Living Lightly Laboratories are places where ideas are explored through lived experience rather than fixed plans. They are working environments — homes, landscapes, and projects — where observation, reflection, and adaptation happen over time. Each laboratory responds to its own climate, culture, and constraints, allowing patterns and principles to be tested in real situations rather than abstract models.

• Wet, Maritime climate (Koppen Cfb)
• Cool summers, mild but long winters
• Wind exposure & shelter 

• Sloping ground
• Peat bog
• Raised beach with sandy soils
• Complex situation 

• High rainfall
• Managing for excess rather than scarcity 

• Forest garden & perennial systems
• Integrated livestock
• Succession over 

• Coastal rural
• Long term family home
• Host to volunteers, interns, courses
• Adapting to family needs over generations

Adrian’s Croft continues to teach lessons about restraint, care, and responding to feedback in a living system that never stands still.

• Hot, dry Mediterranean climate (Koppen BSk)
• Strong seasonal contrasts
• Intense summer heat

• Small urban plot
• Dry clay soils
• Terraced beds 

• Scarcity rather than excess
• Storage, timing, and efficiency

• Vertical & container growing
• Microclimates
• Shade as infrastructure
• Hardy pioneer species

• Urban neighbourhood
• Limited space
• Daily rhythms shaped by heat

Campoverde sharpens awareness of constraint, efficiency, and the value of thoughtful placement in compact systems.

Taken together, these laboratories remind us that permaculture is never about applying the same solution in different places. It is about learning how to read context — ecological, social, and personal — and responding appropriately. The contrasts between these laboratories form part of the Living Lightly learning ecosystem.