patterns in design

Today, I watched the "understanding and applying patterns" video lecture from Bill Mollison's PDC. I would love to know how others have incorporated patterning into their permaculture designs.

There are a few terms in permaculture that to me are hard to understand.  Maybe it is just me not understanding.

It took me a long time to understand a Food Forest, especially when people were talking about putting one in their backyard in the city.

I finally figured out that it is using the different layers like in a Forest Garden or at least that is what helped me to understand the concept.

So what are Permaculture Patterns?

I feel like I understand the concept of Permaculture Design. To me, it is designing something, like a garden.

I also feel that when you look at a piece of land you are seeing patterns, the way the trees are placed, where rocks are placed, etc.

Am I on the right path?  Are these patterns? I see a pattern as something like this:


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And maybe this:


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These look like Permaculture Designs:


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Sorry, I could not answer your question though I hope you can answer mine.  

Are these examples correct or are they all patterns or designs?

Ann, it sounds like you are puzzling over the same things I am. Here are some of my notes from the Bill Mollison and Geoff Lawton videos and book:

- Patterns are events of form.
- We're surrounded by the natural patterns of the universe, from micro to macro
- Design that follows natural patterns is productive, design that doesn't, isn't.
- there are very few pattern form types but infinite variations
- Partial list of pattern forms:
   - waves such as water waves and sand dune ripples
   - spirals - snail shells, whirlpools, sunflower seeds in the flower head
   - lobes - reefs, lichens
   - branches - rives and tributaries, tree branches or roots
   - nets - cracks in mud or skin, honeycombs
   - scatters - algae, lichen on rocks
   - cloud forms - clouds or tree crowns
   - tessellations - turtle shells
   - Fibonacci sequences - found in the number of sunflower seeds in a flower head or number of pine seeds in a pine cone.

So, some simple examples of using pattern in design would be an herb spiral, making swales that follow land contours, making an herb garden with branching pathways, or circular greywater mulch pits. I guess, contrast with this with how most farming and gardening is done - squares, rectangles, and rows of straight lines, none of which is found in nature!

Where I'm stumped, is how to use patterns to design my property, or even transform my garden. I get the concept of patterns, but haven't found a good step-by-step tutorial so that I can look at my property and decide which pattern form to use where.  

Here are a couple of Geoff Lawton videos about pattern and design.

Pattern Understanding


Working with Natural Patterns

Leigh Tate wrote:Ann, it sounds like you are puzzling over the same things I am.

Yes, that last book promotion first got me interested in what patterns are.

Leigh said, "Here are some of my notes from the Bill Mollison and Geoff Lawton videos and book:

- Patterns are events of form.
- We're surrounded by the natural patterns of the universe, from micro to macro
- Design that follows natural patterns is productive, design that doesn't, isn't.
- there are very few pattern form types but infinite variations

Yes, these were very helpful for me to understand patterns.  I forgot to watch the videos this morning, so I will try again tomorrow.

Leigh said,
- Partial list of pattern forms:
   - waves such as water waves and sand dune ripples
   - spirals - snail shells, whirlpools, sunflower seeds in the flower head
   - lobes - reefs, lichens
   - branches - rives and tributaries, tree branches or roots
   - nets - cracks in mud or skin, honeycombs
   - scatters - algae, lichen on rocks
   - cloud forms - clouds or tree crowns
   - tessellations - turtle shells
   - Fibonacci sequences - found in the number of sunflower seeds in a flower head or number of pine seeds in a pine cone.

Now that I see your list and look at the permaculture designs like the ones I posted I can see some of the patterns. Especially waves, spirals,  and clouds. Branches remind me of when a tree is pruned to make a shape as with esparlier.

Leigh said, "So, some simple examples of using pattern in design would be an herb spiral, making swales that follow land contours, making an herb garden with branching pathways, or circular greywater mulch pits. I guess, contrast with this with how most farming and gardening is done - squares, rectangles, and rows of straight lines, none of which is found in nature!

Where I'm stumped, is how to use patterns to design my property, or even transform my garden. I get the concept of patterns, but haven't found a good step-by-step tutorial so that I can look at my property and decide which pattern form to use where.  

I can easily understand spiral as with herb spirals and your other explanations make sense  Like you I can't figure out how I would use these on my land.  Before the grass took over I could see areas that to me looked like they had been landscaped when I know they had not been.

I feel it is much easier when working with a blank slate.  My gardens are already established and my only livestock is the wildlife.

