Permaculture for a Tiny Home Pocket Neighborhood

Permaculture is an ethical design science and methodology that integrates human activity with natural surroundings to create highly efficient, self-regenerating ecosystems. Most gardens and landscapes are designed to be high input systems⏤water-intensive, chemically-dependent, and high maintenance. Instead of toxic, resource-heavy conventional landscapes, our friends at Shades of Green build health from the ground up, creating ecologically-sound and healthy spaces to help reconcile the human built environment and the natural world, and to create a conversation between the two that is life-giving.

The permaculture concept below is for a tiny home pocket neighborhood.

In this tiny home village, the parking is concentrated in the front, which allows for the neighborhood to be human-scale and pedestrian friendly. All of the roof water from the buildings, including the community center, is routed to above-ground cisterns, which overflow to a series of rain gardens to infiltrate the water, restoring groundwater, and recharging aquifers. The rainwater is used for irrigation as needed. In addition to a community garden and greenspace, each cottage grows abundant culinary and medicinal herbs, pollinator habitats, and fruit trees and berries. Wooded trails weave through an understory of native nut trees, lined with woodland medicinal herbs.

Shades of Green Permaculture is a design, build and education firm that creates regenerative and sustainable outdoor spaces. For over 10 years, Shades of Green has transformed outdoor spaces into thriving, organic eco-paradises that contribute to protecting biodiversity, building soil, restoring the water cycle, and growing food, medicine, and pollinator habitat. From design/build, to classes and online tools, Shades of Green is a Woman-Owned, Certified B Corporation and member of the Sustainable Sites Initiative founded by Managing Director Brandy Hall, recently selected to Real Leaders’ Women in Impact. Find out more and become a part of the Shades of Green community at shadesofgreenpermaculture.com and on Instagram.