Social & Urban Permaculture Design Course 
@ Nest City Lab (Barcelona)

3 Modules in May, September & October, 2025
Quick Navigation
Event Date:
30/05/2025
to
12/10/2025
Registration End Date:
04/09/2025
Event Location:
Nest City Lab, Barcelona
Event Type:
In Person
Are you ready to dive deep into regenerative living, urban resilience, and community transformation?
Join us at Nest City Lab, a permaculture-based urban sustainability lab in the heart of Barcelona, Catalunya (Spain), for a family-friendly, modular, and hybrid training with three of the most innovative educators in permaculture!
🌱 Who and When
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Module 1 (May 30 – June 1, 2025) – with Rosemary Morrow (Australia) & Alfred Decker (Spain/USA). This module will cover Ethics, Principles, Ecology, Design Methods, and Climate, and can be taken separately as a stand alone “Intro to Permaculture” trainingÂ
Module 2 (Sept. 5 – 7, 2025) – with Starhawk (USA) & Alfred Decker. This module will cover Facilitation, Sociocracy, Urban Permaculture, Conflict Transformation & Trauma, and Communities, and can be taken separately as a stand alone “Social Permaculture” trainingÂ
Module 3 (Oct. 10 – 12, 2025, online option available for out-of-town students) – with Alfred Decker. This module is focused on a group design project and wrapping up the full certified training, only available to participants who did the first two modules
Complete all three modules to earn your Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC). While the course has a focus on permaculture applied to urban and social contexts, we will still cover the PDC core curriculum which allows you to apply permaculture to any context.Â
Schedule
Days & Times
Fridays
• 16h – 20h First SessionÂ
• 20h – 21h DinnerÂ
Saturdays
• 10h – 13:30h First SessionÂ
• 13:30h – 14:30h Lunch
• 15:30h – 19:30h Second Session
• 19:30h – 21h Dinner
Sundays
• 10h – 14h Session
• 14h – 15h Lunch
• 15h – 18h Optional Climate Fresk trainingÂ
Exciting perk:Â meals by Chef Sasha (tiffinit) are included in price
Why this training?
✅ High-Quality – Learn in person with three of permaculture’s leading educators.
✅ Family-Friendly – Bring your kids! Optional kids’ program with Permaculture artist and educators Daniella Querol & Isabel Molina available for an extra fee! 🙂
✅ Modular & Flexible – Take just one day, one module, or complete all three for full certification.
✅ Hybrid Learning – Some content is available online for self-paced study over the course of one year.
✅ Urban Demonstration Site – Hands-on learning in Barcelona.
✅ Activism in Action – Help create a community forest through Tree-Nation, a project based at the Nest City Lab. A portion of your fees will go towards tree planting that you can take part in later this year!
✅ Build Community – get to know other people in Barcelona who share your values
✅ Think Global – Become part of a global network of changemakers through interactive projects and activism.
✅ Dual Certification – Earn both a PDC and Climate Fresk Facilitator certification.
🌍 Transform Your World
This is more than a course—it’s an invitation to co-create resilient communities in the city and beyond, and integrate regenerative practices into your life. Whether you’re a budding permaculturist, a climate activist, or a parent looking for meaningful learning experiences, this training is for you!
Where
Apocapoc BCN is much more than a space — it’s a living ecosystem of regeneration, learning, and community. Since 2011, it has been home to a diversity of interwoven projects rooted in sustainability and guided by a shared intention: to explore new ways of living that are both fulfilling and regenerative. Since 2017, its physical home, the Nest City Lab, has been nestled in the heart of Barcelona’s @22 innovation district, where it offers a tangible, evolving expression of the city’s sustainability goals — not as abstract concepts, but as everyday realities. The design of the Lab at every level — natural ecosystems, built environment, and social structures — is shaped by the ethics and principles of permaculture, creating a space where care for the Earth, care for people, and fair sharing of resources come together in practice.