Anne Miller wrote:I feel it is much easier when working with a blank slate.  My gardens are already established and my only livestock is the wildlife.

I agree. Having so many elements already in place seems to make it more challenging. I'm watching videos from both Bill Mollison's PDC and also Geoff Lawton's 2013 PDC, and their examples all seem to be starting with raw land. On top of that, our set-up is backwards! Ideally, house and zones 1 and 2 should be lower than the water source. Mine are on the highest part of the property, with my zone 5 at the bottom of a hill. I hope your place is more cooperative, Anne!

I'll take a crack at some of the questions by sharing a portion of a permaculture design I have had in my back pocket for a certain landscape.  It's still in the "observe and interact" phase of land development, no major earthworks, accessways, etc.  Just lots of time watching and thinking, and hundreds of trial pioneer and fruit tree plantings, because, as the wise Chinese proverb goes:

"The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is now."

The largest pattern you see is obviously the spiral.  So, why a spiral other than the beauty of it?  

Well, each pattern in nature solves a problem, right?  Patterns resolve tension.  In my opinion, a spiral solves the problem of incremental growth from a central point, with a minimized perimeter while maximizing protection, and coming in and going out, like that of a snail's shell.  The snail can grow, and remain protected, without having to toss its shell and get a new one like the hermit crab.  A circle maximizes area with minimal perimeter, and a spiral is similar, but with the ability to expand via it's endpoint.  

In this application, the spiral would allow me to start at zone 0, and slowly, over time, radiate outward, adding raised beds, enclosing pasture, expanding the irrigation line, fencing, etc. along the way.  It's a pattern of gradual growth with a compact footprint.

Another pattern in my design are waves.  Waves are high/low over a distance pattern.  

In this case, my "waves" are two-fold:
   1) Alternating persimmons (or apple trees) with indigo-bush nitrogen fixers.  You could think of the N2-fixer as the "high" or energy source, and the fruit trees as a "low" or energy sink.  This pulse transverses the spiral of course.  In this case a person would walk along the spiral to harvest on their way in or out.
   2) My raised beds are likewise pulsed outward along the mulch path. This is to (theoretically) help break up pest transfer compared to a large single patch, while allowing for cut and carry / chop and drop.  I like to imagine the electrical engineer's symbol for a resistor, for instance, which is wave-shaped.  The green between the beds would allow for a Ruth Stout like mulch source for the future raised beds.  You could also consider my garden pattern to be lobes.  Lobes maximize surface area for nutrient transfer along a path in a tight space.  Aka, keyhole gardens.

Another pattern is the parabola.  Parabolas are for deflecting, or concentrating energy, right?  Our ears are goofy parabolas for collecting sound.  Whereas dunes are parabolas which are relatively stable in deflecting wind over and around a terrain.  

In my design, there are two parabolas:
   1) I want to deflect or block any adverse light and sound sector coming from the north east.  
   2) But I also want to keep things warm in winter near zone 0 via a sun trap.  Aaaand I also want to maximize planting potential and microclimates.  

So I am contemplating a Hügelkultur berm or two NE of zone 0 to achieve all this.  That said, I'm still on the fence with Hügel techniques, however, because honestly, I haven't ever seen simple pictures of a beautiful, orderly, diverse mound culture planting.  I've been fortunate to see a lot of beautiful gardens in my life, and I want to be impressed!  Surely someone has a good link they can share to a beautiful Hügel?

Another pattern in my design (not shown) is Streamlines  More specifically, a straight line.  

What?! A straight line in permaculture?!  *gasp*  permaculturalists frequently tout how great squiggly paths and curves are, but streamlines are an important pattern too.  The quickest way from A to B is a straight path.  The most stable place for paths of course are on ridges or on terraced contour, but I haven't drawn that in.  Anyway, lobes (like in our small intestine) are for maximized resistance and exchange or transfer from a path at one end leaving another, but straight lines are for getting stuff done quick: getting in or out.  Our trachea is mostly straight so we can breath, right?  Our esophagus is mostly straight so we can eat yummy healthy garden food quickly, right?

