Living LandscapesDESIGN
Module 18 / 25
Begin with examples of food growing in small urban spaces, then examine how those sites connect with city systems and shared space. Use the differences in scale to consider the buildings, access, resources, and care that support your own design.
The Permaculture City readings extend the discussion to resource use, energy, and gardening in community. Read them alongside the land-access guidance to consider how shared spaces, local exchanges, and communal facilities might support the project you are developing.
What you’ll learn
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 ↗As you watch the urban examples, notice how each use of space relates to the people caring for it. Keep those relationships in mind when the lesson moves from the yard to shared urban resources.
Watch
Google Drive
Note how growing areas fit around buildings, access, household use, and ongoing care. Use the same questions to compare the Cold Climate Urban Permaculture Homestead, Urban Edible Forest, and small-backyard examples.
Watch on Google DriveWatch
YouTube
Compare this homestead’s use of growing space and household resources with the relationships on the plan you developed in Module 7.
If the player does not load, use the source link.
Watch
YouTube
Use this example to consider how forest-garden relationships could be applied in an urban setting.
If the player does not load, use the source link.
Watch
YouTube
Look at the choices behind the use of a small backyard, including the relationship between growing space and the work of caring for it.
If the player does not load, use the source link.
Watch
YouTube
If the player does not load, use the source link.
Read
permaculturevisions.com
Open resourceRead
permaculture.co.uk
The yard and homestead examples examine small sites. This article extends the discussion to the arrangement of urban functions, including food, energy, transport, and land use. Compare that city-scale perspective with the shared-space questions in The Permaculture City.
Open resource
For an urban site, consider how shared growing spaces, local exchanges, and communal facilities could support your design.
Book reading
Toby Hemenway
Chapter 7 was optional in Module 16. Read it now, or consult it as needed if you read it earlier, as you compare energy options for urban homes and communities.
Chapter 1: Urban systems and resource use
Chapter 7: Energy
Introduction and the community-gardening sections relevant to your situation in Chapter 5, “Strategies for Gardening in Community.”
Book access & editionsRead
In this course
Apply the access, maintenance, and harvest-sharing questions in Module 22's “Ways to find growing space” section to the urban examples in this lesson.
Open resource