Urban Permaculture Design Certificate Course

This retreat workshop is an incredible opportunity to experience sustainable holistic living, have loads of fun, and learn practical skills you can apply in the real world in your own home, backyard, and in your community. You’ll learn how to create sustainable, thriving human systems, from green houses and organic gardens, to local micro-economies and eco-communities, using sustainable design principles rooted in nature, that are applicable to every human system — from businesses, communities, and cities to personal relationships.

Field Trips To Intentional Communities

We’ll tour model sustainability communities and create an impromptu service community. We’ll spend our time together building natural cob structures, pulling weeds and planting crops, learning the ins and outs of worms and compost and learning how to build truly sustainable economies and communities – so if these things grab you, then come on down! Most days will combine workshops and hands-on service projects in the earth, as well as field trips to intentional communities, cooperatives and other sustainable businesses, as well other re-localization models.

Course Format

We offer this workshop in three different forms — as a sixteen day residential intensive that includes all meals and lodging; as a twelve-consecutive Saturday course; and as a ten business-day course that takes place over two weeks. Each course follows the standard 72 hour Permaculture Design Certificate curriculum, with the longer courses integrating more social permaculture as well as additional site visits.

As a company, we’re deeply committed to taking this work mainstream and this multi-format offering allows us to meet the needs of a diverse range of clients with varying levels of budget and time restrictions.

What is Permaculture Anyway?

Permaculture is what our great grandparents instinctively knew when they lived in villages, made their own things, and grew their own food. It could be said to be the art of respecting nature and working with it, rather than against it, to cultivate land, plants, animals and people by fostering mutually beneficial relationships between them.

But it is also is a philosophy, one that changes you from the inside, as you see that there is a way to heal the earth, live in harmony with nature, and create abundance we can share.

On this workshop you’ll get a chance to participate in and become part of the Permaculture movement that’s sweeping the planet and restoring the order so necessary to our world. You’ll experience and learn about Permaculture methods that combine the best of traditional agriculture with the modern developments in appropriate technology. You’ll join with leading authorities in sustainability, and take part in designing a sustainable society. You’ll be able to turn your words to deeds, live your commitment to the earth, and most of all have a fabulous time.

During the workshop, we will talk about:

• Principles of Permaculture and Sustainable Design
• Smart Design through Careful Site Analysis
• Recognizing Patterns of Natural and Human Systems
• Reading the Land & Understanding Natural Cycles
• Soil regeneration and Land Restoration
• Food Forests, Trees & Garden Design
• Water Harvesting, Conservation, and Graywater System Design
• Renewable Energy and Appropriate Technology
• Natural Building Design
• Waste Recycling and Treatment
• Aquaculture and Animals
• Agroforestry and Forest Gardening
• Useful Plants and Planting Strategies
• Patterns of Settlement
• Cooperative Economics, Money & Financial Systems
• Designing Sustainable Cities through Sustainable Economies
• …and much more

Upon successful completion of this course and meeting the requirements, you’ll leave with an internationally recognized Permaculture Design Certificate as the course will build upon the standard 72-hour permaculture curriculum.

There will be many field trips throughout the course
Site visits ground our learning in experience. By visiting organizations that are “really doing it”, you get to see, hear and feel the how the ideas and philosophies of sustainability and intentional community translate to real life, with all the pitfalls and difficulties, as well as the unexpected joys, that come when you dare to realize a dream.

The following is an example list of places we visit during our Oregon-based courses:

Lost Valley Educational Center
The Lost Valley center and intentional community form what the residents consider to be an “aspiring” ecovllage, and a “living laboratory” for exploring, experimenting, and demonstrating how humans can successfully live simply and well within their ecosystems. Lost Valley focuses on permaculture, sustainable food production and human community, as well as on providing specific programs for people in the region on how to successfully respond to current and future environmental resource limitations.

Dharmalaya Center for Human Development
Nestled in a residential section of Eugene, Dharmalaya is dedicated to social, spiritual, and ecological health. Their cob/strawbale structure hosts daily yoga classes and frequent permaculture education courses. Dharmalaya is a model of urban sustainability.

Maitreya ecovillage
Maitreya is a small, residential community whose intention is that members know each other well enough that they naturally turn to each other for friendship and support. The community’s buildings are green, it grows much of its own food, and it hosts concerts, dances, yoga and mediation circles, and other events focused on learning and growth.

MattCyn Farms
This family-owned organic farm grows food sustainably, caring for the land as well as providing a valuable food source for local eaters. As Michael Pollan has pointed out in his recent books, it’s vital that we begin to “solarize” agriculture, moving from fossil-fuel-heavy methods to organic farming, and localizing our food supply so that we are not burning oil to ship refrigerated food vast distances. Putting farming back into the hands of small-scale farmers within local areas is good for people (especially kids, who grow up with access to green spaces and a closer relationship with animals and crops), as well as good for the land. It also makes for more delicious food!

Sunbow Farm
Sunbow Farm was established by Harry MacCormack in 1972, as an intentional organic market-garden. The farm is a complex of living structures: 6 greenhouse/grow tunnels, shade houses, several barns, and a cob/rammed earth education center and bath house. Four wells provide pristine water to all life on the property. Sunbow is an island of alternative reality in a society tugged by upward mobility and financial gain regardless of consequences. Here it is clear that the farm and all life are our primary teachers. In that sense the farm is a life-promoting lab.

Space is limited, so sign up now!

Please note: The above are planned events but are subject to change as necessary, without any notice or refund.