In 2019, training facilitators Starhawk and Alfred Decker did a lunchtime talk on Social Permaculture at the Nest. They loved it and decided to come back for more!Â
Course Objectives & Content
The full training earns participants a Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) – the foundation for further permaculture work and study and a prerequisite for the Diploma in Permaculture Design.  The course includes lectures, discussions, hands-on learning, slideshows, and design projects. We will examine the underlying assumptions of the current culture of consumerism and economic globalisation, and encourage exploration of ways to contribute to the emergence of a culture of sustainability, compassion and equity. The PDC covers a broad range of subjects to provide a holistic overview of Permaculture systems and sustainable urban and rural living.
Some of the topics / themes that we cover are:
- Principles & Ethics of permaculture
- Ecological planning & design methods
- Organic food production and food security
- Climatic factors in design
- Soils: natural soil improvement
- Agroforestry & forest gardening
- Appropriate technologies & renewable energy systems
- Ecovillages & sustainable human settlements
- Nature connection practices and personal resilience
- Social permaculture
- Tools for effective collaboration in groups
- Communication skills and conflict transformation
- Bioremediation
- Garden design and planning
What Can I Do After This Course?
- Embark on new food growing practices
- Manage a school or community garden
- Design and plan a resilient, land-based project or community—from the water systems to the governance and decision-making systems
- Realise goals towards self-sufficiency
- Advocate strategically for policies that address climate change and environmental justice
- Find ways of dramatically reducing energy consumption
- Start a permaculture diploma program
- Volunteer internationally with permaculture programs worldwide
City dwellers have found that even with little or no land, Permaculture shows them how to work with their home to produce food, reduce energy needs, live more ecologically and in closer connection with their communities. Educators, farm advisers, international development workers, garden directors, builders, master gardeners, and landscape architects have all reported that what they’ve learned in this course has become a foundation for their work. Â
Community
You will be part of an international community during this training. Previous participants testify to the value of learning and practicing in a supportive group; making connections in Barcelona and many other places!
The Facilitation Team
Rosemary Morrow
We are thrilled to welcome Rosemary back to Europe for this special training. She is known and loved worldwide as a permaculture teacher, practitioner, and activist. She has travelled the globe for four decades, often in countries shattered by war and disasters, sharing her passion for permaculture and social justice.Â
Rosemary and Alfred Decker co-facilitated a PDC in Barcelona together in 2012.
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Her pragmatic and effective approach working with and being led by local people has created community-scale permaculture projects and outcomes across a broad range of environments from drylands in Ethiopia, to the wet tropics of Vietnam. The knowledge and experience she brings to creating abundance, food security and successful sustainable farming models is unparalleled in permaculture education today. She is the author of the Earth Restorer’s Guide to Permaculture, the Earth User’s Guide to Teaching Permaculture, The Family Seedsaving Book, and A Good Home Forever.
Starhawk
One of the foremost voices in Earth-based spirituality, Starhawk is an author, activist, and permaculture teacher and designer. Her 13 books include such beloved reads as The Spiral Dance, The Earth Path, and The Fifth Sacred Thing. Starhawk drew from 30 years of living collectively to write The Empowerment Manual, which is the basis for her social permaculture course, Empowering Collaborative Groups.Â
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Starhawk has been recognized by the Permaculture Institute of North America (PINA) as a leading figure in permaculture and has been awarded dual diplomas for excellence in education and permaculture site design.  As a teacher of magical activism and permaculture education, Starhawk’s life work takes her across the globe. She currently lives part-time in San Francisco in a collective house with her partner and friends, and part-time in a little hut in the woods in Cazadero, California, where she practices permaculture in her extensive gardens and writes.
Alfred Decker
Alfred Decker (he/him) is an award-winning permaculture designer; the Education Coordinator of Permaculture For Refugees; a certified educator with the Permaculture Association of Britain; a leading voice in Social Permaculture; and one of Europe’s innovative permaculture educators. Alfred has been involved with social movements and permaculture projects across many borders. He is the director of the 12P Permaculture Design consultancy; was a co-founder of Permacultura Barcelona and the Spanish Permaculture Academy (Academia de Permacultura ĂŤbera).Â
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After taking a “Permaculture Teacher Training” (PTT) course with Rosemary Morrow in 2011, he undertook a two year mentorship and later co-facilitated six courses as her assistant, ultimately earning a Diploma in Permaculture Education & Community Development in 2013 through the Blue Mountains Permaculture Institute (Australia). Committed to furthering the PTT course that Rosemary developed in over four decades of teaching experience around the world, Alfred facilitated over 20 PTT courses as lead facilitator and co-edited all three versions of the PTT Manual (free download of the third edition HERE). Rosemary has asked him to organise the PTT trainings in Europe, and he has also developed an online version of the course on the Permaculture Association of Britain’s online educational platform.Â
In 2024 Alfred joined the Global Council of Permaculture For Refugees. He is passionate about how permaculture can be useful to refugees and migrants, and how permaculture education can be designed for them as learners…and how they in turn can best share their valuable knowledge and experience with others.Â
He also works closely with Starhawk and her organisation Earth Activist Training as part of the EAT teaching team.
