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Book Reviews
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Smart Permaculture Design
by Jenny Allen
(New Holland Publishers, 248 pp)
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The First Organic, Fair Trade Coffee Table Book
One of the perennial and pressing questions among permaculturists is, “How can we take permaculture to a broader public, maybe even go ‘mainstream’?” For me, the answer is not to be found in filling design courses to bursting, in doctrinal hair-splitting, estimating the number of mycologists who can dance atop a compost pile, or in haranguing the public that the environmental end is nigh if we don’t adopt permaculture as a universal design science now. Instead, the answer is in beauty and legibility. If we are able to create permaculture sites and projects that attract with their beauty and function and harmony with the natural world, we will attract more and more people to our ethics and principles. Then we have an opportunity to educate and transform.
Veteran Australian permaculturist Jenny Allen’s Smart Permaculture Design goes far to carry the message through beautifully photographed and written documentation of her site, its design, history and present. Max O. Lindegger has been quoted as saying that whenever permaculture designers achieve at least three functions for every element in a design, a fourth and vital function results: beauty. Judging by the evidence lavishly presented by Allen, nothing could ring more true as embodied in her site.
This book is magnetic. During a winter series of houseguests, it was on my table and each and everyone picked it up and spent time with it two sat with it for awhile, quoted aloud from it and shared photos of interest. Smart Permaculture Design inspires reflection, discussion, and vision about the possible. By its elegant, full-color splendor and captivating writing alone, the hook is baited and set, and Allen is well on the way to reeling in new permaculture enthusiasts while dazzling even the most seasoned designer.
Amply accessible and compelling chapters present the principles, reading the landscape, integrated pest management, climate and micro-climate, water and earthworks, design plan staging and budgeting, and other topics. The author takes time out to give practical tips, design ideas, culinary advice and suggestions for engaging children in permaculture.
This is a perfect design reference volume, adjunct to the more technical, plodding, and methodical books on the subject. Allen’s depth of experience, enthusiasm, and accessible style make it a great hammock read as well. Whether taking in a section or a photo at a time or a cover-to-cover study, readers will find it beautiful, rewarding, and inspirational.
Scott Horton is Editor of the Permaculture Activist, the oldest periodical on the subject. He lives in the San Jacinto Mountains of Southern California and can be reached at lasemillabesda@hotmail.com.
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