Holmgren's Permaculture Design: Rocklyn Ashram, 2026

The Permaculture Design Course (PDC) led by David Holmgren, co-originator of permaculture, and Beck Lowe, with guest tutors, runs from March 13th to 28th, 2026, at Rocklyn Ashram. This intensive 2-week residential program equips participants with foundational permaculture ethics, principles, and design tools applicable across life domains, from personal homes to community systems and beyond land blocks. No prerequisites are required, though reading Holmgren's 'Essence of Permaculture' is recommended. Tutors bring deep practical and theoretical knowledge, with Holmgren present for half the course, teaching, co-teaching, leading field trips to sites like Melliodora—his 40-year permaculture demonstration farm—and providing feedback on participant designs. The curriculum covers core principles like observe and interact, catch and store energy, obtain a yield, apply self-regulation, use renewable resources, produce no waste, design from patterns to details, integrate rather than segregate, use small and slow solutions, use edges and value the marginal, creatively use and respond to change, and value diversity. Practical components include field trips to working permaculture farms, homes, and gardens to observe principles in action, such as swales for water management, food forests for layered productivity, animal tractors for soil regeneration, and retrofitting for resilience amid uncertainties like energy descent or climate shifts. Participants learn to retrofit houses, communities, and personal habits for resilience, integrating permaculture into daily life. Specialists cover domains like agroforestry, aquaponics, social permaculture, and economic design. With only 2 places remaining, it fosters a community of like-minded practitioners through socializing and hands-on sessions. Outcomes include certified PDC skills for professional design work, plus strategies for household resilience, emphasizing RetroSuburbia concepts for suburban abundance. This course provides concrete, actionable depth, enabling practitioners to create resilient systems with specifics on zoning, sector analysis, keyline design, composting systems, and guild planting, drawn from decades of real-world application.