I'm an experienced designer and teacher available for courses and site design. You can reach me on:
+351 933 306 787 and
guy "at" midas-botanic-pt.org
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My Approach to Permaculture …
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… always evolves from the landscape’s capabilities, its environs, ecology and people. I try never to impose lines or patterns from the drawing board, but always to learn from what I observe, elaborating on what the landscape suggests.
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Relevant Courses & Qualifications
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My Permaculture design teachers were:
- Geoff Lawton
- Bill Mollison
- Brad Lancaster
- Warren Brush
– all tremendously inspiring.
At the 2014 UK Convergence in Gilwell Park, I presented highlights from my Diploma Portfolio including critique of Diploma System 5.2.
My teaching trajectory includes various courses in teacher training including Suggestopedia, Problem Based Learning, and Teaching in Higher Education, as well as a three year teaching diploma in dance, all of which I have put into practice. I have lead university staff training sessions in curriculum design based on student-oriented learning objectives. Recently I've been co-teaching PDCs.
Completing a doctorate in systems science enriched me with over a decade of teaching experience as well as the opportunity to design courses in design, mostly of complex systems. These are transferable design skills. Academic work left me with a scientifically critical approach to knowledge, and study of this field yielded a good understanding of one of Permaculture’s holistic cornerstones – systems theory.
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Relevant Work Experience
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Barbeito Farm
For the last 8 years I have been applying Permaculture design to my own 2 hectare site in northern Portugal. This was a degraded vineyard. Most of it I have converted to perennial food production and its food forest is beginning to produce a yield. The site features water harvesting structures, solar heating, food forests, hill beds, a kitchen garden, various kinds of composting, a nursery of over 1000 plants, and a small flock of geese and ducks, all working together.
WWOOF
In 2011 I joined the volunteer exchange program WWOOF. I have since had the opportunity to inspire people into changing the way they live and to teach them skills that will enable them to continue to do so after they leave. My WWOOF-host page:
http://www.wwoof.pt/hosts/home/quinta-do-barbeito/
Keyline Design
Working as a consultant, I have advised several landowners on how Permaculture can be applied to their land. The largest of these, a 248 hectare site called Quinta de São Miguel do Seixo in the Tras-os-montes area of Portugal, is an on-going project where I have designed a water harvesting system for the whole property according to Yeomans’ keyline design. A pilot study is soon to be implemented.
http://Permacultureglobal.com/projects/659-quinta-do-siexo
Architectural Team
As an invited landscape designer on an architectural team, I had the pleasure of working with other professionals to design an 80 hectare Urban Park for a competition. Water harvesting and wind & noise mitigation were central problems to be resolved, as well as how to create diverse spaces that people would want to populate for a variety of recreational purposes.
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For more about me and to see some of my designs, please visit my web page via the link below