Placemaking Applications Due Jan 14th!!!

​Interested in community building and neighborhood art? Like what you’ve seen at PRI and want some of that in your community?
​

Placemaking applications for City Repair‘s help in creating intersection repairs, earthen buildings, and permaculture gardens are due January 14th. For more info and applications​ go to​: ​http://www.cityrepair.org/become-a-placemaker/
or contact vbcplacemaking@cityrepair.org

 

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Vote or Donate to Support Placemaking

As a Village Building Convergence Placemaking site, we’re happy to support the program’s facilitating non-profit, the City Repair Project!

Two ways City Repair needs our help right now is:

#1) Click here to vote for City Repair to receive a community award that would help sustain the Placemaking program. Also, City Repair will be tabling at the Green Festival Expo next weekend (Dec. 11,12, 13) where you can vote in person!

#2) Donate to City Repair through the Willamette Weekly’s Give!Guide. Donations are open through Dec 31st!

Much love!

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Announcing our 2016-17 Urban Permaculture Design Course

COURSE DATES AND REGISTRATION

Dates for the 2016-17 course: October 22-23, November 12-13, December 10-11, January 14-15. Feb-May dates to be confirmed shortly, and will LIKELY be Feb 11-12, March 11-12, April 8-9 and May 13-14.

There are 2 steps for signing up for our course. They can happen in any order but we prefer you register first and pay the $100 deposit below to reserve your place.
Sign up for our 2016-17 PDC HERE.

The next step is to fill out our Course Cost Questionnaire, which gives us the info we need to recommend a course fee to you, which will be between $600-$1200. Most folks pay $800 total for the course, but the amount we recommend to you based on your honest responses helps us match need and cost, and is a conversation with you. One price does not fit all, and we work hard to assure that the course is accessible and also financially regenerative. Last year, only one student could not accept our recommended course fee and we modified it to accommodate medical bills that weren’t considered elsewhere. Then, half-way through the course, another student got a higher paying job and willingly began paying a higher course fee.

ABOUT THE COURSE:

The permaculture design course is a must-do for anyone trying to answer the call for change in our work and our lives, the way we live and the way we relate with one another to better meet our local needs. More than just an approach to regenerative food production, permaculture design helps us to understand how many efforts unite to form a common cause, while allowing that cause to be specific to the individual as long as the effort supports other people, the planet and the fair sharing of the resources provided by each.

Our course will meet one weekend per month from October to May, and take place at the Planet Repair Institute as well as at Jeans Farm, two locations along the Springwater corridor in the Johnson Creek watershed of SE Portland. During each session, we explore a different ‘layer’ of the possibilities for neighborhood transformation and ‘block repair’. We consider simple no-cost or low-cost interventions and small scale intensive systems that any neighborhood could implement in order to help transition our urban spaces into thriving social ecologies. Blending the whole system design methods of permaculture with the urban reclamation techniques of block repair, we explore opportunities to reclaim the commons, activate underutilized spaces, integrate water management and energy systems, create vibrant perennial food systems, and localize our economic relations.

Led by Mark Lakeman (co-founder of the City Repair Project and Communitecture Design) and Matt Bibeau (co-founder of the Institute of Permaculture Education for Children and long-time City repair organizer), the course will also include many of our bioregion’s top instructors of ecological design as guest presenters. The course will cover topics soil remediation, water harvesting, food systems and forest gardening, natural building techniques, urban ecology and foraging, plant propagation and grafting techniques, small scale energy systems, climate change resilience strategies, ecological patterning, community mapping, drawing and graphing techniques, collaborative design methods and more.

The course will run from 9am-4:30pm each day. Wholesome, mostly local and vegetarian lunch is included in the course fees.

Check out this short video from our 2015 Urban PDC!

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PDC Graduation, Special Guest Teacher

We’re at the final weekend of the Permaculture Design Course taught at PRI and Jean’s Farm!

Mighk Simpson, past teacher of the PDC and resident of PRI has returned to guest teach and be present for the final design presentations of the students. Photos and reflections of the course will be posted soon, and some student groups may present at the 2015 Village Building Convergence. Also coming soon, info about next year’s PDC enrolment.

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Planet Repair supports PDX Earth Day

Planet Repair residents Mark and Francis contributed their skills and tools to create the T-Horse, a truck that transforms into a butterfly that serves free tea, for the Portland Earth Day Festival. Check out the build out and activation below. Also, check out Planet Repair as a Placemaking site in the Village Building Convergence 2015.

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3/21/15 – Permablast!

On 3/21/15 permaculturalists gathered for the 4th annual SE PDX Permaculture Convergence to discuss strategies and activate support for pollinators. In the morning we had a permablast! to plant pollinator habitat around the neighborhood including two dozen properties around PRI.

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Activating a Regenerative Paradigm

“What if the paradigm transforms from either/or to that and more?” asked Kelli, who identifies as a migratory pollinator doing work in regional economic development. Kelli presented on the first night of the SE Permaculture Convergence, discuss her work with ecological art, intertwining aesthetics with habitat creation for pollinators. Brian Lacy added to the presentation, illuminating different contexts of why pollinators are declining, such as hybridized plants that don’t produce nectar and nerve agents applied to nursery plants. Besides the struggles, Brian shared creative ways to support bees, as well as the complexity of the situation in that there are different species that visit different flowers at different parts of the year.

