This week we take a look at the actual process of designing your homestead. The framework we use to guide our design process is called SADIMEA, and it consists of the following 7 phases:

• Survey - This phase is all about gathering data - developing intimate knowledge of the environment and context within which your life is lived.
• Analysis - Sifting, sorting, list making, relationship mapping and number crunching to organize & MAKE MEANING from the data.
• Design - Many pieces begin to knit together into a cohesive, functional and beautiful whole - where you design a system of systems that is redundantly abundant.
• Implementation - Planning the work yields to working the plan - shovels in the dirt.
• Maintenance / Monitoring / Management / Measurement - Attentive and intensive management of newly established systems, and planned maintenance of well-established or mature systems. Collectively, the M-phase of SADIMEA is all about about making sure your system has everything it needs to perform its design function, and learning where it needs improvement and gathering enough feedback that you can make a viable plan for making that improvement.
• Evaluation - During the Evaluation phase we integrate feedback from the monitoring of systems (new, establishing and climax) and we hold them up against our stated goals & vision & dQoL and ask "How am I doing?" "Is this working?" etc.
• Adjustment - Iteration of your designed systems, conducting safe-to-fail experiments, and improving by doing.

SADIMEA is simple, straightforward, and flexible enough to be applicable in pretty much any design scenario that is dealing with complex systems (such as a homestead).

Show Resources

• Download Google Earth Pro - easy mapping for your homestead
• Download QGIS - free, open-source GIS mapping application if you need/want more mapping horsepower.
• Detailed SADIMEA blog post with all the nitty gritty details and lots of links.
• NRCS Web Soil Survey portal - easy, fast way to high-level information about your soils and their strengths, weaknesses and capabilities.
• VIDEO: Visual Soil Survey - get out and dig a hole!
• BOOK: When Weeds Talk - by Jay L. McCaman - excellent resource for inferring what is going on in your soils based on the weeds you observe growing there.
• SADIMEA Illustrated Poster [PDF]

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WHAT I DO:

Design:

On-Site Consultation

Online Site/Project Consultation

Holistic Ecosystem Design

Implementation:

Water Harvesting Earthworks

High-function, Low-Maintenance Access

Living Systems

Spring Development

Courses:

Minimum Holistic Goal

Media:

The Sovereign Homestead Podcast

YouTube

Instagram

Music by Alex Grohl