine an internal circle, another which surrounds this, and yet another surrounding this. There may be are several versions of these wholes for any given project, they remind us of the importance of context and perspective.

Used courtesy of Regenesis Group

Multiple Capitals and Stakeholders: There are many things of value within, and much that is affected by, any project. Businesses are beginning to address this through “B Corps” (benefit corporations) and people working towards the “triple bottom line” (People, Profit, Planet). The five capitals go beyond this. They include human, social, ecological, built, and financial capital. Each of these is also an instrument (each can be used to help make something happen), and there are stakeholders related to each capital (investors, staff, the watershed, land, co-workers, friends, suppliers). Each of the capitals can be leveraged to grow the others. A regenerative project includes all capitals and allows them to flow between one another.

Will, Being, & Function: This relates to the “nested wholes” framework. We used the nested wholes of “will, being, and function” (or “why, how, what”) to write purpose statements and understand the deeper values behind our projects. The important part is that at the center of each project or purpose statement is the “will” -- what we really want to accomplish and why. What we really want to end up

Used courtesy of Regenesis Group

with is not just a “product” but a specific outcome with a specific effect. A particularly transformative aspect of this for me is the realization that “being” -- how we are to be -- is the bridge between “will” and “function.” I am often guilty of either coming up with lofty ideas that I don’t know how to manifest, or whipping out projects without the level of intentionality I’d hoped for. Who and how I am when working has a lot to do with the outcome.

The Task Cycle: Task cycles allow us to lay out the process that will ultimately lead to the successful completion of a project or goal, whether it be making fire from sticks, organizing a party, or starting a business. A few of my “take-homes” from the task cycle include:

Used courtesy of Regenesis Group

• The value of restraints: restraints are things that we come up against when trying to do a project. Restraints also exist in nature. The wolf’s hunting patterns are restraint to the deer; the deer’s grazing is a restraint to the mountain’s vegetation. Without restraints, everything would be out of balance. At times they are helpful. At times I am my own restraint. Rather than making value judgments, we need to value and understand both restraining and activating forces in order to do a project well.
• The importance of reconciling rather than compromising: oftentimes there is a temptation to compromise, call it “good,” and move on! Yet compromising is usually win-lose, or even a lose-lose situation. The wolf and the deer do not “compromise” as predator and prey, they simply embody their roles and keep things in balance. To move towards regeneration we need to examine our context and restraints, forming a design that reconciles, harmonizes, and allows for evolution of life. 
• Process-oriented design: It is tempting to design a product, gather what is needed to make it, and then make it. As mentioned above, in regenerative design, we begin with a purpose rather than a product, we consider the context/place, and then figure out what to make and how to make it.
  

Practically speaking, all of this empowers me to move from ideation into action when facing tasks that I normally might abandon. The task cycle provides a straighforward process for laying everything out on the table, understanding the real goal, addressing obstacles, and figuring out what’s needed to move forward. I went into this class expecting that it would be a little “woo-woo,” and came out of it seeing that everything we learned is quite concrete and essential. One way I’ve explained this to friends is that “these frameworks relate to everything from making cookies to deciding what to do with the next few years of my life.”

Personal Impact:

It is difficult to measure how this has honed my particular project (a sustainable renovation & community house in a rough urban setting). I began this class with a Holy fear of doing any project here at all. I’m sensitive to the importance of context and have seen some questionable examples of projects imposed on urban neighborhoods, so I hoped the class would teach me a “right” way to design. Instead it helped me to ask some important questions and reach some valuable conclusions.  As a result, at this point, I’m less attached to doing “my project” than I was when I initially arrived at Yestermorrow. This is because my time there has shown me a bigger picture and given me more perspective. There are land trusts, Living Buildings, urban farms, community development and education groups, co-housing experiments, and more. Everything is connected, and for years a whole field has been emerging that is beginning to manifest in every sector of society.  

