Overview
Like many suburban front gardens, this one was paved over to accommodate cars — back when the household owned two or more vehicles. Now that nobody in the household owns a car, a flat expanse of concrete serves no purpose except to make the street feel colder and less alive.
The design aimed to restore colour, food production and community to this space. In the 1970s, residents on this street knew almost everyone on the road. That sense of community has largely disappeared. The front garden — facing the street, accessible to passers-by — is a rare opportunity to rebuild it, one herb label at a time.
Methodology
Having found OBREDIM challenging in previous designs, I chose it here deliberately to practice further and deepen my understanding of its particular strengths. Using a methodology on a real project — even if it is not the most natural fit — is the most effective way to truly learn it.
Working Through the Design
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1
Observation — Reading the Site
Key observations: the site is currently lifeless — paving, no plants, no habitat. It receives only afternoon and evening sun (east-facing aspect, shaded in the morning). It is exposed to wind. This sun pattern significantly constrains plant selection.
Observation mind map 
Basemap showing true north orientation -
2
Boundaries & Resources
The most interesting boundary is the front edge to the pavement — the interface with the neighbourhood and passing community. Walls on two sides offer potential for climbing plants. The key resource challenge is aesthetic: the design must look good, as it is highly visible.
Boundaries analysis 
Resources analysis -
3
Evaluation — Wind, Sun & Zone Analysis
Evaluation confirmed that some originally considered plants would not thrive here and had to be eliminated. A nutrient strategy for the new beds also emerged as a priority. Monthly wind data showed consistent exposure, making shelter a key design consideration.
Evaluation mind map Monthly Wind Statistics
Annual summary 
January 
July 
December Zone Analysis
The small site accommodates only zones 1 and 2. Zone 1 — closest to the front door — receives the highest-frequency attention and gets the most visited plants (herbs for daily use, the ceanothus soap bush).
Zone 1 — immediate door area 
Zones 1 & 2 together -
4
Design — Layout & Elements
The design places a Cornus mas (Cornelian cherry — a taller tree) at the back to avoid blocking light to the rest of the garden. Ceanothus is placed closest to the front door, picked daily as a natural soap plant. A central seating area with a table sits behind the raised bed. The raised bed will contain labelled herbs with an invitation for passers-by to take small amounts.
Design mind map 3D Design Views
View from the pavement 
View from the front door Top-Down Views — Design Build-Up
Base 
New ground beds 
Raised bed added 
Rocket stove position The Rocket Stove
A small rocket stove was designed for the space — slightly hidden to avoid attracting too much attention from casual passers-by.
Stove design 
Brick layout 
Fire chamber -
5
Implementation Plan
Planned for summer 2014, in sequence: lift some paving and create ground-level beds → raised bed → guttering and water catchment (connecting two barrels, one each side, filled simultaneously via a low connection) → seating and table from recycled materials → rocket stove.
Note on water design: a gutter on the porch roof will fill the first barrel; this connects near the base to a second barrel on the north side, so both fill simultaneously — a simple gravity-fed dual-barrel system requiring no pumping.
🌿 Water Catchment PrincipleCatching rain from the porch roof and storing it in two linked barrels demonstrates catch and store energy — one of permaculture's core principles. No plumbing is required; gravity does the work.
Reflections & Outcomes
Transforming this grey, lifeless front garden into a productive, shared community space has been a long-held intention. The design went through several iterations and will likely continue to evolve before implementation. The use of OBREDIM for a second time was valuable — its structured observational opening revealed wind exposure and the half-day sun pattern more systematically than a less formal approach might have.
Overview
This is perhaps the most personal design in this portfolio. Its purpose: to create a systematic, achievable way of documenting and presenting permaculture designs for someone who is dyslexic and has a deep-seated phobia of formal writing.
Presenting to clients is straightforward — there is a clear goal, a known audience, and verbal communication supported by printed materials works well. But creating general documentation for unknown readers has been a major block. A single paragraph can take hours to write, and the result still feels unsatisfactory. With over 60 designs completed, the task of documenting them all felt overwhelming.
This design asked: what if the documentation challenge itself was treated as a permaculture design problem?
Methodology
Given the complexity and personal nature of this design — and because the challenge was not land-based — the choice was between SADIM and OBREDIM. SADIM was chosen for its robust survey and analysis phases, which were needed to honestly examine the strengths and weaknesses involved.