Alfred lives in the old town centre of Berga, Catalunya (Spanish Territory), and is available for educational activities, design work and consulting.
Valerie Aubet Pietri
Valerie Aubet Pietri is the co-founder and leader of Apocapoc BCN, a project rooted in sustainability and living systems, shaped by permaculture principles and philosophy. Her path has woven together documentary filmmaking, philosophy, ethics, and sustainable development, gradually bringing her closer to hands-on, community-rooted practices.
Over the years, she has been involved in projects related to urban agriculture, eco-renovation, and food systems that aim to care for the Earth and all beings.
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Valerie’s journey in permaculture spans many years of practical experience with the gentle initiation of Michael Kraner. She has completed two PDC courses — one online with Ian Trew at Noosa Forest Retreat (Australia), and another in person with Starhawk and Alfred Decker at the Grain&Sens ecovillage in France. Most recently, she deepened her practice by completing a Permaculture Teacher Training with Alfred Decker and Lusi Alderslowe at the Vidà lia Project in Catalunya.
Valerie believes in the transformative power of individual action, collective collaboration, and small, meaningful steps. Alongside her permaculture work, she is involved in climate education and storytelling projects, continuously learning and evolving in dialogue with the ecosystems she serves.
Family-Friendly
This is a rare certified PDC which allows parents to attend the training while their children are also learning permaculture!
Daniella Querol – artist, educator, and permaculturalist (fluent in English, German, Spanish and Catalan) – will offer activities that allow children to observe and connect with nature with their heads, hearts and hands. The program will adapt to children and will be developed in parallel with the themes of the trainings around: + Exploratory adventures of nature and the elements – Earth, Fire, Water and Air, + Activities around Art, Nature and cooperative games + Sharing tools (sharing and gratitude circles) + Yoga and dance for children. For more info, please contact Daniella HERE.
Fees
Complete Permaculture Design Course
We normally offer a sliding scale for this course, and ask participants to offer what they can pay. The scale for all three modules and the online education is €770 – €870 for this professional, certified training. Those who can afford to pay more on the higher end of the scale will help those who can only pay less.
The scale…
€820 Standard Price
This price reflects the real cost of running the course. Choose this price if you cannot pay the Abundance price.
€870 Abundance Price
Please choose this price if you are able to afford it. By doing so you are supporting opportunities for low income students to participate in the course. Thank you!
€770 Resilience Price
You are welcome to choose this price if you have a low income or are unemployed, do not have access to funds, etc.
If you want to propose a different price based on your economic situation or request a scholarship, please share with us what you can contribute and why you need support by applying HERE.
You can also make progressive payment plans over the course of the training, contact us HERE to explore options.
Modules 1 & 2
You can choose to do either or both of the first two modules as just stand alone trainings. The price for one of these modules is €320, and the pack price for both of them is €550. The third module is only available to people who are doing the complete certified course.
Individual Sessions
• Friday, May 30 and Sunday, June 1 with Rosemary Morrow & Alfred Decker: fees for either day are €75 each
• Friday, September 5 and Sunday, September 7 with Starhawk & Alfred Decker: fees for either day are €75 each
Double Certifications
The PDC is certified through the Permaculture Association of Britain.
You will also receive a second certification as a Climate Fresk facilitator.
Accommodation
This PDC does not include accommodation. However, if you are from out of town and need a place to stay, we can ask around to see if someone can offer you accommodation for no or low charge, or recommend a hostel/hotel.