Synergy The Permaculture Design Software Tool

The idea

After I finished my Permaculture design course in the autumn of 2011, I was full of ideas as one would expect, apart from the obvious thoughts of how I intended to apply it to my allotment plots and our back garden there was also another thought that constantly kept popping up in my mind. As permaculture design is a system with lots of integrated component parts, it dawned on me that the idea of a permaculture design software tool would seem like something that could be developed.

Breathing life into the idea

synergy-principles During the winter of late 2011 and into 2012 I kept on thinking of what this possible software might look like, the idea of keeping it simple was at the forefront of my thoughts so that people of all ages could easily access and utilise such a tool. On the 8^th of January I was sat chatting and drinking tea in our kitchen with Boyd Lee, who, along with his partner Vicky Urmston run and coordinate Transition Towns Bolton. Then it dawned on me that Boyd had mentioned in a much earlier conversation that he was a software designer by trade and was also practiced permaculture on his allotment plot, I put the idea of the software to Boyd, he was immediately interested and we set about writing and drawing our ideas of a large pad. Boyd had already designed some interesting software that enabled haulage companies to ensure that their vehicles were not carrying empty loads on the return portion of their delivery rotas, thus saving fuel usage. Boyd saw the permaculture software as a way of him doing a lot more in terms of promoting sound ecological practices.

I have since contacted Martin Crawford the permaculture practitioner, author, and director of the Agro forestry research trust, Martin has agreed to allow us to use his tables of reference from his permaculture publications in order to house our software tool with information about plants and trees. I have also contacted Patrick Whitefield the permaculture tutor and author of the seminal 'Earth repair manual' permaculture book has also shown an interest in the software, as a possible accompaniment to his online PDC courses. We are hoping the tool will be completely finished and up and running in the late summer/early autumn of this year.

For a permanent culture

synergy The development of a multifunctional permaculture software tool has a number of attributes that it can contribute towards the development of a permanent culture, firstly, the software will enable users to access all sorts of information for their design simply by clicking on the tabs that will be situated around the main screen area, this makes the job of design less intensive in terms of paper usage and having to go through dozens of books to find the relevant information, whilst at the same time making permaculture more accessible. The software also links other permaculture practitioners in the area and the types of work that they are doing, this will promote the sharing of knowledge and interaction, and possibly new friend ships as people seek out others within their locale who are working on similar projects.