Permaculture!

 

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The Planet Repair Institute is pleased to announce our 5th annual Urban Permaculture Design Course 2016-17 in Portland OR this summer! RSVP HERE!

Here’s the dates for the 2016/17 course:
Oct 23-24, Nov 5-6, Dec 10-11, Jan 14-15, Feb 11-12, March 11-12, April 8-9, and May 6-7.

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.

We will be hosting many of our bioregion’s top instructors of ecological design who will cover a wide variety of topics, including 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, and community mapping and collaborative design methods. However, our course is not limited to the classroom and theoretical learning – we will be spending lots time outside applying our knowledge, learning from hands-on techniques, and actively implementing systems that will have an immediate direct impact on the neighborhood and on the planet!

 

Costs and Dates

The course will run one weekend a month October through May.

Course fees will average $800 per person, with higher or lower prices based on your economic ability and available spots (so your individual cost may be as low as $600 and as high as $1200). Fill out our Course Cost Questionnaire to determine your specific cost. By registering and paying your $100 non-refundable deposit HERE, your place in the course is secured. You may register at any time. If you opt to wait until we respond to your answers with a course cost, expect us to get back to you within 1-2 days after submitting.

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

Student Testimonials

“There is nothing better you could possibly do with your time.” -AJC

“Learning about permaculture in weekend workshops was a great fit for my busy schedule. With so many projects-in-progress and guest appearances by many permaculture superstars, you’re never quite sure what to expect on the monthly visit to the city repair institute, but you can always be sure to encounter interesting and thought-provoking ideas! The homemade lunches alone make it worth the cost of the course!  Bring your imagination, enthusiasm, appetite … and work gloves!” – JB

“I looked forward to each weekend of the course, knowing that I would be delving, once again, into an extravaganza of new ideas and ways of thinking that combined to open my eyes to the ever-present possibilities all around me, just waiting for a fresh, positive, and creative re-design.” – DN

Instructors

Mark Lakeman is a creative urban place-maker and community design facilitator, committed to the emergence of a vibrant and sustainable cultural landscape. He seeks to make every design project one which will further the development of a community vision, whether it involves urban design and placemaking, ecological building, or assisting those who typically do not have access to design services. Mark’s placemaking designs emphasize patterns of broad participation, local ownership, transference of authority to local populations, creative expression in planned and unplanned processes, and social capital as the primary economic engine of change.

Mark is a founder and co-creator of projects that include the City Repair Project, TheVillage Building Convergence, The Planet Repair Institute, Share-it Square, Dignity Village and the Last Thursday Arts & Culture Project. He is also the founder and principal of Communitecture, Inc, a cutting edge design firm with sustainable building and planning projects at many scales. These highly popular projects include such social and ecological innovations as The ReBuilding Center, numerous ecovillage projects and co-housing examples, and many projects involving low income and homeless people in the development of sustainable community solutions. Through The City Repair Project, he has also been instrumental in the development of dozens of participatory design projects and organizations across the United States and Canada.

Mark has taught at many permaculture design courses over the years throughout the Pacific Northwest and California, and in 2010 he was the keynote speaker at the Northwest Permaculture Convergence.

Matt Bibeau

Matt is a permaculture educator, youth mentor and community organizer based in Portland, Oregon, USA. He holds a B.S. in Environmental Science and obtained a M.S. in Leadership for Sustainability under renowned permaculture author and teacher, Toby Hemenway. Matt’s graduate research focused on the development and design of urban school gardens and garden education programs, exploring how gardens connected children with nature, improved their health and provided a foundation for an environmental ethic and ecological literacy that would guide them throughout life. Matt has worked at many levels of garden education over the last 5 years, including program coordination, to event organizing and consulting. He currently co-teaches permaculture design courses and teacher trainings for youth educators, leads educational programs for youth and adults and is the Executive Director of Mother Earth School, an outdoor school fusing the philosophies and practices of permaculture and Waldorf education.

Guest Instructors:

Mighk Simpson

Mighk Simpson is a writer, permaculturalist and co-contributor to the Planet Repair Institute.  Mighk learned, practiced and taught permaculture in rural locations on islands in the Salish Seas before taking these practices to the urban landscape, where he is currently focused on his passion for transforming under-utilized and neglected spaces in the city into productive public landscapes. Prior to joining the team at the Planet Repair Institute, Mighk lived and learned at the Bullock’s Permaculture Homesteada, Linnaea Farm, and at Channel Rock on Cortes Island, BC.

Pedro Ferbel-Azcarate, Asst. Professor of Black Studies at Portland State University

Kelly Hogan, Theatre of the Oppressed practitioner

Frances Michaelson, natural builder and PRI resident

and more!

 

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• 2012 PDC Photos
• 2011 PDC
• 2012 PDC Class Bios