Design Courses · Permaculture Asia

The permaculture design course, four ways.

The Permaculture Design Certificate — the foundation course behind everything else taught at Daruma — teaches the full 72-hour-standard curriculum over nine days, plus your own design project. Take it residential, intensive, agile, or on your own site.

Four ways to earn your certificate.

Same content, same certificate. The format changes to fit the time and the reason you're taking it.

01

The residential PDC

Nine intensive days at Bang Phra, staying on campus at Mosaic School or in the traditional Thai house near the reservoir.

02

The intensive PDC

The same full curriculum, condensed into a single week including weekends. Built for people who already know their permaculture basics and can't take that much time off in one go.

03

Agile PDC (ALPS)

Set your design project around your own interest, from a food forest to a small farm to a retirement plan, while studying alongside Mosaic School's agile learning method.

04

Special group & off-site PDCs

Bring the PDC to your own property, or arrange a course for your group. Off-site courses often produce more than one design, so you leave with real options for your land.

05

Design for Permaculture Living (2-day intro)

Not ready for the full certificate yet? This weekend introduction covers systems thinking, the ethics and principles, and zoning, taught in English and Thai side by side. From ฿3,000. Next date to be announced.

Full syllabus, schedule and FAQs are on the PDC course page. New to permaculture? Start with Design for Permaculture Living.

An instructor holding up a guide to raising chickens while students browse stacks of books
What the PDC covers

Fourteen chapters, one long conversation.

Permaculture's traditional syllabus runs from ethics and design methods through climate, water, soils and tropical strategies, following Bill Mollison's original Designer's Manual. Daruma covers all of it, threaded through hands-on work around the farm rather than lecture straight through.

Three design ethicsTwelve design principlesAt least three design methods taught
An instructor presenting a large hand-drawn permaculture site plan to the group
A student's design projectDaruma archive

See the full syllabus, schedule and FAQs →

Where this leads

Two flagship courses, one campus.

Design courses sit alongside Daruma's Natural Building course, so many students combine both during a longer stay. Everything else Daruma teaches, from Alchemy to Farm Lab, returns to the calendar as the school grows back; the catalogue shows what is running now.

Book your place

The next PDCs are ready.

Both teach the complete certificate curriculum across two weekends and one full week. Arrive Friday afternoon, begin on Saturday and keep the final night before a Monday departure.

Next Permaculture Design Certificates

Choose your dates.

18 to 28 September 2026Saturday 19 to Sunday 27 September
4 to 14 December 2026Saturday 5 to Sunday 13 December
22 January to 1 February 2027Saturday 23 to Sunday 31 January
NEXT DATETBA

New to permaculture? Start with the 2-day intro.

Design for Permaculture Living, English and Thai, from ฿3,000. Next date to be announced.

Register your interest