Earth care
The living soil, the water, the wild. Every drawing starts here.
Guide
How to design a place that keeps working
Three ethics, twelve principles, and a sequence that starts with water. This is the method under the studio.
People care
A place that can keep you. Heat, food, a door that shuts.
Fair share
Surplus to the next person, the next year, the next species.
The sequence
01
Observe
A year if you can. Water, wind, winter sun, the neighbor’s habits.
02
Water first
Slow it, spread it, sink it. Then plant.
03
Access
Tracks, gates, the path you will actually walk in the rain.
04
Structures
House, barn, tanks — on the high, dry, winter-sun bench.
05
Fences & living systems
Animals and gardens after the bones are honest.
Assess the pin first
Before you draw, read the ground. Assess pulls a year of rain and heat, soil texture, nearby USGS wells, and what iNaturalist has actually seen. Under that sit the official doors — patents, historic aerials, topo sheets, wetlands, native-plant programs, greywater and catchment teachers. A listing is a rumor. The pin is the brief.
Assess the working parcelTwelve principles
01
Observe and interact
Walk the land before you spend it.
02
Catch and store energy
Water, sun, wood, seed, skill.
03
Obtain a yield
The land has to keep you or it will not stay yours.
04
Apply self-regulation
Know when to stop cutting, pumping, building.
05
Use renewable resources
The woodlot, the sun, the saved seed.
06
Produce no waste
Greywater, compost, the second use.
07
Design from pattern
Zones, sectors, the slope you already have.
08
Integrate
Each element feeds two others.
09
Small and slow
A cabin winter before a hall.
10
Diversity
Guilds, not a monoculture of hope.
11
Use edges
The pond lip, the forest margin, the south wall.
12
Respond to change
Fire, flood, a new neighbor. Design for it.
Forest layers
- Canopy
- Low tree
- Shrub
- Herbaceous
- Groundcover
- Rhizosphere
- Vertical / vine
Starter guilds
Apple / nitrogen / bulb
Apple or pear · Comfrey · Alliums · Clover · Daffodil
Oak / savanna
Oak · Hazel · Native grass · Currant
Mesquite / desert
Mesquite · Prickly pear · Agave · Chiltepin