Meet Two of Our Permaculture Design Certification Teachers
Permaculture Design Certificate Programs FAQ
The Benefit of our Certification Program
Thank you for your interest in our highly professional and rigorous Permaculture design certification course in NYC. This course is the foundational 72 hour Permaculture Design Certification program, endorsed by PINA the Permaculture Institute of North America.We adapt our course to the northeastern corridor and to contemporary social and ecological issues in the United States and the world. The certification connects you to an international world of designers,architects,farmers, and communities who all recognize it as a legitimate passport to another level of knowledge and ability to contribute to their projects and communities.
It also connects you with over 500+ graduates in NYC, to some of the most advanced designers in the region to continue your studies with us after this course. In addition you will have access to our learning center just 2 hours north where we do hands on advanced trainings in reading the landscape,site analysis, natural building, herbalism,animal husbandry,beyond organic, biodynamic farming and gardening methods and techniques, forest gardening, fruit tree care and off grid water and energy systems, to name a few.
Many of our graduates begin businesses based on what they learn with us from natural beauty products, herbal remedies and teas to ecologically minded animation companies.
Sign up today and reserve your place this class is filling up quickly!
Flexible Scheduling
In order to receive a certificate students must be present for every class. However, Center for Bioregional Living's PDC's are unique in that we allow students to make up missed days and complete their certificate in one of our many upcoming courses. Want to start immersing yourself in the design solutions of permaculture but can't make all the classes? No problem. You can make up missed days and receive your certificate in a future PDC course.
Experienced Teaching Team
Andrew Faust has over two decades of experience designing and teaching permaculture and hundreds of inspired and empowered students.
Our entire teaching team is not only experienced but also passionate about teaching permaculture and sharing the tools for positive solutions. From these leaders in the field you will learn dynamic ways to create opportunity and abundance wherever you are.
Continued Mentoring
Our team of experienced teachers are available to work with you after the PDC is finished. We have continued to mentor and consult with many of our students either in person or remotely on green career changes, business models, permaculture designs, life path visioning, teacher training and more. We want to help you change the world!
Urban and Rural Learning Opportunities
Our rotating campus in the city and our upstate permaculture farm will provide you with the theory and practice to get you where you want to go. Advanced training and hands-on workshops round out your knowledge gained in our PDC.
Learn to Apply Permaculture to Business Models and Regional Scale Designs
Think Permaculture is all about gardening or homesteading? THINK AGAIN! Permaculture is a widely adaptable design tool that enables you to design for an entire system such as a business model, property, region, community, greenway, apartment complex and on and on. Permaculture is only limited by your experience and your imagination. We arehere to help you grow both!
You will learn how to apply permaculture principles to a diversity of settings and issues with an emphasis on urban and temperate bioregions. You will graduate with a competency in full site design, master planning and a deep understanding of permaculture design. You will be poised to creatively, imaginatively and comprehensively assess and consult for properties, business models and social structures.
Our Urban Permaculture focus will feature two excellent field trips: one to the extensive green roof laboratory on Randall’s Island with Dwaine Lee of the Horticultural Society and another visiting the community gardens of the Lower East Side that have been retrofitted to harvest rainwater and reclaim brownfields with Lars Chellberg and Paula Amram.We hope you can join us!
We love to talk to prospective students about what sets our course apart and makes it so life changing. Send us an email, give us a call. We look forward to speaking with the future designers of society!
This course will cover the core 72 hour Permaculture Design curriculum, including additional hours of in class and out of class activities to adapt this course to our region and to contemporary ecological issues in the United States. You will learn how to apply Permaculture principles to a diversity of settings and issues with an emphasis on urban and temperate environments.
This Permaculture design course provides a positive and empowering vision for social and ecological transformation. Come be inspired by the possibilities of today and not by the fear of tomorrow!
Primary Permaculture Design Applications:
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Bioregional design science that provides a new model for economic development.
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Addressing the major issues of our day from a whole systems perspective.
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Worldwide movement that is helping to regenerate local ecologies and economies.
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Solution oriented ecological approach to retrofitting our societies.
This course is perfect for motivated individuals who wish to use the tools of Permaculture in urban and rural environments as well as for modeling sustainable and regenerative businesses.
Lecture topics: Urban redesign and retrofit, passive solar and natural building, inner-city gardening techniques, indoor and apartment gardening, indoor mushroom cultivation, fermented foods, whole foods, Living Machines and natural waste water treatment, niche market and cooperatively owned business ideas, rain gardens, bioremediation, green roofs, rooftop gardens, how to clean polluted air with plants, biogas generators, Bioregionalism and regional self reliance, the economics of globalization, evolution of life on earth, history of agriculture, Biodynamics, natural history of Eastern woodlands, wood lot management, watershed health, the integration of animals into cultivated ecosystems, and so much more!