Working Through the Design
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1
Survey — Mapping Strengths & Weaknesses
The survey mapped the designer's strengths and weaknesses honestly and in detail. A core strength: the ability to understand complex patterns and simplify them. The most significant weakness: a complete mental block when required to write formally for an unknown audience.
The survey also identified existing assets — a large body of design documentation already exists, just in non-standard formats: hand-drawn mind maps, Xmind digital maps, Sketchup models, slide presentations, and verbal explanations.
Survey mind map — strengths and weaknesses mapped honestly -
2
Analyse — Implications & Opportunities
Each point from the survey was examined for its implications. Several unexpected opportunities emerged: the existing documentation, while non-standard, is actually rich and detailed. The challenge is not creating documentation from scratch — it is finding a way to present existing material accessibly.
Analysis mind map — implications explored 
Analysis summary — key points distilled -
3
Design — A Documentation System That Works
The design phase worked through the permaculture principles to develop an approach to documentation that plays to strengths and works around weaknesses. The key insight: don't try to write in a way that is unnatural. Instead, use the visual and structural formats that come naturally (mind maps, models, images) and organise them within a minimal written framework.
Design overview 
Elements to use in the documentation system 
Principles applied to the documentation design 
Fitting it all together — the final documentation framework -
4
Implement & Manage
Implementation plan 
Management and ongoing review plan 
Working session 
The documentation process in action 
Output materials
Reflections & Outcomes
The fact that this design portfolio exists — and that you are reading it — is the most direct measure of this design's success. The approach that emerged: use visual formats as the primary medium; provide brief written contexts rather than full written explanations; let the images and mind maps carry the substance; and choose the most natural format for each element rather than forcing everything into one style.
Overview
This design was made for my parents — both passionate gardeners who were reaching the age where digging and heavy garden maintenance was no longer practical. The central design challenge was to remove "work" from the food growing process as far as possible: a truly low-maintenance garden that still produces food and supports wildlife.
The design also had to work with a significant constraint: available hands-on time was only 5–10 days per year. That reality shaped every decision. My parents' deep love of watching birds and insects in the garden made permaculture the obvious approach — the design for low maintenance and the design for biodiversity naturally reinforce each other.
Methodology
This was one of the first designs where I could choose my own methodology freely. Having trained with SADIM and found it clear and logical, it was the natural first choice. I had not yet experimented with the alternatives.
Working Through the Design
Note: This design is documented in slide presentation format, originally used for teaching. Slides are shown in sequence through each design stage.
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Introduction & Context
The presentation begins with a brief introduction to permaculture, designed to give context to an audience with no prior knowledge before moving into the design itself.
What is permaculture? 
Ethics and principles 
Design overview -
2
Survey — Site Analysis
A thorough survey of the existing garden: soil conditions, light and shade, existing plants, microclimates, zones and sectors.
Site survey overview 
Existing conditions 
Sun and shade analysis 
Zones and sectors -
3
Analyse — Making Sense of the Data
Analysis overview 
Client needs analysis 
Element analysis 
Input/output connections 
Plant selection criteria -
4
Design
Design principles applied 
Design overview 
Plant plan 
Final design -
5
Implementation — Photo Gallery
The garden was implemented over several seasons. These photos document its transformation and establishment.
Early implementation 
Planting 
Establishing 
Growth 
Maturing garden 
Established 
Garden map 
Final plan
Reflections & Outcomes
This design achieves its primary goal: a genuinely low-maintenance food and wildlife garden managed in only a handful of days per year. The combination of perennial planting, mulching, and working with the natural tendencies of the space means the garden increasingly looks after itself.
Looking back at this design now, some things would be done differently — but it serves as a valuable record of how my design thinking has evolved, and remains an honest example of applying permaculture to a real family situation with real constraints.
Overview
Not every permaculture design needs to be a grand project. This design applies the full permaculture methodology to one of life's most mundane challenges: keeping a bathroom clean. Its purpose is to demonstrate that permaculture thinking is a universal toolkit — applicable to any situation where needs must be met and resources managed, at any scale.
If you can design your bathroom routine using permaculture principles, you can design anything.
Methodology
The most minimal methodology for the simplest of designs. CEAP's brevity matches the scope of the challenge perfectly.
