A few weeks ago a friend told me what it is permaculture and how it can benefit current and future cities from the perspective of the urbanism.
Actually, it literally sounded like "Chinese" to me, although it is a term that I had sometimes read by the way, never paid special attention, until my colleague who works at Viviendo Gota a Gota began to shell out and explain to me the necessary symbiosis between the urbanism + permaculture with the aim of protect the survival of cities and their sustainability.
To understand this article you have to start from two realities:
Given the trend of the cities that will present a large urban volume and excessively populated, we will have to give a series of solutions and guidelines to shape livable and sustainable cities.
Among many problems faced and will be faced by these «mega cities» is so much the relationship that we must establish with nature, both inside and outside the city, as an important point and at the same time forgotten by many designers, how to feed a city of «X» million people and be in balance with the environment environment… This is where the principles of will permacultate!
Content menu:
The concept of permaculture is based on the assumption that if we wish to survive as a species, the change of mentality from the current culture from «consumerism» towards a more sustainable consciousness, that is, phrases like local self-sufficiency, living in harmony with the nature or sustainable production, seeking the progressive reduction of the consumption of resources and the energy.
Human societies must learn to satisfy their needs within certain ecological limits and coherent. For this, it is essential to recover and develop a plurality of both ideal and practical skills to find a balance with nature, coming into play the different examples of permaculture with the intention to give a reasoned answer.
Ethics is based on three initial principles:
A clear objective… «to combine harmoniously and respectful of plant, human and animal life, meeting the needs of everyone”
The aim is to develop respect for the environment, through the design and practice of strategies conscious, environments and spaces built by the humans with the ability to adapt and recovery in changing situations, which have the natural systems. (See also resilience)
One of the fathers of this philosophy that began in the 70, David Holmgren, coined a scheme called “the flower of the permaculture” where those areas are highlighted necessary to achieve a culture of sustainability.
Although we may be more or in agreement with some of the principles that we have presented, it is necessary to review a point of importance. The goals of sustainable development officially established by the UN are 17 points key:
If we look at the last two images, we will realize that a significant similarity of ideas and concepts, that is, in we are actually talking about sustainable development and sustainable in its maximum expression for a use respectful of natural resources and for the benefit of all the parties.
Although we think that the growth of cities will not be so exponential or so exuberant, in the image below corresponding to two graphs we will corroborate the opposite.
As we discussed from the beginning, one of the problems main will be to supply the inhabitants of the cities future. Finding the balance between population and food production will be a necessity if we want to survive in a sustainable future and here This is where the principles of permaculture come into play. applied to urban life. We will need to develop strategies at different levels in cities and power develop a consonance with food supplies per capita.
Historically, access to food has induced development, design and growth of cities. Believe The best way to explain it is by means of a TED conference, coined by Carolyn Steel an expert in the «Urbanism of food»
"Food shapes our world, if we give ourselves account we can use it as a powerful tool, a conceptual and design tool to give the world another shape.”
Although it is clear that there are many projects and examples of permaculture in Spain, Argentina, Chile…etc and many other countries about urban life or the design of houses. We are more interested in perspective of the city.
Another example of permaculture is a urban project that has attracted attention in special for its uniqueness from a perspective architectural.
A project to reconquer and remodel an area determined from the city of Alicante (Spain) on the urban architecture and urbanism for the benefit of the food sustainability designed through different strategies. Made by an architect named Irina del Olmo Leung (University of Alicante)... By clicking on the image it enlarges the infographic.
The project presents several ideas for the integration of permaculture in urban architecture and the society as the “Edible Balcony”…
We can see more from the PDF sustainable project and its infographics from HERE.