To receive a certificate students must attend all 11 classes and present a final Permaculture site design. Students will be given the option to present their final design individually which is a different approach than most PDCs. In our experience, and from what our growing number of students say, this contributes to a more practical, professional and intellectually stimulating learning experience. As a result a number of our student's final presentations have gone from paper (or electronic presentations) to actualized, real-world designs.
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Interpret a landscape and its ecological implications.
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Maps, graphical analysis, assessment, and presentations.
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Understanding of key design strategies for systems of varying scale.
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Discover and develop working relationships between elements, goals, and site realities.
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Design methods, techniques, observation skills, pattern recognition, and systems understanding.
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Permaculture principles, ethics, design techniques and strategies.
Curriculum & Training
Our courses will train you to become a consultant and designer with the ability to creatively integrate:
You learn how to apply permaculture principles to a diversity of settings and issues with an emphasis on urban and temperate bioregions. You will graduate with a competency in full site design, master planning and a deep understanding of the principles of permaculture design. You will be poised to creatively, imaginatively and comprehensively assess and consult for properties, business
-Ecological Design
-Regional Planning
-Biodynamic & Organic Gardening
-Sustainable Economic Developmentmodels and social structures.
Teaching Teams
Our entire teaching team is passionate about teaching permaculture and sharing the tools for positive solutions. From Bill Young the biodiversity specialist who reforested Fresh Kills to Lisa De Piano cooperative business pioneer creating revenue and relationships between bicycle compost pick-up, CSA’s and restaurants, you will learn dynamic ways to create opportunity and abundance wherever you are.
Field Trips
Our Urban Permaculture focus will feature two excellent field trips: one to the extensive green roof laboratory on Randall’s Island with Dwaine Lee of the Horticultural Society and another visiting the community garden’s of the Lower East Side thathave been retrofitted to harvest rainwater and reclaim brownfields with Lars Chellberg and Paula Hewit Amram.
Our Commitment to You!
We are constantly striving to make each PDC a rich learning experience by continuing to educate ourselves and stay relevant in this dynamic world. Andrew is a true scholar and brings to each student his solid experience and a life of active learning: from deep nature to concrete jungle, from classictomes to the newest books and theories on evolution. We love to talk to prospective students about what sets our course apart and makes it so life changing. Send us an email, give us a call. We look forward to speaking with the future designers of society!
Center for Bioregional Living Guest Presenters and Lecturers
Andrew Faust is one of the premier Permaculture teachers and designers in North America with nearly two decades of experience in the field. His passionate and visionary presentation and curriculum has been inspiring and motivating students since his days as an alternative school teacher at Upattinas in Glenmoore, PA. Andrew lived off the grid in West Virginia for 8 years where he designed and built a Permaculture inspired homestead including a 1600 sq ft strawbale house. He moved to Brooklyn in 2007 and has been applying his knowledge to the urban landscape culminating in a Permaculture Design Certification course many consider life changing. He is developing Centers for Bioregional Living in Ellenville, NY with his partner Adriana Magana as a pilot campus for his students, clients and baby daughter Juniper.
Lisa DePiano is a certified permaculture designer, teacher and practitioner with over 15 years of experience. She has taught hundreds of students in various settings from the streets of Occupy Wall Street to the media lab at MIT to delivering the keynote at the 2012 Northeast Permaculture Convergence. She is currently a lecturer at the University of Massachusetts and co-founder and lead instructor of Permaculture FEAST. She runs the Mobile Design Lab which specializes in participatory permaculture design and installation.
Mark Krawczyk is a permaculture and ecological design educator, designer and consultant; traditional woodworker; natural builder; and aspiring forester in Vermont's Champlain Valley. After spending nearly four years traveling the US and beyond, studying with experts in the fields of perennial food production, ecological building, coppice forestry and green woodworking, he settled back in northern Vermont where he just recently began to develop his vision for a 52 acre homestead he purchased in 2012. He owns and operates Keyline Vermont and RivenWoodCrafts, is a member of Seven Generations Natural Builders and co-founded the community group Burlington Permaculture. He's passionate about manifesting positive change in the world and suffers from an insatiable desire to never stop learning.
Paula Hewitt Amram is the founder of Open Road Park in the Lower East Side. She will be talking to us about the transformation of a former bus depot / brownfield into the thriving community garden Open Road park is today.
David Harper founded Land In Common to assist community organizations, landowners, and local governments in establishing a secure land base for local production of food fuel, and fiber. Current projects include a farmland preservation plan in Boone, North Carolina, a tropical food forest network in South Florida, a report on community land trusts for the United Nations, and Cornucopia, an urban agriculture land trust in Durham, North Carolina. Land In Common builds on David’s 15-year career as a conservation professional working with land trusts and local governments to raise more than $3 million dollars in grant funds and preserve over 1,500 acres of farm and forest land. He designed and teaches a master level course in land stewardship at the University of Pennsylvania. The Land In Common vision: free the land/free the people.