For many people the design excercise on their PDC is one of the few guided opportunities to learn about how to design and perhaps do permaculture consulting. Although some might be ready to jump into it straight away after the PDC, others like me might need a little help with getting more skilled and established in their work.

So how about combining the experience of professional permaculture consultant(s) or practitioner(s) and gathering a handful of PDC graduates to form a team to help them out? It's an interesting new concept and a win-win-win situation for the consultant who gets many helping hands and the helpers who get to participate the process and learn in a real life situation. Also, the client gets an input from a team of 10 people with a price of one or two!

As a sum of many contributing factors including a very accommodating client who partook the process from observation to final presentations, the first known Permaculture Designers Blitz was recently put together and completed! The idea was invented by a Denver based permaculturalist Adam Brock (correct me if I'm wrong) who was invited to do a rural permaculture design for a small Colorado farm. With backup from two local permaculture designers Aaron Jerad and Wind Clearwater this three full days and two half days event (from Sat noon til Wed noon) was an amazing learning experience for all parties and produced a detailed design for a four acre farm/orchard/homestead.

While studying permaculture with Geoff Lawton in Australia I had taken part in many permaculture consultations mostly in the form of an observer. It was a great learning experience but actually designing by oneself for someone is a fairly new field for me to explore and involves a whole other level of empowerment and confidence. Now I'm traveling in Colorado learning more about permaculture and was fortunate to participate this pioneering event.

Blitz schedule

On the first half day we got to know to each other a little, as well as the client and the land we were working with. The second day was dedicated to site survey and basemapping. On the third day we started looking into the design in the form of broad patterns and drafting ideas and on the fourth day we focused on putting together the final design. On the fifth day morning we gave the design presentation to the client and a small local audience and finished with a lunch around noon. The tasks and jobs were divided among people in a fairly organic fashion, and the group was well self-organised so things went on fluently. We produced detailed designs for zones 1 and 2 as well as a broader less in-detail design for an unmanaged orchard and alfa alfa hay field. We worked full hours, shared delicious meals cooked by one of the participants and most of the people were accommodated at the site for the whole duration of the Blitz. Our team consisted of people with a wide set of skills and experience which complemented each others strenghts.

What I learned

What comes to consulting, an important learning outcome for me was that it's one thing to do a design for a site and a whole another thing to design for a client. The people side of things is a very crucial part of succesfulness of the outcome, it's much more than designing just for the land which one might be inclined to do. Listening to the needs, wishes and available resources of the people living on the site are the most important factor in whether the design will be implemented or whether it will serve its purpose once it is. I'm very grateful for learning from the people skills of Adam and Aaron who so fluently navigated the group throughout the process, especially in the briefing and interview part, and the input and presence of our client Barbe who was giving feedback and more detailed information as the design was starting to form. We were working not for her but with her, of which not every client is necessarily interested, but which was very important in this case since it was her request.

Another thing was that for a beginner in design or a designer from different kind of environment - an urbanite designing a rural property, or a Finn designing in high desert climate - experienced local advice is invaluable. Joining forces is a great thing to do and what it seems like is that permaculturalists are happy to share their experience with others, even on a professional level there seems not to be envy or hiding away knowledge. After all everyone is working for the same goals, and are happy to support others to become better at it too. For this the input from Wind who has years and years of experience as a professional landscaper was great.

So, from my personal experience this format is a great way to train designers and hopefully other people will find it beneficial as well!