Design Motivations

It is important to have great integrity when starting to design something, in permaculture, as ultimately lack of integrity will make any project fail (and if the motivation is destructo-cultural, then it's not a perma-cultural design)

The vision > mission > objectives framework ensures internal integrity (with your own self), but this Motivation of Design table is designed to check for external integrity (with the wide world). It starts with 'only go where invited': what real social problems are there to solve?

This table (from the Designers Manual, by Mollison) challenges us to compare the PC (PermaCulture) motivations with the usual DC (DestructoCulture) motivations: are we just green-washing or doing something really useful for society?

I look for

what needs to be done.

After all,

that's how the universe

designs itself.

- R. Buckminster Fuller

página en español aquí

click to expand image

Basically we are trying to be aware of the 'ego' motivations we have absorbed as 'normal' from our culture, and - by becoming more conscious - tend more towards the 'eco', as illustrated in tihs picture (reverse the above table and they're saying the same kind of thing)