Friday, March 20 a couple dozen folk gathered together to listen, share, dine, and dream about permaculture and supporting pollinators. After Brian and Kelli’s presentation, participants shared classes they’d like to teach the next day (today) and this is the schedule list:

PRI Room	Main space	Sanctuary	Outdoor kitchen
2 pm	Permaculture and City Policy (1 hr)	Permaculture and Economic Culture
3 pm	Passive House Design and Annual Geothermal Solar (1.5)
4 pm	Placemaking for Healthy Communities (4:30 to 5 pm)	Facilitator Improvisation	Start at 4:30 – onward Hotels for Insects!
5 pm	Placemaking strategies for post-disater areas

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This year’s gathering will be hosted by the communities of both Planet Repair Institute (in the Sellwood Neighborhood) and @ Foster Village (in the Mt. Scott-Arleta neighborhood). Events are taking place the weekend of March 20, 21, and 22, 2015. All experience levels are welcome – from beginners to permaculture experts.

Friday & Saturday Events at Planet Repair Institute (PRI):
8512 SE 8th, Portland, OR 97202
• Friday Gathering: 7pm to 10pm: Potluck & Gathering to Determine workshops
• Saturday Events: 10am-10pm: AM Pollinator-Blast, Lunch, and PM Activities!
* Sunday Events: At FosterVillage, 4685 SE 64th, Portland, OR 97206
10am to 10pm: Commons & Garden Perma-Blast, Lunch, More Blasting!

Permaculture is a sustainable design science rooted in the observation of patterns in nature. For instance, the branching pattern found in a tree or a river is the same one found in your heart. By applying the self-organizing principles of nature to our human systems, we can grow beyond sustainability and build a truly regenerative culture.

Continuing on the momentum of last year when this event was hosted at Kailash EcoVillage, this is a special opportunity for Permies and the permaculture-curious in SE to gather together, share knowledge and skills, make connections, and inspire one another, taking the next steps in growing a regenerative culture in SE Portland and beyond.

The weekend will begin on Friday March 20th with a potluck dinner, after which we will plan the weekend organically based on what people are interested in discussing, presenting and contributing to the weekend.

The format for the gathering will include a pollinator Support “Perma-Blast”, discussion circles, presentations, skill-shares and hands-on projects. We will wrap up on Sunday afternoon after lunch with a next-steps session and closing circle.

Meals will be provided over the course of the weekend. For this, we are asking for a $35 contribution. If cost is a prohibitive issue, please inquire about work-trade opportunities.

Remember to bring a potluck dish for Friday evening. Please contact us if you need a place to stay.

• Please pay $35 upon arrival at PRI. These funds will support event costs and food

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2014 Permaculure Design Course!

The Planet Repair Institute is pleased to announce our 4th annual Urban Permaculture Design Course 2014 in Portland OR this summer!

Our course is based at two locations in SE Portland. Our primary class location will be at the planet Repair Institute in the neighborhood of Sellwood, where we grapple with urban transformation in a real context dealing with real people and social dynamics, challenges, and opportunities. We will also be meeting at Jeans Farm alongside Johnson Creek, where the Learning Gardens Institute, Mother Earth School and Rising Stone CSA collaborate on running a farm and forest-based school program.

At each session we explore a different ‘layer’ of the possibilities for neighborhood transformation (‘block repair’) and urban farming, food systems and related educational functions of each. We consider simple no-cost or low-cost interventions and small scale intensive systems that any neighborhood could implement in order to help transition our urban spaces into thriving social ecologies, and urban land into productive learning centers. Blending the whole system design methods of permaculture with the urban reclamation techniques of block repair, we explore opportunities to reclaim the commons, activate underutilized spaces, integrate water management and energy systems, take down fences, create vibrant perennial food systems, and localize our economic relations.

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Oliver Kellhammer at PRI – Nature 2.0: The Surprising Diversity of Urban Ruin Ecologies (Thursday Evening)

Who?: Oliver Kellhammer – One of Canada’s Greatest Permaculture Teachers!

When?: Next Thursday, July 31st, 7:00-8:30pm

Where?: Planet Repair Institute (8512 SE 8th Ave)

What?:

Oliver Kellhammer is a Canadian bio-artist, activist, writer and one of
Canada’s longest-term permaculture teachers. His botanical interventions
and public art projects demonstrate nature’s surprising ability to recover
from human-inflicted damage. Kellhammer will discuss strategies for
remediation (phyto, myco etc.), and the prospects for deep-time climate
change resilience. Oliver is a captivating and inspiring speaker like none
other.

In exploring nature’s innate capacity for earth repair, Oliver poses the
question, ‘What Can I Not Do?  His wide ranging talk will draw on many of
his ‘botanical interventions’ into urban space including his recent work
leading biodiversity tours of brownfield habitats in Troy, NY, visits to
abandoned airports in Berlin, and a floating module project on the
Willamette River that will investigate future ecological scenario in
response to climate change and industrial contamination

Oliver Kellhammer is an immensely inspiring permaculturalist and a
marvelously entertaining presenter. Be inspired and think about
permaculture in a ways that you have not considered before!

This event will be held at one of Portland’s most developed urban permaculture demonstration sites – the Planet Repair Institute, birth place of the City Repair Project.  Come early to check it out!

How Much?: We are asking for a sliding scale donation of $5-10 at the
door. No one to be turned away for lack of funds.

Register in advance at:
http://www.meetup.com/Portland-Permaculture-Meetup/events/194978162/

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