Here you will find tools to support you in designing your permaculture project. Each tool is presented in both English and one of the languages Danish, Estonian, Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian or Swedish to strengthen the understanding of the special language of permaculture. You can also view any language on its own.

The toolbox focuses on the design process of your permaculture project and helps you on your pathway of designing the project. The design toolbox works with the design framework GoSADIMET and covers the first four phases (GoSAD) of your design project. We have included ethics and principles and some different design frameworks. The implementation and practical techniques are not in this Design Toolbox, but you can find them well described elsewhere.

 You are welcome to view online and also to download and print the basic version of the Permaculture Design Toolbox. You will be asked to sign up for the NPA newsletter and get notified when there’s news about the Design Toolbox! We will create an extended version with another 30+ tools before long. We hope you will enjoy a nicely printed out full version of all the design tools in a handy ringbinder for yourself or your students. A bit old school, but the most functional presentation we could think of 🙂

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS & APPRECIATIONS

Many people have contributed to this collection of tools. Some of the design tools have been adopted into permaculture design thinking over the years. We are grateful to have: Edward de Bono and a few of his wondrous thinking tools, an effective mapping tool from McHarg, work on capitals from Ethan Roland and Gregory Landau, Yeomans’ genius thinking, Looby Macnamara’s generous and empowering ideas, deeply inspiring principles from David Holmgren, structured design tools from Wilf Richards, and we’ve been inspired by Aranya’s collection of permaculture design tools, the World Permaculture Association for their work on permaculture principles and of course by Bill Mollison from his wealth of wisdom. Some design tools are so mainstream that it was not possible to find their origins. Our intention is not to steal anybody’s work, but to promote tools and approaches that can work in creating a more ethical world. 

We have created a flipbook for you so you can view the Permaculture Design Toolkit without downloading. For quick navigation, use the Contents page links to the pages.

Print one-sided, 2 pages/page. Fold the pages in the middle and punch holes on the left edge and bind them together or put them in a folder.

The Creators of the Permaculture Design Toolbox

Nordplus Nordic Council of Ministers kindly supported the creation of the Permaculture Design Toolbox.