House Buying Design

The purpose of this design is to collate a list of questions focused on permaculture ethics along with the David Holmgren permaculture principles, that will help guide me when I am looking for a house to buy.

New to house buying the questions will assist me with forming a decision before committing to buying a house, ensuring the property meets my requirements from a permaculture perspective. The proposed questions will take into consideration both the house and garden along with the location.

The framework used for this design is will be Patrick Whitefield’s active learning cycle that is made up of six stages: Base Map, Site Survey, Questionnaire, Evaluation, Design Proposals, and Re-Evaluation.

The design proposal will be presented using the OBREDIM design process, Observation, Boundaries, Resources, Evaluation, Design, Implementation, Maintain. A SWOC analysis will be used in the Re-Evaluation stage, Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Challenges. I will conclude the design with a personal reflection asking the following questions: What went well? What has been challenging? What are my long-term vision and goals for this design? What are the next achievable steps?

Vision

Design Overview

Permaculture Principles

Permaculture Ethics

How they will be used in this design

Small House for lower carbon footprint - Garden to grow food so I can be more self-reliant and cut down on food miles - Handy to shops and parents to avoid having to drive – I have lots of connections to the land around here

A garden to relax in and to be a place to talk to people – I know lots of people in Richmond – The town has wonderful views that make me happy – The town has lots of quiet neighbourhoods – Richmond town has a community spirit – Richmond is a very safe place to live

A large enough garden to be able to share surplus food grown – A garden that encourages wildlife where I can feed the birds – To be self-reliant and to be able to have time give back to others in the town – to be able to share what I have done with the garden with others

BASE MAP

A map of the location where the house this design is going to help to buy.

SITE SURVEY

The site survey deals only with what is already known at the beginning of the design process.

DESIGN QUESTIONNAIRE

The design questionnaire is systematically going through a set of questions to make sure you've covered everything which is relevant to the design and given it sufficient thought.

EVALUATION

In the evaluation phase, we look at the information collected so far and put some values on what we have found.

DESIGN PROPOSAL

RE-VALUATION

For this design, a re-evaluation will mean after buying the house what we did well and what we could have done better.

What I have learned from this design

Additional information explored in the contents of this design