The permaculture concept home has been missing a room: a dedicated indoor space that can be used for production. Imagine you just finished eating dinner and you walk to the next room while still chewing that last bite of roasted chicken. You close the door, pick up your impact driver and get right back at your new chicken tractor design you were assembling. How productive can you get if your workflow has less interruptions and if the space was dedicated to actual work?
So far I have strived to keep the plan efficient and add only spaces and elements with real function. It’s been a very lean 3bed/2.5 bath house with lots of permaculture concepts hewn in. However I am realizing now I am missing some real opportunity for some really functional, life enhancing spaces. Besides, this is not meant to be a starter home. This is meant to be a forever home.
I’ve decided to add this new room to the house. It would have all the benefits of a shed/workshop in your property and it would also be so convenient that it will be the most productive part of the house.
A dedicated room for productive people, to support a homestead economy
Imagine a fully finished, climate controlled garage workshop only it can be a craft room, studio, sun room or indoor farm. A production space where you can have your functional mess and produce whatever your homesteading thing is. It could be a place for:
- start seeds indoors
- move plants in for the winter
- year round food production (like you might get from an aquaponics system)
- shop for 3D printing or assembling
- produce movies
- crafts or art space
A dedicated indoor space to extend activities tightly connected to zone 1 work
Speaking of producing, this space empowers the family to create income and have more resilience. This would allow more capability to live further from the cities and contribute to a local economy.
Older homes may have called these a keeping, a library would have been similar. Newer homes may have a game room or study. For our purposes, this is a dedicated indoor space for homesteading and production tasks that are nicer to do indoors (particularly here in Texas during the summer). In the winter, you would be huddled in this shop with all your plants that you have moved indoors. Might be too cozy and lush but hopefully you doze off in it after doing actual work.
Video below explaining the thought process. Odysee link here
My goal at Alt-Ark is to Make Architecture More Permaculture, to help you build that permaculture house on the homestead.
Alt-Ark 