"Don't burn your dreams-BUILD YOUR DREAMS!" - BuildingMan is a Sustainable Permaculture Event that utilizes alternative energy and recycling as a model for a better world. We have all "burned" the man at Burningman but BUILDINGMAN goes beyond the element of "fire" and intitiates the three other elements as inspiration to create rather than destroy. Rising from the ashes of BurningMan, BuildingMan emerges! Each year in Black Rock City, we burn enough brand new wood to create a permanent city somewhere. We'd love to mobilize those resources into a new city of conscious creators.

There is hope if people will begin to awaken that spiritual part of themselves, that heartfelt knowledge that we are caretakers of this planet.


Below is a list of possitive inspirations and ideas.

Beyond Sustainability
Care of the Earth
Care of the People
Return of Surplus
Art as infrastructure
Green building
alt fuel
no waste
bartar economy
appropriate scale
water management
waste treatment
land stewardship
leave event with practical principles to green your city and home
new economic structure
energy efficiency:appropriate technology
Permaculture Design Principles
Observe and Interact: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Catch and Store Energy:Make hay while the sun shines.
Obtain a Yield: You can't work on an empty stomach.
Apply Self-regulation and Accept Feedback: The impact of our decisions affects other life forms long after we are gone as expressed in the following, the sins of the fathers are visited on the children unto the seventh generation.
Use and Value Renewable Resources and Services: Let nature take it's course.
Produce No Waste: A stitch in time saves nine. Waste not, want not.
Design from Patterns to Details: Can't see the wood for the trees.
Integrate Rather than Segregate: Many hands make light work.
Use Small and Slow Solutions: It is easier to correct one step at a time. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Slow and steady wins the race.
Use and Value Diversity: Don't put all your eggs into one basket.
Use Edges and Value the Marginal: Just because you are on a well-beaten path, does not mean it's the right track.
Creatively Use and Respond To Change: Vision is seeing things as they can be and taking small steps to make it happen.
Consciously designed landscapes which mimic the patterns and relationships found in nature, while yielding an abundance of food, fibre and energy for provision of local needs. People, their buildings and the ways in which they organise themselves are central to permaculture. Thus the permaculture vision of permanent or sustainable agriculture has evolved to one of permanent or sustainable culture.
PERMACULTURE(permanent culture) is an approach to everyday life that integrates plants, animals, landscape, structures; people who purposely design all the facets of their lives to enhance environmental sustainability within a permanent, sustainable agricultural and cultural system - a diverse, complex eco-system, where the all of the elements interact in mutually beneficial ways to produce a whole which is greater than the sum of its parts.
Permanent is from the Latin "permanens" - to remain to the end, to persist throughout. Culture is from the Latin "cultura" - meaning the cultivation of land, or the intellect. It is a philosophy, an ethic of caring for the earth and working with, not against nature with an attitude of thoughtful observation, an action-meditation - rather than undirected and thoughtless labor. A way of looking beyond a single-product system, and a means to leave the earth richer than we found it. Its aim is to create self-maintaining, efficient, and highly productive agricultural eco-systems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural eco-systems.
By observing a natural eco-system, we can learn to imitate nature and create a man-made eco-system, a symbiotic relationship, that is productive, non-polluting, and beneficial to the whole environment, where everything is innerconnected, sustaining all living things within the system. When correctly designed, such a system will become increasingly diverse, resilient, and self-sustaining, conserving soil, water, and energy. Permaculture is a conscious design and maintenance of systems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of a natural eco-system. It is a harmonious integration of the land with people - providing food, energy, shelter, and material and non-material needs in a sustainable way.
Permaculture is a practical and creative approach to the problems of diminishing resources and threatened life support systems now facing the world. It is a holistic approach to human culture - an integration of biology, ecology, agriculture, architecture, technology, and building. It requires that what is learned about biology, energy, physics, eco-systems, water flow, and climate be applied in everyday life - providing us with shelter, food, water, income, and community, giving each of us an aesthetic and spiritual fulfillment within a beautifully balanced and healthy biological community - a sustainable and secure place for all living things on the earth - growing in richness, aesthetic beauty, and productivity. Permaculture is not an end, it is a means - a way that can lead us towards a sustainable, ecologically sound, self perpetuating systems that will produce an efficient, low-maintenance, productive integration of plants, animals, humans, commerce, and structures. The ultimate result: a balanced eco-stability and food self-sufficiency in the smallest practical area.
Permaculture (PERMAnent agriCULTURE or PERMAnent CULTURE) is a sustainable design system stressing the harmonious interrelationship of humans, plants, animals and the Earth.
Permaculture is a practical concept which can be applied in the city, on the farm, and in the wilderness. Its principles empower people to establish highly productive environments providing for food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs, including economic. Carefully observing natural patterns characteristic of a particular site, the permaculture designer gradually discerns optimal methods for integrating water catchment, human shelter, and energy systems with tree crops, edible and useful perennial plants, domestic and wild animals and aquaculture.
Permaculture adopts techniques and principles from ecology, appropriate technology, sustainable agriculture, and the wisdom of indigenous peoples. The ethical basis of permaculture rests upon care of the earth-maintaining a system in which all life can thrive. This includes human access to resources and provisions, but not the accumulation of wealth, power, or land beyond their needs.
Permaculture principles focus on thoughtful designs for small-scale intensive systems which are labor efficient and which use biological resources instead of fossil fuels. Designs stress ecological connections and closed energy and material loops. The core of permaculture is design and the working relationships and connections between all things. Each component in a system performs multiple functions, and each function is supported by many elements. Key to efficient design is observation and replication of natural ecosystems, where designers maximize diversity with polycultures, stress efficient energy planning for houses and settlement, using and accelerating natural plant succession, and increasing the highly productive "edge-zones" within the system.
Permaculture is: the design of land use systems that are sustainable and environmentally sound; the design of culturally appropriate systems which lead to social stability; a design system characterized by an integrated application of ecological principles in land use; an international movement for land use planning and design; an ethical system stressing positivism and cooperation.
In the broadest sense, permaculture refers to land use systems which promote stability in society, utilize resources in a sustainable way and preserve wildlife habitat and the genetic diversity of wild and domestic plants and animals. It is a synthesis of ecology and geography, of observation and design. Permaculture involves ethics of earth care because the sustainable use of land cannot be separated from life-styles and philosophical issues.
Permaculture is one of the most holistic, integrated systems analysis and design methodologies found in the world.
Permaculture can be applied to create productive ecosystems from the human- use standpoint or to help degraded ecosystems recover health and wildness. Permaculture can be applied in any ecosystem, no matter how degraded.
Permaculture values and validates traditional knowledge and experience. Permaculture incorporates sustainable agriculture practices and land management techniques and strategies from around the world. Permaculture is a bridge between traditional cultures and emergent earth-tuned cultures.
Permaculture promotes organic agriculture which does not use pesticides to pollute the environment.
Permaculture aims to maximize symbiotic and synergistic relationships between site components.
Permaculture is urban planning as well as rural land design.
Permaculture design is site specific, client specific, and culture specific.
Permaculture also acknowledges a basic life ethic, which recognizes the intrinsic worth of every living thing. A tree has value in itself, even if it presents no commercial value to humans. That the tree is alive and functioning is worthwhile. It is doing its part in nature: recycling litter, producing oxygen, sequestering carbon dioxide, sheltering animals, building soils, and so on.

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