Living Landscapes
Observe. Integrate. Design

10 Design Exercises

The following are key readings and exercises to help you complete your design. If you study these and apply them, along with the other readings and what we discuss, this will help form the basis for your design. These are to be completed by the end as part of your design presentation.

Files for your design portfolio

  • Your element needs-and-yields list (at least 10 elements).
  • Your five-plant functions record and explanation of how critical functions have more than one support.
  • Your zone and sector overlay map.
  • Your explanations for biological resources, energy cycling, small-scale intensive systems, succession, and diversity.
  • Your forest- and water-edge observations and how those patterns apply to your design.

Start these exercises in Module 6 and develop them alongside the remaining modules. Read each exercise prompt, study its linked reading, and then use the prompt to develop your design. Keep the response in your existing portfolio, updating maps and records that already contain the work.

These lessons support the checkpoints as your design develops. You can make an initial response before reaching every supporting lesson and refine it as you study.

Lessons supporting your Design Exercises
Supporting lessonWork it helps develop
Module 6Element relationships, base maps, zones, sectors, and design methods
Module 11Plant selection, succession, and diversity
Module 10, Module 11, Module 12Soil, plants, animals, and biological-resource choices
Module 8, Module 16, Module 17Water, energy, and support for essential functions under changing conditions
Module 25The final portfolio and presentation

Keep these checkpoint records in the same design portfolio. Save notes as documents or PDFs, maps as PDFs or clear images, and tables as documents or spreadsheets. I will review all ten checkpoints as part of your final design portfolio.

Design checkpoint 01 / 10

Relative Location

Relative location asks you to consider elements in relation to one another. The needs-and-yields list will help you identify possible connections before deciding where elements belong.

List some of (10 minimum) the elements and potential elements in and around your design. List the needs and yields (inputs and outputs) of each element. Buildings, plants, and other nearby things that influence your design can be considered elements, as well as plants and other things you will be putting in your design.

Design checkpoint 02 / 10

Each Element Performs Many Functions

With those connections in mind, take a closer look at plants and the roles they can perform. Their form, growing needs, and uses will help you assess how they fit into the design.

Identify the following for 5 plants in your design

Form – lifestyle (is the plant annual or perennial, is the tree deciduous or evergreen) and shape (is it a ground cover, shrub, tree or vine, and how tall does it grow)

Tolerances – light requirements (shade, partial shade or full sun), habitat (dry, moist or wet, low or high elevation), climate (arid, temperate, subtropical or tropical), soil type tolerance (sandy, silty, clay, loamy, peaty, or chalky soil types), and soil pH (acid, neutral or alkaline soil)

Uses – edible, medicinal, animal forage, soil improvement (nitrogen fixing, cover crop, green manure), site protection (erosion control, living fence, windbreak)

Design checkpoint 03 / 10

Each Important Function is Supported by Many Elements

Having considered the different roles of each plant, now look at the elements supporting a particular function. This changes the focus from what an element can do to what the design depends on to meet a need.

Identify which functions in the design are critical – such as water, food, energy, fire protection, and anything else in your design and ensure that these critical functions are supported in two or more ways and explain how as part of your presentation.

Design checkpoint 04 / 10

Zones and Sectors – Efficient Energy Planning

Module 6's Zone Video and Sectors Video introduce two ways of organizing site information: zones by frequency of use and care, and sectors by outside influences moving through the site. Combine those methods with the element relationships from Exercise 1: Relative Location to develop your zone and sector overlay map.

Create a zone and sector overlay map for your design

Design checkpoint 05 / 10

Using Biological Resources

Exercise 2 considers plants as sources of food, soil cover, and site protection. This reading adds examples of organisms breaking down plant material and animals contributing to pest management. Consider which functions could meet needs identified in Exercise 1, and what those organisms would need in your design.

Please explain how this principle applies in your design.

Design checkpoint 06 / 10

Energy Cycling

Exercise 1 records what each element needs and produces. At the whole-design scale, identify outputs that could supply another element, materials that could be reused, and incoming energy the design could capture and use. Add those connections to the same needs-and-yields record.

Please explain how this principle applies in your design.

