Energy efficient planning is directly tied to economics as Bill Mollison states in his Introduction to Permaculture book.  Planning to conserve resources and money is essential in any good design.  Thus we use zones, sectors, and slope in where to place elements such as structures, animals, and water features.  Common sense planning is inherently construed through Permaculture design, which I do believe P.A. Yeomans was the first to bring intelligent design to the west in terms of agricultural development.  He laid out the Scale of Permanence, which is where the influence of design and in particular this principle stems from.

Energy Efficient Planning: Zones

Zones defined by Mollison is placing elements based on the intensity of use and management.  Through functional analysis, we learn how often and when we would need to visit animals or plants due to understanding inputs and outputs.  For example, goats like broad areas to roam including brushy and forested areas, but if are intended for milking need to be visited at least twice a day.  This forces us to put the animals closer to the house but not too close as possible smells and noise should be accounted for.  However a pecan tree (Carya illinoinensis) needs to be only visited a handful of times to check on its flowering stages and then the subsequent harvest.  So we place the goats closer to the house than the pecan tree as our attention must be directed more often to the goats.  Thus we place elements in zones 0-5 based again on management and intensity of use.

Zone 0: the house or center of initiative while some also state the inner landscape or heart space being zone 00.  In zone 0 there is high intensity of use and lots of time there.  Beyond a house, it could also be a workshop, a barn, or commercial kitchen depending on the site.  Larger sites such as ecovillages or braod-acre farms will often have numerous centers of initiative. Buildings serve as hubs and are made to beanery efficient and multifunctional.

Zone 1: plants and animals require pruning, mulching, watering, and daily feeding for example.  Rabbits, guinea pigs, worms or salad beds, herb gardens, vines for shading the south or western portion of the house, and herb fruit trees such as a dwarf lemon in the mediterranean climates. Water features would include tanks and roof collection system, greywater, outdoor shower or veggie washing station, and tyre ponds.  Worm bins help to maintain fertility and cycle nutrient flow from the household.

Zone 2: still items that would be used intensively but spaced further from the zone 0.  Fruit trees on dwarf or semi-dwarf rootstock, poultry, and dairy animals housing finds itself jutting into a zone 2.  While zone 1 gardens would have cherry tomatoes as they require daily picking, zone 2 would have larger tomatoes for drying, canning, or fresh eating.  Both need water, maintenance such as pruning, mulch, and feeding so they are located near the house and carefully tended to.  The zone 2 is larger and can also feature larger aquaculture ponds and water harvesting features such as terraces, swales, and rain gardens.  Hot compost piles using products from gardens, animal pens, and leaf fall can be used to maintain fertility. This can be applied in solid form or a watery extract.

Zone 3: There is less intensity of use and broad acres application begins with extensive plantings of garden staples such as corn, pumpkin, and potatoes.  Larger pastures for animals exist with rotation often occurring with electric fencing.  Trees of larger size such as fruits on standard rootstock and many nut trees can intersect here.  Food forests can go in either zone 2 or 3 and the integration of animals with tree crops often happens in zone 3.  Plantings for firewood or polewood such as a coppice woodlots of hazel, willow, and black locust may occur.  Cold compost piles of branches and trimmings can and weeds in the early establish of the forest garden can make pockets to spread after a long, slow break down process.  Fertility from zone 1 worm bins or zone 2 thermal compost can be applied in liquid form to bigger areas.  Irrigation ponds as well as biomass producing chinampas or ponds may be sited as well and connected to zone 3 mulching or zone 2 composting.  Liquid feed on broad-acre used with making compost tea or extract.  Swales, keyline, and contour terracing can alter hydrological cycles and aid in reforestation.

Zone 4: Extension of our broadacre pastures for sheep and cattle with tree crops hopefully lining the fence rows.  Forestry plantings for timber and forested areas yielding non-timber forest products such as mushrooms and medicinal herbs.  Large nut trees such as oaks both for food, timber, and wildlife reside here.  Keyline design could also be applied here and using animals such as cattle to repair water cycles is often used. Large irrigation ponds when sited appropriate.

Zone 5: Where the permaculturist goes to learn from, wild areas that support wild creatures and hopefully as many native plants as possible.  Many zone 4 areas will turn to zone 5 after some years of rehabilitation with working with invasive species and soil rehabilitation.  Nature is our teacher and allowing even a pot on a back porch to go untended can be an example of zone 5. The below picture helps to provide a theoretical application of zone thinking

While this picture does depict the sort of perfect landscape, natural systems will not adhere to the concentric circles displayed.  Because natural features such as rocky outcroppings or steep drop-offs are present on permaculture sites, fluctuations will occur.  For example at a permaculture school garden in Portugal, I have witnessed just outside the door a huge set of rocks that the children love to play on but make a unfarmable space other than the odd pot here and there.  This forces the zone 1 and 2 to be pushed further away than normal.  Also zone thinking can be altered by having a long zone 1 wedge running next to frequently used paths.  Lastly zone thinking can be applied to small-scale thinking of an individual garden beds lettuce on the edge while brocoli further in) or even to how with even fit within a bio-region.

Energy Efficient Planning: Sector Planning

Our next aspect of planning for energy efficiency is to apply sector planning. Sectors investigate wild energies that pass through ones site.  After the analysis has been done we then examine how to approach these energies in a way that is beneficial in reducing energy use whether it is plants, structures, soil, or even our animals.  A list of wild energies and some of their characteristics can be found in the following:

• Summer sun ( high angle that sets beyond east and west)
• Winter sun (low angle that sets before east and west)
• Summer wind (sometimes hot and dry or bringing moisture and storms)
• Winter wind (can be bitterly cold and dry or bring moisture and storms)
• Noise (from roads, factories, and neighbors)
• dust from roads
• Wildlife (deer, weasels, foxes….)
• View (often important for a client)
• Flood (not so much water in general but where might a stream overflow its banks, water flow is better mapped on a flow analysis)
• Fire (in general flows uphill and might come from a pine forest or dry field and pushed by dry winds)

Sector analysis gives you a picture of how these flows intersect on a site and gives you insight to then deal with it in a beneficial way.  Sectors are often dealt with in the following three ways:

 

 

Energy Efficient Planning: Slope