An Intro to Permaculture Site Analysis in Urban Areas
Sustainable culture requires a permanent form of agriculture, one that mimics nature’s patterns and cultivates universal ethics.
By tapping your local natural resources (sun, wind, water, soil, flora and fauna, slope) you can design a productive ecological habitat that contributes to your food, energy and water security.
In this workshop you’ll learn how to assess a site’s opportunities and challenges to reveal how you can generate beneficial relationships between water catchment, gardens, woodland, and nutrient cycles - in your yard or in your neighborhood.
When: 10.30am to 12.30pm, Sunday, November 9th 2025
Where: Montgomery College Food Forest, 7719 Chicago Ave, Takoma Park, MD, 20912
Cost: $25 (we have a limited number of free spaces so pls reach out if this price is too high for you)
This workshop will cover the following:
• Observation Sensory Exercise (outdoors)
• The Design Process
• Site Analysis, local natural resources & conditions - Team Exercise (outdoors)
• Mapping site condition layers
• Permaculture Design Strategies
• Site Assessment; Opportunities & Constraints - Team exercise
This workshop will include outdoor practicum and a hands-on sketch exercise.
***Please bring a an 8 1⁄2” x 11” plat/survey/site plan/areal photo of your property or a site you’d like to design***
Instructor Bio:
Patricia Ceglia has practiced and taught permaculture for decades. She is a retired architect who now teaches ecological stormwater management and native/edible landscape design, consulting for private clients, and the watershed conservancies. She has taught Permaculture Design and Natural Building at Wilson College and Goucher College, as well as various independent education programs.
Her students have redesigned a variety of sites, including a neighborhood block in Washington DC, a green alley in Baltimore, MD, a housing project in Pretoria, South Africa, a multi-family townhouse complex in Annapolis, MD, a historic family compound in southern France, public and private schools in Hershey, PA, Baltimore and Washington DC, a prototypical suburban house in Accra, Ghana, a “McMansion” in suburban Washington DC, a rural Montana homestead, a Colorado vineyard, and an organic CSA farm on the eastern shore, MD.