surpluspermaculturedesignSpreading the Seeds of change…
The unique organization of Surplus Permaculture Design allows us to offer a wide range of services. We have designers based on 3 continents and are now happy and excited to welcome Lola Byron and Kyle Smith to the our design team. Helping us spread the seeds of change and create planetary regeneration through thoughtful ecological design and individual empowerment.
Since 2013 Lola has been the natural building manager and Kyle the perennial plant manger at Panya Project Permaculture Education Centre in Northern Thailand . Both were long-term community members facilitating Permaculture design courses, organic gardening and natural building workshops, supervising volunteers and interns and developing and maintaining projects and systems at Panya. They also took responsibility of the book keeping, emails, marketing and admin for Panya
Lola Byron has been a thriving Permaculturist and natural builder since completing her PDC in Bristol, England in 2010. She became extremely passionate about creating positive change within urban environments, seeing the unmet needs of the people, the huge amount of underutilised resources and so many people who were searching for a more earth conscious and people conscious way to live. She helped create a variety of community gardens, became an avid city forger and helped facilitate natural building and gardening workshops. Lola’s educational background was in Art, sculpting, spending 5 years studying to qualify as a college art teacher in 2007. Lola specialised in Sculpting with wood, clay and metal and she loves to apply these artistic skills to her work. When she first encountered natural building in 2009 she knew she had found her true path and set out to learn as much as she could and create beautiful buildings from earth. She now specialises in adobe, cob and earth-bags. Having now completed 6 house builds (project managing 4 of these) she is always excited to pass on her knowledge and inspire and empower others to re-connect with the earth, make positive changes and become more self-reliant.
Kyle Smith is originally from Swaziland, Africa. In 2005 Kyle practiced horticulture and community living on a kibbutz in Israel where he was inspired to pursue a career in horticulture. During his studies he completed an internship at Soil for Life, a Cape Town, South Africa based non-profit organization teaching people how to build the soil and grow healthy plants using organic and low-cost methods. After completing his studies in horticulture he worked at Kirstenbosch Botanical gardens in Cape Town. His main focuses were conserving indigenous plant species, rehabilitating degraded ecosystems, designing and establishing education gardens on the grounds of the botanic garden. During this time at the botanical gardens he realized the importance of conserving natural ecosystem while providing basic human needs, this interest and learning pathway lead him to the Panya Project. Kyle is passionate about conserving soil ecosystems, plant propagation and small-scale ecological agriculture. He is working towards empowering people to grow their own food, become more self reliant, and regenerate degraded ecosystem.
Lola and Kyle met at Panya and fell in love, they went on to create a beautiful family when their baby girl Lili was born in 2014. Their shared vision is to create an ecologically sound world, where we all live in harmony with the Earth and each other, using and promoting natural building, regenerative agriculture and community building techniques to achieve this.
In July 2016 they left Panya Project to embark on an adventure; visiting, contributing and learning from different Permaculture Projects in Africa, Europe and the UK. They are currently at 1B4 PermaPackers near Darnall South Africa helping develop a volunteer program, building a double chamber cob oven, implementing a food forest and developing the kitchen gardens. They plan to achieve their vision by running courses, consultation work, project implementation and management.
Are you interested in transforming your land into a natural sanctuary of abundance providing you with nutritious organic produce?
Have you dreamt about a ecological sound handcrafted house for you and your family?
Would you like to entertain friends in your unique outdoor cooking area; pizza oven, cob bench or fire pit? If interested in any of our services please send us a detailed email with how we may be of help.