I am a complete novice here in that I haven't taken a PDC, so these are just my opinions from watching videos like Geoff's in the past, and reading the PADM, etc.  My design probably has all sorts of problems with it that I haven't thought of yet.  But my unsolicited advice to newer folks struggling with pattern would probably be:

   1) Gain familiarity with that list of patterns, and look for them everywhere in nature. "Ah, a honey comb!"
   2) Ask yourself what problem is being solved, or what tension or boundary stresses are present that the pattern is evolving from.  "Ah, the bees are trying to maximize strength over an area, but minimize weight with minimal materials!*" or "the bees have several cells for their brood, and want to pack them in tightly as possible"
   3) Hold the patterns in your mind's back pocket for a rainy day, and if a problem comes up on your homestead or design site, the pattern might intuitively come to mind.  "Ah, if I offset or stagger my plantings in a hexagonal manner, then I can fit more trees in compared with rectangular planting!"

Random factoid: Modern composite aircraft structural skins, like those in search and rescue helicopters, are honeycomb patterned. Yay biomimicry!

George, what a pretty design! Very well thought out. Thank you for explaining the patterns and rationale behind it. Do you have a projected starting date to make it a reality? Or are you still working on some fine tuning on the drawing board?

Leigh Tate wrote:George, what a pretty design! Very well thought out. Thank you for explaining the patterns and rationale behind it.

Thank you for the compliments.  Honestly, its surprising that there is no "patterns" sub-forum already.

Mollison, PaDM, pg 70. wrote:“The pattern is design, and design is the subject of permaculture.”

Perhaps at some point we all can craft a series of wikis, one for each pattern.  A template may consist of:

-Pattern name;
-Form or Shape (a doodle);
-List of a few examples found in nature (plus pretty pictures);
-Interpretations of boundary-conditions or qualities resulting in the pattern, or what problem or tensions are being resolved in its design.
-Pattern application examples:

Biomimicry in technology

Farmstead design application

Cultural or organizational use

Do you have a projected starting date to make it a reality? Or are you still working on some fine tuning on the drawing board?

We started plantings for this design portion over two years ago, actually, and here is a post on 10 things I learned during the planting process for the broader space.  The lessons are from both a practical, tree planting perspective, as well as a more allegorical, organizational leadership perspective.

Here's one way I'm trying to improve our homestead design with pattern. The patterns of swales are created as curving lines according to the contour of the land. It occurred to me that my grazing paddocks could follow the same pattern.

This is roughly how my current paddocks look.

a plan I made several years ago when researching soil building in different usage areas

My paddocks are all squares and triangle shapes. Recently, I've taken a closer look at the contour of the land.

contour lines are every 4 feet. yellow X's indicate the highest points

To work it out, I roughly superimposed the contour lines over my Gimp made map.

lines are approximately in place

Now, I'm looking at reshaping the paddocks along contour. Thanks to watching Bill Mollison's PDC videos, this makes more sense to me.

with proposed paddock fences

Eventually, we will add swales along the contours as well.

Hexagon Orchard
I like to plant in a hexagon grid pattern. Which on at the edge is more like a stream pattern (boxy wave). With the hexagon, I get to pack the most in a confined spaced

Spiral Herbs?
I know that the less water herbs have the more aromatic they are. And a quick draining raised bed vs a sunken swale help to replicate that. Rice on the other hand I would put in a sunken wet area. But why we do a spiral for the elevated herb hill? We could have done concentric circles, but that would have soaked the water. A spiral will shed the water downhill smoothly unlike say a star that would have created ravines. Would the inverse of a herb spiral be a crater garden, should we always pair them together,  a hill/mound with a depression?

What about walkways/roadways, what patterns should we use?

I like this design

I've been thing about patterns with respect to building (I'm not really a planter). I build in the desert, so I think about the patterns of the washes, mesas, and rock formations. I haven't gotten far in understanding them, though I know at the root of it is water. While we were canoeing through a canyon in a downpour, a friend said, "The shape of the desert only makes sense when it rains."

When designing a roof, this seems profound to me. How do you shape a roof to match the run-off patterns all around you? I tried to match it intuitively with the roof on my cob privy, but my intuitions are imperfect.

Then there's channeling the water after it comes off the roof. How best to use water when it evaporates quickly? Storing it in a rain barrel is good, but it doesn't fit the patterns I see.

Like I said, I haven't gotten far in this, but it's a fun puzzle to mull over.

To me, a pattern may become a “tool” at some time in the future, but early on in the process it’s more something I come to recognize as familiarity grows.

If I “play” with dust, dirt or snow laden wind, by placing different kinds of obstructions in the wind’s way, I learn a lot about air currents- and can extrapolate to water currents and the patterns formed by their fluid movement.

If I obstruct the wind, like with a solid wall , the wind wraps around it, directly behind the wall, if the wind slows, it will drop what it is carrying… every place the wind slows.  Where the wind’s course is diverted, it speeds up and picks up dust and sand.  There’s turbulence created too.