During class, we examined “the difference that makes a difference.” This difference is the small thing we can change that will have the greatest effect on everything else. For me, this difference is continuing to trust and take one step at a time along the path as it unfolds. If I use the tools and hope I’ve received to work towards creating healthier wholes in any sector, space will be made to work towards justice and restoration.

Instructor Spotlight: Jacob Deva Racusin, Natural Building Expert and Committed Educator

By Charlotte Leib, Community Outreach Intern

Yestermorrow instructor Jacob Deva Racusin’s path to the forefront of the natural building movement is a needle in a haystack—or straw bale, rather—kind of story. It all began in 2000, when Jacob came to Yestermorrow to take Home Design, Solar Design, and Straw Bale Design/Build.

Jacob reflects, “I think I can safely credit Yestermorrow with being the beginning of my design/build experience. I think I’m a Yestermorrow poster child at this point. The Home Design class with John Ringel and Kathy Meyer…was my first formal training in construction, so I really came to this all totally as an owner-builder with a liberal arts background and very little practical skill.” 

Ace, far left, and Jacob, far right, pose with Natural Paints & Finishes students.

After courses at Yestermorrow, Jacob worked at a home business based out of a straw bale house at Ten Stones, an intentional community in Charlotte, Vermont, where he “fell in love with the look” of natural building, especially the “third dimension of the walls that could be used creatively and artistically.” It was this aesthetic appeal of natural building along with the “totally welcoming and open-source technology culture…and high-performing, climate-appropriate, and yet non-prescriptive way of building” that Jacob cites as key to his entry into natural building.

Just six years after taking courses at Yestermorrow, and building his own home in the process, Jacob had accrued formidable expertise in natural building and began teaching at Yestermorrow.

Fast forward to today: Jacob and fellow Yestermorrow instructor Ace McArleton run a thriving company, New Frameworks Natural Building. The two have recently published The Natural Building Companion, which has quickly become the seminal source for integrative design and construction. Despite an increasing demand for their work as natural builders and consultants, the dynamic design/build duo returns regularly to Yestermorrow to teach several courses in natural building, as well as a unique six-week Natural Building Certificate.

While students have always raved about Jacob and Ace’s expertise and accessible teaching styles, the building world is beginning to recognize their work and worth as well. Jacob and Yestermorrow instructor Ben Graham were brought on board as natural building consultants for an affordable straw bale senior housing project in Vermont that has made headlines on the Metropolis Magazine blog, among other online news outlets. The project was the first of its kind in the Northeast and is seeking certification from Efficiency Vermont as a Vermont Energy Star Home project. On the heels of the media coverage of this groundbreaking project, the International Code Council approved a building code appendix for straw bale construction in October, a move that has far-reaching implications for wider acceptance of this cost-effective and energy efficient building practice.

Jacob credits the success of this pioneering straw bale project to the project team’s commitment to material-driven decision making throughout the design/build process. “There was very appropriate technical design from the front end and the design was a truly integrated process, where major stakeholders throughout the construction phase— from engineers, to the building energy-folk, to the natural building construction people—were all brought in appropriately at the right time. That follow through in design was brought into construction to ensure that all of the [Energy Star] benchmarks were hit and that the detailing was appropriate.”

Such a collaborative work process is rare among building professionals, where the chasm between architects, engineers, and builders often runs deep. But for Jacob, the design/build process has been second nature, beginning with his first courses at Yestermorrow fourteen years ago. Jacob reflects, “Ben and I have a shared body of knowledge that allows us to tie the architectural and construction processes into a whole design/build process, and [in the affordable housing project] that was very successful. That’s one of the foundational elements of our practice.”

This January, Jacob and his longtime business partner Ace McArleton will take a break from their busy schedules to teach Natural Design/Build, a two-week primer covering all facets of creating an energy efficient, climate specific natural structure through sessions in both the studio and the shop. In March, Jacob will share with students his expertise in engineering cutting-edge structures in Fundamentals of Building Science. Then in May, the duo will return to teach our 6-week Natural Building Certificate. Any one of these courses can set you on the track toward a successful home-scale design/build project, and perhaps even a career path, as was the case for Jacob Deva Racusin fourteen years ago.

