Towards Nature | Sustainable Villages — Permaculture Design and Landscaping

Sustainable Village Designs and Implementations

Build Your Self-Sustainable Future

We need a different approach to solve our Economic, Ecological, Energy and Social issues.

There are already solutions available to those issues. These solutions are logical but also innovative, new and life changing. To allow these solutions, we, ourselves, must change and adapt to them.

We need to start thinking differently.

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete"
- Buckminster Fuller

Nice saying by Buckminster Fuller, but...

What if all western laws & regulations are protecting the existing reality. What are we supposed to do then? Is the existing Growth/Consumer model working? At what cost? Isn't it the real reason, at the background, creating our Worldwide problems?

In below prototype, I'm suggesting a new model, which can be a starting point to Sustainability. It gives people access to the land, to live in harmony with nature, to sustain themselves, to live productively, to be healthy, to be financially sustainable, to live as a strong community.

This new model is NOT possible to build within affordable terms because of laws and regulations. Our environment/land is defined/destined by laws & regulations into categories, such as Farmland, Building ground, Forest, Grassland, etc. This categorization makes the Building ground prizes higher and Housing sector expensive. For example, it is not allowed to plant trees on a Grassland defined area, or building a Food Forest on a monocultural farmland. This is a Worldwide system of laws/definitions.

These categories do not belong to the planet Earth because within the planetary systems, these categories do not exist. We make our own boundries, our own cage. Without changing these categories and creating a nature based system for humans, We cannot talk about human sustainability. Instead we talk about Nature inclusive Housing & lifestyle. A misleading concept to keep people living within the same system.

In this page, you will see a new model. This model can create a Sustainable community, Financially, Environmentally and Socially. A starting point for building a new World, living in harmony with our planet Earth.

I designed this model based on Permaculture understanding and my visions which come from the knowledge & experience I have accumulated since 2012.

Thanks for reading.

N.Tayfun Yalcin

Vision

Sustainability is about Sustaining People and the Environment immediately around these people, so it starts from our homes and our Life Style. We do not need to be all farmers or gardeners to achieve sustainability, but we all need to live with respect and alignment according to our planet. How we design our homes and its surroundings is the key to creating sustainability. In Permaculture, this is called Zone zero, where we Live, our Home.

The housing design is not the most important point. People can choose different styles. The most important thing is to create a Functionally Sustainable home within an affordable pricing.

A home with Functional Sustainability:

- Rainwater Harvesting & Recycling,

- Grey & Black water Filtering & Recycling - Energy(Electricity) creation

In my prototype, the house is made of Wood & Hemp Lime. Enriched with sustainable energy, filtering, recycling technologies.

The House is only a part of the concept, a connected part within the Permaculture Landscaping design.

Schermafbeelding 2020-11-01 om 11.52_edi

PROACTIVE HOUSING

Productivity encouraged housing and surroundings

PRODUCTIVE LANDSCAPING

The landscape around the house is designed based on Permaculture concept, in a productive way.

Productivity comes from the design itself. As it is designed based on Permaculture concept, it connects People to the Environment around them immediately. The landscape gives the direction of a lifestyle. This lifestyle is practised by the pioneers and community members.

Producing your own food with Hugelbeds, producing your eggs with chicken coops, filtering & recycling your grey & black water in your own garden, having bee hives & producing your own honey, growing soft fruit & fruit & nuts, providing shelter, food & water for the local wildlife. The diversity & productivity can be achieved within a small amount of time per household. All of these key points come based on the design.

Permaculture design is the key!

We need to provide the basic Sustainability Tool Kit for every Home. The vision is to create a productive lifestyle in a Community Building way.

This surrounding areas(Productive Landscaping) around our homes include Zones 0 - 1 - 2 - 3 in Permaculture concept.

COMMUNITY BUILDING

As you might agree, a sustainable future requires connected, productive, self-sustainable communities. We need to build our living environments differently. Instead of compartmentalized, competitive and a profit oriented lifestyle, we have to create a Community encouraged, connected, collaborative and benefit oriented lifestyle.

Urban environments should be designed towards creating Sustainability, which has 3 legs; Ecological, Economic and Social. These 3 goals can be achieved with the Permaculture concept.

Each household is designed in trapezoid form and this allows to create a circle. This circle creates unity & community encouraged form. The design allows to create 6 - 8 - 10 or 12 Housing possibility. This is for creating a niche community.

Each Household private zone ends with a Food Forest. This area is shared area for the Community members. Together cared, together harvested & used.

In Permaculture, this Zones include 0 – 1 – 2 – 3.

Permaculture Village Module Design

CREATING A SUSTAINABLE URBAN AREA

Permaculture is an open and inclusive concept. It also embraces the innovative, self-sustainability encouraging technologies. Connecting the Modules to each other, endlessly, borderlessly, we can expand sustainability. We can create this kind of Sustainable Villages around the cities and connect them to inner city communities.

This web of productive connections and expanding sustainable communities will change the landscape towards diverse, forestry environments. Natural balance will be restored. Our diet will be re-directed towards more healthy, diverse food. Our health and immune system will be improved. Our Economy will be more localized. Small-Medium businesses will grow. Our personal talents will become our jobs.

The central area is open public place, reachable by public transport. This area includes, shops, organic food restaurants, cafeterias, theatre, workshop areas, community product producing areas and many more. The residents will work, participate & receive income from this area. Along with their own sustainable lifestyle & their own garden products, they will be financially sustainable as village, as a Community Managed Company. (Financial Sustainability, Local Businesses, Local fresh & organic food.)

This life style is called Permaculture.