Working Through the Design
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1
The Full Design — One Mind Map
This design is simple enough that the entire methodology — collect, evaluate, apply, plan — fits within a single mind map. The map traces inputs and outputs of each bathroom element and connects them to design solutions, with the permaculture ethics considered throughout.
The complete design — all stages in one mind map 🌿 Ethics in PracticeThroughout this design, the permaculture ethics were kept in mind at every decision point: Are there potential pollutants? How does this affect others? Are resources being used efficiently? Is there a better alternative? This ethical framing is what distinguishes a permaculture design from a simple practical solution.
Reflections & Outcomes
This simple design was highly effective. Many of the solutions may seem obvious — but the input/output analysis accelerated the process of arriving at them and, importantly, made clear which connections between elements were practical and which were not.
One area not shown in the mind map: sourcing soap. A ceanothus growing just outside the flat provided leaves and flowers for natural soap on the way home each day. The spent material went into the compost. Later, horse chestnuts were used to make soap, shampoo and laundry detergent. This kind of cascade — where one element's output feeds another — is what permaculture seeks to create at every scale.
Having succeeded here, the approach was extended to other rooms in the flat.
Overview
This design began as a focused exercise in reducing my carbon footprint — specifically looking at how my use of fossil fuels could be reduced. It evolved into something considerably larger: a design for how to make better use of my time and energy as a whole, and ultimately helped me identify when the right time was to transition to full-time permaculture work.
The design started informally without a methodology, but as its significance became clear, it was formalised into a proper permaculture design using CEAP. This is a good example of how a design can start as a simple exercise and organically grow into something more significant.
Methodology
Initially no methodology was used, as the project started as an informal exercise. Once I recognised its value as a full design, CEAP was chosen: the information collection was already substantially complete, and CEAP's lighter structure was appropriate for a personal, non-land-based design.
Working Through the Design
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1
Collect — Urban Zones & Sectors Analysis
The exercise began by adapting the zones and sectors tool to map weekly travel activities. In this creative reinterpretation:
Zones were replaced by modes of transport ordered by energy efficiency: Zone 1 = walking, Zone 2 = cycling, Zone 3 = local public transport, Zone 4 = long-distance transport, Zone 5 = flying.
Sectors were replaced by categories of activity: work; friends & family; clubs & associations; local businesses; corporations; other.
This produced a map of where time and carbon were being spent — and which activities were concentrated in the high-energy zones. This became both a personal analysis tool and a teaching tool used in PDC (Permaculture Design Course) sessions.
Urban zones & sectors analysis — the adapted tool applied to travel and lifestyle 🌿 Creative Tool UseTaking an existing permaculture tool and creatively adapting it to a new context is itself good permaculture practice. When teaching this, I explain this explicitly: the zones and sectors tool was not designed for this purpose — but with a little imagination, it becomes a powerful urban lifestyle audit.Teaching Slide Show
The analysis was turned into a slide presentation used to teach zones and sectors — first in its conventional format, then showing the urban lifestyle application. The presentation was later abandoned in favour of a live whiteboard session, which proved more flexible and engaging. A good example of the principle: if a tool takes more energy than it gives back, it is not a good tool.
Conventional zones intro 
Transition to urban application 
Carbon zones mapping 
Application summary Blank Worksheet for Students
A blank version of the zones and sectors template was created for use in PDC sessions, allowing students to conduct the exercise for themselves.
Blank zones & sectors worksheet — available for student use 
Full information collection mind map -
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Evaluate — Making Sense of the Data
The evaluation stage made sense of the collected information, looking at implications and opportunities. Where was energy and time being spent most inefficiently? What activities were generating the highest carbon but providing the least value? What patterns emerged?
Evaluation mind map -
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Apply — Principles & Design Solutions
The design phase applied permaculture principles to the evaluated data — turning observations into a coherent set of changes to make to my lifestyle and work patterns.
Applying permaculture principles 
Summary of design solutions -
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Plan, Implement & Evaluate
Implementation plan 
Implementation plan (Xmind)
Reflections & Outcomes
This design was, in the designer's own words, "extremely valuable." It completely changed his lifestyle and provided a clear, structured pathway for reducing environmental impact whilst also moving toward more meaningful work.
Importantly, the design provided a framework for evaluating the right moment to leave employed work and transition to full-time permaculture practice — a decision that a purely intuitive approach might have deferred indefinitely.