Read · Deep Green Permaculture

Energy Cycling

Read about Energy Cycling ↗

Distinguish material cycling from energy flow. Nutrients and water can cycle through a system; energy is transferred and eventually dispersed as heat.

Design checkpoint 07 / 10

Small Scale Intensive Systems

Consider the space, resources, and ongoing care your proposed system requires. Use this principle to examine the scale at which you could develop and maintain it.

Please explain how this principle applies in your design

Design checkpoint 08 / 10

Accelerating Succession and Evolution

Exercise 7 considers the space, resources, and care a system requires. This reading adds the sequence of establishment: consider what would be planted or prepared first and what would follow. Develop an initial sequence for your design; Module 11's succession readings can help you refine it as the course progresses.

Please explain how you will do this in your design.

Read · Deep Green Permaculture

Accelerating Succession and Evolution

Read about Accelerating Succession and Evolution ↗

Succession concerns changes in a community's species composition and structure over time. This reading explores forest-garden establishment. Assess its proposed sequence against your site conditions and design goals; succession does not follow one pathway or timetable at every site.

Design checkpoint 09 / 10

Diversity

Exercise 2 examines the roles each plant could perform, while Exercise 3 considers how several elements can support the same function. Read “Diversity” to assess how your plant choices work together, including where their needs may compete.

Please explain how this principle applies in your design.

Design checkpoint 10 / 10

Edge Effect

Module 4's pattern discussion asked you to explain a pattern's function and whether its form suits your site. Here you will study forest and water edges directly, comparing the organisms and edge patterns you observe before explaining how they relate to your design.

Please bring a notebook to record your observations.

Forest exploration:

Explore edges of nearby forest close to your design and record observations.

What level of diversity do you notice compared to within the forest or beyond the edge? (how many species)

What types and shapes of plants do you see? Anything you recognize?

Why might there be different levels of diversity on the edge vs. in the ecosystem types beyond the edge? Consider all angles.

What edge patterns do you observe?

Mist hangs above a pond, with reeds at the near shore, scattered dead wood, and autumn forest beyond the water.
At this Ontario beaver pond, open water meets emergent vegetation and forest along an irregular shoreline.Photo: Joe deSousa, “Beaver Pond” · CC0 1.0. View larger image

Water exploration:

Explore edges of a pond and river with your notebook and record observations. A stream can be used instead if that is what is available.

What level of diversity do you notice compared to beyond water's edge? (how many species)

What types and shapes of plants do you see? Anything you recognize?

What types of animals inhabit the edge of the water, and why?

What edge patterns do you observe?

Why are edges important for the health of an ecosystem?

How does this principle apply to your design? How can the patterns you’ve observed apply to your design?

Book reading

Edible Forest Gardens, Volume 1

Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier

Page 37: Edge Effect reference

Page 73: Edge Effect reference

Book access & editions
Getting the book · access & editions

Use your own copy, buy the book, or borrow it through a library when possible. If you are local to me, contact me about borrowing a copy. You can also contact me for information about digital or other access to assigned readings.

If your edition uses different page numbers, contact me and we can match the correct section.

For articles, excerpts, videos, and other resources, use the links in the lesson. If a video player does not load, try its source link. If you cannot access a reading or media resource, or it has no link, contact me with the module number and resource title.

Ask about books, readings or media access ↗

Optional hands-on activities

These are optional hands-on activities that may be used when season, site access, time, and supervision allow.

  • Keyline exercise on a large dirt pile
  • Making a compost pile
  • Sheet mulching
  • Planting a cover crop
  • Understanding botany and identifying plants
  • Prepping and planting a garden bed
  • Planting a guild
  • Planting trees, shrubs and herbs
  • Mixing soil for seed flats, starting bedding plants
  • Pruning
  • Grafting and other methods of plant propagation
  • Preserving food by lactic fermentation, drying, etc.
  • Medicinal herbs
  • Mushroom cultivation
  • Beekeeping
  • Permaculture design for wildlands (Zone 5)
  • Pantry design and dietary considerations

Share your design portfolio

Attach your completed Design Exercise records and maps with your final design presentation in Module 25.

Email the address under “Get In Touch” on my contact page. Do not use the contact form. Include the Permaculture Design Course, Module 25, and “Design Exercises / final project” in your subject or message.

Find my email address ↗

Readings & resources