Thank you, Jacob, for your dedication to educating Yestermorrow students in natural building and building science, and for your commitment to merging your passions for fine craft, ecological stewardship, relationship to place, and social justice.

Natural Building Certificate students (left) and apply natural finish to a structure at Knoll Farm in Waitsfield, VT, guided by teaching assistant Annie Murphy (right), who interned at Yestermorrow and completed the Natural Building Certificate.

What is Good Design?

Guest post by Charlotte Leib, Community Outreach Intern

It would be quixotic to assume there is one singular definition of good design. After all, Dieter Rams, widely regarded as one of the most influential industrial designers of our time, put forth not one, but ten principles for good design.  In the early 1980’s, around the same time that John Connell founded Yestermorrow, Rams published these principles, which have since influenced the designs of countless products, including Apple computers.

Why fixate on Rams’ “Ten Principles for Good Design”?  Because more than offering a rubric for product design, these principles value process over product, offering a durable and elastic system for design. Rams’ process-driven approach evolves from a design/build ethos, making him relevant to any discussion of “good design” at Yestermorrow.  Rams’ formative years were strongly influenced by his grandfather, a carpenter, and though Rams at first aspired to be an architect, he ultimately found his calling adapting industrial technologies for the home setting.

Rams’ most recent reflections suggest that good design must concern the creation of both better products and better processes.  “Today we need less but better products,” says Rams in this short film “The Ethos of Dieter Rams.” “We need new landscapes, together with new cities.  We need new structures for our behaviors.  And that is design…We have enough things…we can improve some things but it’s not spectacular to improve a television…”

Perhaps what we need are not more things, not more industrial designers, but more industrial ecologists, who study the “flows” of materials and energy through socio-economic systems with a view to optimizing their use.  Architect William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart issued a clarion calls for this regenerative approach with their books, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things (2002) and The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability — Designing for Abundance (2013).

We need more inspiring work from industrial ecologists like Ariana Bain, who works to create positive change through innovative food systems, cities, and industry through her business, Metabolic Lab.  Bain delivered an outstanding lecture during the Yestermorrow Summer Lecture Series, “Symbioculture: Healing the Food System,” and returned to campus recently to share her design approach with Regenerative Design Certificate students.

After completing a four week program in whole systems thinking, these students are poised to create cultures of positive change that move beyond the creation of sustainable products to the facilitation of regenerative processes.

In order to better understand the emerging field of Regenerative Design, I asked the certificate students to answer the question, "What is good design?"  What follows are a selection of student responses, which expand traditional definitions of good design, turning the notion of “good design is timeless” on its side to suggest that design is not static but instead a product of evolving, dynamic design processes.

“Good design…interconnects the watershed, culture, community, people and their needs, place, the elements, and location, trees, roads, rocks and plant life in a regenerative way.  In the built design this entails both interconnection and the use of natural materials with minimum impact on the earth and modest, yet efficient construction that interrelates with its people and landscape.”

– Jesse LoVasco

“Design is the process through which we utilize all of our knowledge to create a solution.  Good and bad design don’t exist.  There can only be under-informed realizations.”

–  Ryan Galliford

 “It’s hard to define “good design,” because “good” is an abstract subjective word.  To me, good design is regenerative design – a process of designing [that] ensures that the final outcome is a design that is vital and viable to a larger whole.  The design would have the ability to evolve overtime.”

 – Monica Albizu

“Good design begins with good attention:

Listen, use your vision, smell, taste, and feel movement, seeking wisdom.

Ask and hold the space for questions.

Consider obstacles and greater ramifications of our actions.

Good design takes the time to dwell in and respond to context without judgment.

Sees what is - whole and simple.

Draws connections; makes a new way to rise above the challenge.

Manifests process, inspired by and spurring life.”

– Jesce Walz

We look forward to seeing the work of our first class of Regenerative Design Certificate students as they bring these definitions of good design into their next endeavors.

How do you define good design?  Join the conversation and share your definition below!