Porvenir Design Newsletter + Workshops Announcement

Porvenir Design is a living project. Our business breathes and grows, continually shaped and honed by our team’s evolving skillset and varied interests. Since its inception nearly a decade ago, Porvenir Design has worked to establish and build a business focused on land design and stewardship that also allows its team members to create the lifestyle they want. We’ve hit many goals over the years for lots of different reasons, and the most important element of our success has been our commitment to supporting our team members' goals. Over the last several years, our team has grown, our interests and passions have become more nuanced, and our skillsets have been upgraded. We know what we love, we love what we do, and we have gotten better at it.

As we know from our base in permaculture design practices, transition zones are where the most action is. In ecology, we refer to these zones of overlap, or transition, as Ecotones. Where lakes lap against land or salt water blends with fresh water; where air melds into water or forest roots dip into rivers; where plains rub against mountains: these are the areas where interactions are more frequent and more powerful. The edge is where you want to be if you want to get involved with these energetic exchanges.

In 2024, our team came to the conclusion that we were in a transition period. We leveraged our connections with friends, colleagues, and mentors to try to understand how to best move ahead; transitions can be challenging to take on alone. In the end, we looked back on the essence of what Porvenir Design is to understand how to best manage the energy we were finding in our transition. We are a team of professionals that wants to have it all. We want to make positive change; we want to learn and also inspire; we want to make a living doing what we love; we want to work with driven and passionate people; we want to do it without sacrificing our ethics, happiness, or personal lifestyles.

What has emerged from our team’s transition process is subtle at surface level: a new brand look, an updated website, fresh colors and fonts on our deliverables. We still offer what we always have to our clients: professionalism, transparent and honest feedback, confidence in our skill set. Behind these changes, though, our team is adding personal, authentic touches to what we offer, improving what we provide to our clients and projects. Along with visual changes to Porvenir Design’s outward facing look, we’ve accompanied our evolution with new energy. We are excited about taking on more bigger picture planning work and we work with confidence around decision making regarding higher level design elements such as infrastructure and context-specific project chronologies. We focus heavily on water management as the leading design factor and influence in any project and are comfortable modeling projects on top of resilient water design. We are better and more practiced in the technicalities of homesteading and community planning in the tropics.

When we add our passions and practical skillsets to our business base of pragmatic and honest decision making, we feel that we find ourselves in a unique position to help clients. We are a Swiss army knife of planning and design; we are skilled enough to train and coach workers, and nuanced enough to suggest changes to architectural and engineering plans. We are bold enough to know where to push the boundaries, and experienced enough to know what is practical and functional over the long term. We know where and how to help clients make the best decisions that will give them success, in whatever form suits the context. Above all, we’re equipped to be useful and move projects ahead.

In the months ahead we’ll be teaching, traveling, learning, and guiding projects of all types. Our work and lives are dynamic and push us to stay on the edge and keep our tools sharp. Our team is focused on what we have always loved, design that makes sense, and we’re ready to apply our experience to the next big project, yours.

Upcoming Events and Workshops

In the coming months, our team has put together serval opportunities to get involved in meet ups and more formalized courses. Our meet ups are designed to be collaborative and casual, and are a chance to learn about different projects, meet other folks interested in permaculture and regenerative work, exchange seeds, and more.

The courses and workshops listed below range in length and content and offer a chance to take a deep dive into the given subject material. Please follow the links to find out more, and reach out to us or course organizers to sign up. Our courses tend to fill up quickly, so don’t delay!

Permaculture Design Course

  • September 29- October 12

  • Monteverde, Costa Rica

Introduction to Syntropic Farming

  • October 3-5

  • Tereny, Hungary

Sacred Plants of the Mediterranean

  • September 23- 27

  • Ostuni, Italy




Syntropic Farming Webinars - Free Resources

Syntropic Farming Webinars - Free Resources

In order to keep sharing all that we are learning in the world of Syntropic Farming our team has recently participated in two webinars exploring the topics. Below you will find, first, a webinar with the team at Water Stories that is a general introduction to the topic and second a webinar with Javan Bernakevitch of Regenerative Living. This webinar explores a case study and the design process in Syntropic Farming. We hope these resources will inspire you to keep planting!

12 Syntropic Farming Tips & Tricks + New Courses

12 Syntropic Farming Tips & Tricks + New Courses

Over the last few years of studying, designing and installing syntropic agroforestry systems, I have picked up a few small tips and tricks. Some of these are very practical and specific to species or management, others are based around the design concepts and principles. Regardless, I hope they provide some insights so that your work might move forward in succession.

What does Permaculture Ask of Us and What Does it Give Back?

What does Permaculture Ask of Us and What Does it Give Back?

I’m not interested in defending permaculture, nor defining it; not in an encompassing way at least. It is certainly not a silver bullet and it certainly has its flaws. It will not save the world.

What I am sharing here is why I believe permaculture and specifically permaculture education is useful in this complicated world. I am writing this article to move you closer to action, to change, to crossing some threshold where you trust your hands and their impact.

Costa Rica: Premio para Proyectos de Permacultura

Costa Rica: Premio para Proyectos de Permacultura

En Porvenir Design estamos comprometidos a apoyar a la comunidad de permacultura costarricense, y como parte de esta iniciativa, queremos ofrecer un premio de $1000 con junto con AVER y tres premios de $500 (USD) cada uno para proyectos activos de permacultura ubicados en Costa Rica.