Daruma Eco Farm

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.

Read the full PDC syllabus Enquire about the PDC

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. Sat 15 and Sun 16 August 2026, from ฿3,000. An official IPC16 satellite event.

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.

An instructor points at a colourful site plan on a screen while a small seated group watches, with a camp chair in the foreground
Also at DarumaNatural Building Course
 A teacher stands beside a chalkboard covered in a permaculture mind map, addressing seated students in a classroom
The full catalogueAll courses at Daruma
Book your place

Two 2026 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 August or September.

21–31 AugCheck in Friday from 2:00pm · course 22–30 August
18–28 SepCheck in Friday from 2:00pm · course 19–27 September
See the full schedule Book your place
AUGUST

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

Design for Permaculture Living, English and Thai, from ฿3,000. An official IPC16 satellite event.

Book your place