Deep Look at a Permaculture Element

For 40 years, Permaculture designers have been using a design technique called ‘analysis of an element ‘. This tutorial helps you get comfortable with defining, prioritizing and analyzing an element. Then you will be more effective in using it, and connecting it with other elements in your design.

Hazards and Benefits of Deconstruction

This a tool for understanding components of a system. This tool reveals a few insights. But over time and with practice and observation, you will start to notice a lot more. You will create a design that will help the inhabitants to grow. Because the natural system is not a machine. It is a living organism that wants to grow and change. And everything within the system wants to express its full potential. Breaking the system apart to examine the elements doesn’t reveal the synergy, the way things work together. This analysis tool is limited, but it’s still useful when developing a holistic design.

Observation is the most important activity

We can look at a chicken and see all its anatomy. See its personality. Then look at its needs and what it provides. And we can also see how one chicken is different to another – we call that the Intrinsic characteristics. The needs can come from a food forest, food scraps, its enclosure, the tank, a hose, and some shallow dishes. And the functions, the things that it provides can go to our kitchen and back into the food forest.

What is an Element in Permaculture Design?

In Permaculture design, an element is a part or a set of parts in a system. It can be a tree or a wood lot. Generally, an element is something that is independent of other elements. It is able to function on its own. However, it often needs inputs from other elements. For example, a tree needs sunlight, water and minerals.

And an element produces stuff that needs to be managed. The tree provides shade, leaf litter, fruit, lumber, humidity, carbon sinking habitat. A tree is an element that has needs, many functions, and each one can be intrinsically different.

Remember that a good design is not about what you have, but how it works. So, function has to be our first priority. There has to be at least three functions for me to get an element.

Even my pizza oven does three things. At least three things. It helps clear up a lot of dead wood. It cooks pizzas and then bread and cakes and things like that. Once it cools down, it provides ash and charcoal and I make biochar in it. And when we have pizza parties, the pizza oven is a wonderful way to socialize as you cook. And as a bonus, the pizza oven is a sculpture made with broken tiles and ceramics.

Needs

Most elements need nutrients, water, protection, boundaries, attention, seasonal shade, light, cool or warmth. We can call that generally climate control. Some elements need income or energy, access, entertainment, and mate-ship. And we would be wise to prioritise those needs.

Here’s how Maslow prioritized the needs for people. Maslow said how the physiological needs, our needs for clean air, water, food, shelter, sleep, and clothing were fundamental. And then as we go up his hierarchy of needs, we would dream and hope that we could achieve self-actualization. We can hope to reach our potential. When an element is fulfilling its full potential, it’s happy and it’s being used well.

Some Elements are not Needy

There are some elements that don’t have any needs. And these can be vital elements like water, air, rock. They don’t have needs. So our needs emerge from our need to manage them. Water, as I said, doesn’t have any needs, but we definitely need it. And so we have to manage it. We’re going to capture it, store it, and use it.

Example: Rocks

Rocks or minerals are another element that have no needs. Rock cliffs have no needs at all, but they have a powerful influence as a windbreak, thermal mass, reflected light. Security can be achieved with cliffs. Think of all the castles on the cliff tops. Minerals come with the rocks. And you can have water harvesting from the top. And it is also really great building material.

Chetro Ketl was built about 90 through to 1140ce. It’s a great example of architecture that used the nearby cliffs. The scholars have estimated it required half a million work hours to build. And 26,000 trees were required to make this beautiful palace. The palace was made of 50 million sandstone blocks from the nearby cliffs. But the loss of trees and overpopulation caused the valley caused to become unliveable.

The design process must consider the natural function of each element. What do cliffs normally do? They erode. They collapse. So this design hadn’t predicted the potential impact of the cliffs on the housing and animals.

So let’s consider how do we meet the needs? The needs of an element can be creatively sourced from another element. Here you can see the nutrients could come from rock, seaweed, shells or plants and animal manure. There’s many different options.

Products from an Element

Now let’s look at how we use the ‘waste’, the throughput or the production of an element. These products can be absorbed by another element. And they can be absorbed through a means of natural tendencies, gravity, wind, chemical absorption.

The nutrients are beneficial for many other beings. But not straight away. Right? So the nutrients, the poop, from the chicken, is not going on my table! But it goes to the garden, a tree, and from the tree, it comes into the fruit. Then the fruit comes to me.

A chicken wastes very little water. And this waste is useful to the food forest.

As for providing boundaries – chickens don’t really provide boundaries except to their own chicks. And as for providing attention and management? Well, some people actually use their pets as a mental health tool. It gets them out of bed. It stops them from falling into great depression.

Seasonal shade is not provided by a chicken except to their chicks. And a chicken doesn’t provide light. But it will provide climate control definitely to the eggs and chicks. Also, some people are entertained by chickens. And one chicken can provide mateship to the other chickens.

Putting Each Element Analysis on Card

Cards are tactile making it easy to use on a floor or table. Ask yourself, what does this element really need to thrive? And what can this element provide? What are its intrinsic characteristics? Then set your priorities.

For each element’s feature define the needs, the provisions, and intrinsic characteristics. And put a score to show the priority, whether it’s high, medium, or low.

Analysis of wicking bed

The needs of wicking beds are quite specific. They need level ground, a water input. Just use a hose off my rainwater tank, a protective barrier between the soil and the water reservoir underneath. I actually use hair because my son has a hair salon, so I’ve got a lot of hair. But coconut coir is a good mesh material and also old, cotton rags. Wicking vessels need protection from things like rabbits that could burrow beneath. Or large feral animals could knock them over. So, they do need protection.

Their functions that wicking pots provide include food. And joy for people like getting out and growing stuff. Recycled bird cages are pretty so they also provide cultural interest. And they start conversations about the benefits of not keeping birds in cages. And instead, keeping them out. The wicking beds in old bird cages become anti-aviaries.

The mobility of the small wicking beds is a bonus. But even if they’re one square meter, [a weighty cubic meter], you can hire a forklift to move them. My mentor, Judith Collins moved her entire garden with forklift and a truck because it was in large wicking containers.

Unintended products

It is also possible to integrate aquaculture into larger wicking systems. But one of the unintended outputs or through-puts in this system is the presence microplastics. Plastics are often used to hold the water. So explore safer materials like terracotta, metal, and glass.

Best Features of this Element

The level of skill needed to make and use the wicking bed is really low. And so is the cost of installation and maintenance is also low. And because they’re high portability, they have really high value to me. I take them to workshops and festivals. They’re a great conversation starter.

Fun with Element Cards

Once you’ve got a bunch of these cards, you can set them together. This reveals multi-directional connections.

See more about this in our video about integration of the elements in our YouTube channel PermacultureVisions. These will help you strengthen the relationships between these elements. Enjoy.