Experiments in sustainable and regenerative urban living in our home & community
Who wouldn’t want a future that looks like this?
Concept art by Jessica Perlstein representing San Francisco as described in Starhawk’s ‘The Fifth Sacred Thing’.
THE VISION
For a long while now I’ve been interested in the
future. I’ve eagerly soaked up learning from Rob Hopkins and the transition towns movement, Starhawk and earth-based spirituality, systems and complexity approaches to change and sharing, solidarity and new economics. I’ve been involved in creating a more beautiful world with the Share Cardiff project, working in the city. Now I’m keen to find expression for the better future I’d like to live in, in my home context.
Sally Hughes, July 2020
Windsor Terrace House-Holding
Home
Three story traditional mid-terrace house circa 1895
Back Garden
April 2019, a blank canvas, nothing but grass and stone.
Front Garden
Box hedge and mature pernnial shrubs.
Penarth
Where we dwell
The windsor Terrace house-holding story so far…
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In April 2020, Sally signed up to do a Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) with Sarah Pugh at Shift Bristol, brought to Cardiff by Poppy Nichol at Global Gardens. This is the story of her permaculture design project, completed for the PDC.
The project involves experiments in sustainable and regenerative urban living at various scales, personal, home, garden & community.
It’s about simple living, elegant sufficiency, reconnecting to nature and community and restoring the Earth. The vision aligns well with the permaculture ethics of caring for the Earth, caring for people and sharing.
Work will be around designing for less consumption, more growing, making and mending, towards self-reliance and more co-operation, as we move towards community-reliance in the rise of sharing and relocalising systems that meet our needs.
We aim to design systems for our lifestyle and household that are sustainable and regenerative, we are keen to see how we can retrofit to make the house more energy efficient and environmentally friendly.
We are putting our attention to the household, garden & lifestyle choices we make, for example, what we buy/don’t buy, where we buy it/don’t buy it from. Also, what we find for free locally, how we reuse, reduce, repair and recycle. Aiming for zero-waste, creatively using what we have to hand.
Our house-holding
We live in a three storey traditional mid-terrace house circa 1895 in a designated conservation area. Located a minutes walk from the bustling high street in Penarth, a seaside town on the outskirts of Cardiff.
It is an intergenerational home, we are experimenting with shared living – Sally’s Dad, Tony, lives on ground floor, Sally, Drew and toddler, Arthur live on the top two floors, with springer spaniel, Lily.
Growing Spaces
For the first stage of the project we are developing the spaces we have for growing:
Front Garden
July 2020, water butt, area for raised beds, once all the shrubs have been dug up!