Each principle is an observation about how living systems work, translated into actionable guidance for human-scale design.
The 12 Design Principles
David Holmgren's twelve principles are a practical design toolkit. Each is an observation about how living systems work, translated into actionable guidance for human-scale design.
Observe and interact
Spend a full year watching before you design. The patterns of sun, water, wind, and wildlife are your primary data source.
Catch and store energy
Water, sunlight, soil fertility, and seed — capture abundance in times of plenty to carry through lean times.
Obtain a yield
Ensure the system produces enough to sustain and motivate the people who tend it. Idealism that starves its practitioners fails.
Apply self-regulation and accept feedback
Observe what the system tells you. Pests, disease, and failure are feedback, not enemies.
Use and value renewable resources
Minimize dependence on non-renewable inputs. Biological resources are self-regenerating given the right conditions.
Produce no waste
Every output is someone's input. Kitchen scraps, prunings, grey water, and human waste are design resources.
Design from patterns to details
Understand the whole before you plant a single seed. Macro patterns — drainage, aspect, prevailing wind — shape everything below.
Integrate rather than segregate
Place elements so they assist each other. Relationships do the work.
Use small and slow solutions
Small-scale solutions are easier to maintain, more adaptable, and more legible to the people using them.
Use and value diversity
Diversity reduces vulnerability. A polyculture supports more life, provides more redundancy, and is more resilient than a monoculture.
Use edges and value the marginal
Edges — where two systems meet — are the most productive and diverse zones in any landscape.
Creatively use and respond to change
Succession is not failure — it is the system maturing. Work with change rather than fighting it.