If I make a semipermeable thing like a hedge, or a row of pallets, that the wind can pass through, it slows, and drops dust and sand in the hedge.  These are useful things to know, useful patterns to understand, useful to help accomplish your goals as you dream of your future.

I knew a man who complained that every time the wind blew, he had to use his leaf blower to blow the dust off his patio.  Not a permie, I assure you!  Maybe he likes his gasoline powered leaf blower and internal combustion engine is music to his ears.  I mentioned to him that if he planted some shrubs that would slow the wind, the dust would drop before it got to his doorstep and his windows, but nothing doing!🤷🏻‍♀️



Once familiar with patterns created by turbulence, you can see them in the clouds in the sky, can tell when wind is blowing fast over a mountain top (lenticularis clouds).  When the clouds look like wavelet patterns on the beach or on a sandbar, one layer of air is moving over a second layer of air of different temperature and humidity.

Patterns exist.  We gain familiarity, and then we let that familiarity help us to not work against the existing patterns of the world.😊.

Like this:  i followed Ianto Evans directions in his classic book about building with cob.  I built a cob greenhouse, and built a rocket stove mass heater in it.  I made a horizontal exit for the exhaust.  That stove wouldn’t draw!

Where Ianto built his house with rocket stove, the wind is always from the same direction.  His stove’s horizontal exit was on the downwind side of his house.  The wind blowing past creates a lower pressure on that side of the house.  The lower pressure created a draft out the stove pipe.  Yay.  The stove never smoked.

I lived somewhere else.  There were stone cliffs (1000 feet high) and canyons in those cliffs, and the wind was VERY changeable.  My stove smoked a lot!  I had to make the stovepipe higher than the ridge of the roof to get the stove to draw.

Once I learned enough about how air currents flow, I could understand how it worked.  And I can “see” the patterns of airflow even when they’re invisible.

I don’t know if this will be helpful, but I think of patterns as ways our minds organize complex phenomena into understandable bodies of interrelated knowledge.

Start with observation. Now can you see natures patterns?

Oh, yes, the misterious patterns.

I remember I tried to put a pattern into work early in my design. For the beds, I was looking at forming a grid for maximizing the use of the surface. I went for equilateral triangles. On the paper it looked like it could really work, less area lost in transitions. However, building equiliateral triangled beds was a real challenge. What I have now is more or less a grid too, but it is made of long rectangles which are easier to build.

For the paths, I kept in mind the 'brach' pattern. A main path with branches is the most efficient way to move stuff between the entrance and the whole garden. Also the path for the wheelbarrow has to be flat, for reducing resistance.

The wave pattern is great for making energy flow, without really moving. The practical application is following cycles. We go to the garden roughly at the same hour the same days of the week, forming a wave. This helps us to create a habit of going to the garden at the appointed time. Also, pruning in winter, sowing in spring, harvesting in summer, this is, going with the seasons, is another wave.

For my wind protection I use two patterns. One is rough surfaces, or lobes, which help to slow down any fluid, wind in this case. The other is the semisphere, meant for making cool air to stay inside the hedges (hot air moves upwards, cool air goes downwards, and if has nowhere to go, it stays in the bed). This helps lowering the temperature of the beds during the night, reducing evaporation.

For watering new sapplings, I dig a bowl around the plant (another semisphere), this is the fastest way to pour 30 litres of water in seconds to the plant, and be sure that it will go to the roots.


Surely there must be other examples.

I knew of "agro-froestry" before learning of permaculture. Agro-forests are planting tall native hardwoods, shorter fruit trees, fruit bushes, the perennial short plants, then annuals, then reverse on the other side.
The PATTERN can be conceived as 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1....  like a "waveform" up and down up and down... that's the CONCEPT

The Concept repeats in a pattern because of its effective nature, which mimics nature. The edge of a forest where it opens to a pasture of native grasses will look like this.

Some like to add more "style" and "decoration" to it all, but I focus on the plants / food. There will always be a "pattern" that emerges  anyway, because it's nature and then nurture.

If your priority is beauty, focus on style. If your priority is food, focus on the plants. If you want BOTH, start with focus on the plants, and then go back through adding style to it all.

I find that the longer I wait to "decorate" the more useful and natural ideas seem to come to me, because I am using the space (functionality) after I have seen it (beauty) in every season, and I can work with nature, instead of trying to make it obey me.

