CAN A HOUSE BE A SUSTAINABLE PART OF THE LANDSCAPE? 

The modern-day housing industry is notorious for leaving out any and all elements of design. Most home contractors design the houses they build around a minimum square footage (the more, the better) and a price range in the several hundred-thousand-dollar range. These houses are designed behind desks or in offices without ever setting foot on the actual piece of land where the home is to be built.

The actual piece of land where the home is to be built is a side thought at best. If there is some element that presents a disturbance, the bulldozer can be hired for $50 an hour and get rid of any problem whether it be a small hill, a large tree, standing water, etc. In most cases, the first step of any home construction involves bringing in tractors and backhoes to rip out any vegetation and create a level piece of wasteland.

A superficial coat of green grass supported by heavy applications of chemical fertilizer mask the fact that the house that is eventually built is sitting upon an ecological wasteland of infertility.

In permaculture, the process of design asks us to take into account how the different elements we place on a given piece of land can function together and interact in such a way as to contribute to the overall systemic resilience and health of that piece of land. The underlying goal for all permacultural design processes is ecosystemic health and abundance. The underlying goal for the industrial construction industry is higher profit margins.

Let´s consider the example of the direction in which a house is angled when built. For traditional construction, this is a side thought at best.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…