But first I must tend my own garden

Designing for Belonging: Social Permaculture and the Foundations of Village Life

When people dream of building a community, a village, or even just a better way of living together, the focus often goes first to what’s visible: houses, gardens, water systems, roads. These are the physical bones of a place. But what holds a community together is not just infrastructure. It’s the space between people—the care, communication, and mutual understanding that shape daily life. This is the work of social permaculture.

Social permaculture takes the principles of ecological permaculture and applies them to people. Where traditional permaculture might focus on water flow, sunlight, and soil health, social permaculture looks at how trust flows, how roles and responsibilities are shared, and how the culture of a place is nurtured over time. It’s not just about building structures—it’s about designing for belonging.

From Survival to Growth: A Human-Centered LensOne helpful way to think about these needs is through the lens of human motivation. Psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman, building on the work of Abraham Maslow, offers a metaphor that can be useful here. Instead of thinking of human needs as a pyramid, he proposes the image of a sailboat.

The boat itself represents our basic security needs: safety, connection, and self-esteem. These form the foundation of stability. Without a sturdy boat, we can’t set out into the unknown.

The sail represents our needs for growth: exploration, love, purpose, and creativity. With a strong boat, we’re free to raise the sail and move toward fulfillment.

In community design, this metaphor reminds us that belonging and growth depend on meeting the basics first. If someone doesn’t feel physically safe, emotionally supported, or seen, they won’t have much capacity for creative contribution or collaboration. The foundation matters.

What Does That Look Like in a Village?Social permaculture helps us think through how we meet these needs intentionally, and how we do so together—not just as individuals.

Safety
Safety isn’t only about physical structures. It’s also emotional. In a well-designed community, people know:

• Where to sleep
• How to get food and water
• Who to call on if they’re sick
• That there’s a clear and fair process if conflict arises

This is what the sailboat metaphor would call building the hull. Without it, no one can sail anywhere.
In traditional villages, this safety was built into daily rhythms: regular meals, collective care for children and elders, simple but consistent rules about how to treat one another. Safety didn’t have to be policed—it was practiced.

Connection
Social permaculture teaches us to make space for connection as infrastructure. That means:

• Designing places where people naturally gather (shared kitchens, walkways, gardens)
• Having rituals—daily, weekly, seasonal—that bring people together
• Encouraging peer-to-peer support, not just formal roles
  
  

Villages thrive when people are regularly visible to each other. Connection isn’t forced—it’s built through small moments, shared meals, and working side by side.

Self-worth
This comes when people feel they have something to contribute—and that their contribution is seen and valued.
One person might be great at organizing tasks, another at fixing tools, another at calming an upset child. Social permaculture helps communities recognize these contributions, beyond just economic productivity.

Roles can rotate. Gifts can be encouraged. Power can be shared.

Raising the Sail: Designing for GrowthOnce those foundational needs are met, the sail can be raised. In a community, this is where we see:

• People offering ideas and taking initiative
• Creativity in problem-solving
• Space for play, art, and beauty
• Conversations about shared purpose

Social permaculture helps hold this growth gently. It’s not about productivity for its own sake. It’s about giving people the freedom to explore, within a structure of mutual care.
In traditional villages, the sail was raised through story, dance, celebration, and ceremony. These weren’t “extras.” They were part of keeping the village whole—reminding people who they were, and who they were becoming.

Starting from Zone 0
In permaculture, Zone 0 is the self. Social permaculture reminds us that any strong community must begin here.
Designing for Zone 0 might mean:

• Building in time for rest and retreat
• Respecting different energy levels or communication styles
• Encouraging self-awareness and personal reflection
• Teaching skills like listening, boundary-setting, and emotional regulation

This isn’t just “personal development.” It’s community resilience. A group is only as strong as the people within it. When individuals feel grounded and supported, the whole system benefits.

What We Can Learn from Traditional Villages
Before we had zoning laws and masterplans, communities were shaped by necessity and relationship. Villages grew around water sources, under shade trees, along trade routes. They responded to the land, the climate, and to the patterns of human life.

Social infrastructure was embedded, not outsourced. People didn’t have to join a program to feel connected—they were the program.

From this we can learn:

• To start small and local
• To build around daily rhythms, not schedules
• To design for real human needs, not abstract ideals

And most importantly, to see culture not as a side product, but as something we design for, just like we do with water catchment or energy flow.

Moving from Isolation to InterdependenceMany people today are lonely. Even those in cities or shared housing often lack meaningful connection. Social permaculture helps us ask why—and offers a framework for rebuilding interdependence with care.
It gives us tools to think about:

• How people enter a community and find their place
• What helps people feel safe enough to be honest
• How conflict can become compost, not a crisis
• How to hold difference with respect and curiosity

It reminds us that sustainability is not just about carbon or compost. It’s about whether people want to stay.

A Simple Starting PlaceYou don’t need to start a village to use social permaculture. You can start where you are:

• Have a regular meal with neighbors or housemates
• Create a shared ritual that marks the season
• Ask what people really need, and how to meet it together
• Build small agreements—about space, noise, care, cleanup—and adjust them over time

Communities don’t fail because of ideals. They often fail because of invisible needs not being met. Social permaculture helps us see those needs and respond early, before disconnection sets in.

In the End​This also helps explain why resorts, even the most beautiful and well-designed ones, cannot sustain true relational living. Resorts are built for escape, not entanglement. They often prioritize privacy, consumption, and aesthetic appeal over shared infrastructure, mutual care, and social rhythm. While they may offer short bursts of relaxation, they rarely support the deeper systems—shared meals, conflict repair, collective purpose—that are required for lasting community. To live well together, we need more than just elegant spaces. We need a transformation in how we design for relationship. That means moving beyond resort models and reimagining what a village can be—where the architecture holds not only bodies, but belonging.