My advice- ignore the "rules" of permaculture, and pay attention to the "patterns" that emerge from any "system". If you look at successful pictures of others projects, you will see how layers are in every pic. Elevation changes are in every pic. variety and close planting in every pic, etc. The other thing to do which will make this clearer to you, is to visit a local state park or wildnerness area and spend time sitting on the edge of the forest. Note that nothing is flat, nothing in a straight line, nothing is monocropped, etc. Nature will show you how to lay it out. People will show you how to "style" it afterward.

As for your outhouse, build a rock wall around it to catch the water off the roof, or dig a hole and line it with a billboard liner (craigslist) for storing water in the ground, a wildlife pond, etc...

I dont even like the "zones" idea of permaculture, around a central structure, as I prefer to have MULTIPLE zones around multiple points of interest, and repeat plantings of the same things (redundancy)

The very first thing I let the land tell me about how it is to be laid out, is water drainage. Water is the biggest threat to any home. It can steal your soil, rot your structures, drown your food, etc. So if you handle the channeling, dispersal and storage of water first (based on terrain of your land), everything you do after that will "make sense" and "mirror nature" because water is the primary force shaping any landscape, followed by sun/shade/temps. Even the soil does not matter as much (you can raise a bed, dig out a bed, amend a bed, or just use in ground as-is). My soil was sand when I moved to my land, and now it's all rich black humus full of organics, 10 years later, and I dont buy any soil. All mulch and composted stuff changed my soil rapidly and to root-depth, with zero digging.

This is your dream to build, you will learn by failure, but no failure is a catastrophe. It's leveling up.

The largest pattern you see is obviously the spiral.  So, why a spiral other than the beauty of it?  

Well, each pattern in nature solves a problem, right?  Patterns resolve tension. ...

This "pattern" would drive me nuts. It's a hassle to get to the office at the center... nothing in nature works like this... it will take care to preserve this shape and layout...
I would only use this if I had a full time gardener and the office was some sort of local attraction people came to see...
I'd never use this at my home! Think about bringing a wheelbarrow to the center... PAIN IN THE....
Wasted walking, and once it's filled in with plants you can't see any spirals but from the air... and I can't fly.

Instead of these labor intensive designs, spirals, just use "comma" (like the punctuation) shapes... simpler, same principles, none of the obstacles or annoyance...

UNLESS of course you designing it all for the airplane passengers who might fly over and look someday

Bj Murrey wrote:
This "pattern" would drive me nuts. It's a hassle to get to the office at the center... nothing in nature works like this... it will take care to preserve this shape and layout...
I would only use this if I had a full time gardener and the office was some sort of local attraction people came to see...
I'd never use this at my home! Think about bringing a wheelbarrow to the center... PAIN IN THE....
Wasted walking, and once it's filled in with plants you can't see any spirals but from the air... and I can't fly.

Instead of these labor intensive designs, spirals, just use "comma" (like the punctuation) shapes... simpler, same principles, none of the obstacles or annoyance...

UNLESS of course you designing it all for the airplane passengers who might fly over and look someday

Great feedback, BJ!  

I designed my orchard about 7 years ago, and your feedback is welcome.  Of course, I designed it for me, but if I were designing for others, it would have looked drastically differently.  Some replies regarding the "non-efficient" shape:

1) Yes, I did design it for aerial view!  

I was a Navy H-60 pilot in my former life.  I believe one of the primary reasons people fly is so they can enjoy the earth, not the sky.  This is the kind of thing that makes heads turn and people smile or go "hmm" and feel a sense of wonder.  Lots of civilian and military aircraft overfly the farm.  I even keep a "runway" field free of large trees...just in case someone needs to make an emergency landing some day.  

2)  Yes, I did design it to eventually be an attraction.  

I want it to be a meditative walking labyrinth-like experience were families can enter and slow down and pick fruits and veggies and flowers.  I am building the office at a different spot for greater ease of access, but when folks enter the spiral and get to the center, I want to have it so they can picnic or press fresh cider or dance on a bandstand, or do some agritourist-y things with a sense of privacy.  The don't have to follow a "path" though.  They will be able to walk between the trees, too.

3) It's a slow / defensive / private pattern, kind of like a snail.  

The spiral shape is my (not yet launched) business logo, and it reminds me of a helicopter main and tail rotor system, a nod to my past.  But moreover, the "E" shape is a silly "love letter" to my wife.

So overall, it's intended for a sense of intimacy, not efficiency.