Whole Systems Design, LLC

Whole Systems Design, LLC Resiliency Planning • Site Design + Development • Transition Training
www.wholesystemsdesign.com • ht

Whole Systems Design is composed of an interdisciplinary team of land planners, ecologists, builders, and educators that live in their designs. We unify conventionally disparate fields to develop regenerative places. We differ from other designers in that we actually live inside of our work everyday. We don't work in class A office space; we live amidst the spaces, plants and ecosystems we design.

We build soil, tend to fruit trees, fix tractors, tweak wood stoves, sharpen axes, raise vegetables, fruit and fish, stack firewood, tune solar hot water systems, and learn from the innumerable ways one lives in a productive landscape across the seasons. We could not deliver valuable site and building design and construction experience without practicing the content of our design on a daily basis. Since the practice of modern architecture and land design is far removed from the consequences of its application it reliably produces dysfunctional spaces unfit for vibrant people and other living things. This distancing of designer from the designed is why these fields have continually lost relevance for the past 50 years. Our practice is part of the design-build, owner-builder movement that is transcending the industrial process which has passed for 'design' for far too long.

TONIGHT....!https://mailchi.mp/wholesystemsdesign/wood-heating-intensive-2026-last-call?e=%5BUNIQID%5D&fbclid=IwY2xjawPo...
01/29/2026

TONIGHT....!

https://mailchi.mp/wholesystemsdesign/wood-heating-intensive-2026-last-call?e=%5BUNIQID%5D&fbclid=IwY2xjawPoS6pleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFWYWtPTDd3Mm9ZTzZ4b0Zjc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHpLaUi58MAxq1XYi2aYB3Fv5tjoHLDF2RwrjYQo5kuJM1uDfCGowY6jGz2nL_aem_03oZJsGx0H8KyfBvj6mI-A

Tonight at 7pm EST, I’ll be hosting a live Wood Heating Intensive online workshop focused on the most resilient way I know to meet a home’s core needs (heat, cooking, and hot water) without grid reliance or any electricity.

Without our friends from the Great White North we still have some spots in our annual (19th) permaculture course!
07/01/2025

Without our friends from the Great White North we still have some spots in our annual (19th) permaculture course!

Happy solstice! We recently wrapped up the largest online course we’ve hosted – the Permaculture Pond Masterclass – where 160 people spanning from North America to Uruguay and Chile, to Finland, to Western Australia enrolled to study how water systems can turn crisis into capacity.

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2021/05/25/pfas-pfos-forever-chemicals-garden-fertilizers/7418828002/The...
05/06/2025

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2021/05/25/pfas-pfos-forever-chemicals-garden-fertilizers/7418828002/
The PFAS issue has changed what inputs we consider viable more than any other toxicity concern thus far. We stopped using cardboard for instance in sheet mulching years ago when this began to emerge.

"Home gardeners, therefore, might be adding another route for harmful PFAS compounds to enter their bodies through the fertilizers they use — often dubbed "natural" — and the fruits and vegetables they grow that absorb those compounds, said Gillian Zaharias Miller, senior scientist with the Ecology Center.

"The bigger message is, as long as we keep using products that use PFAS, like our waterproof clothing, our nonstick cooking utensils, and so many other commercial and industrial applications, we will have all of these chemicals come back to us," she said. "We can't get rid of them." "

Wastewater treatment plants sell their sewage sludge for use as fertilizer. And that sludge, researchers found, often contains PFAS compounds

Have gotten a lot of questions over the years as to how mead and cider process and this interview gets at many of them.....
01/20/2025

Have gotten a lot of questions over the years as to how mead and cider process and this interview gets at many of them...

My guest for this episode is Ben Falk. If you don’t know Ben, he’s the author of The Resilient Farm and Homestead, 20 Years of Permaculture and Whole Systems Design, which I would describe as THE homesteading manual and is the result of decades of Ben’s life in Vermont designing, implementing,...

As we head into moderate drought over the past few weeks it's been a great time to find and harvest water. One of the ne...
11/12/2024

As we head into moderate drought over the past few weeks it's been a great time to find and harvest water. One of the new springs and pond sites I just developed - almost filled in two weeks from a spring (probably a new spring) - the result of storing water uphill for the past 10+ years. Very grateful to have new ponds filling from pure spring water during a drought. When it's wet look for dry ground, when it's dry find and store water.

10/04/2024

This lady and her husband had just made it down the mountain and her heart needed some mule love. She said it was the first time she had cried. What Apache did for this woman in just allowing her to release those pent up emotions, is something no human could have provided! ❤️🇺🇸

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Waitsfield, VT

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