RetroSuburbia: The Downshifter's Guide to a Resilient Future is a 593-page manual by permaculture co-originator David Holmgren that shows Australians how to retrofit their homes, gardens and daily lives for sustainability and resilience in an uncertain future.
About This Book
Suburb by suburb, Australian households hold enormous latent capacity for change — and RetroSuburbia is the book that maps that territory in full. Structured around three interlocking domains — the Built, the Biological, and the Behavioural — it moves through the physical fabric of the suburban home, the productive garden, and the habits and social structures that animate both. This is not a manifesto but a working manual: dense with practical guidance, grounded in permaculture design principles, and oriented toward the kind of incremental, household-scale transformation that aggregates into genuine systemic change. It addresses those who suspect that downshifting is not a retreat from ambition but a more honest form of it.
Key Features
- 593 pages of practical guidance across built environment retrofit, biological systems, and behavioural change
- Published by Melliodora Press
What You'll Discover
- How the suburban built environment — housing fabric, energy systems, water — can be progressively retrofitted rather than abandoned or replaced wholesale
- Biological strategies for productive home gardens and landscapes that build household resilience from the ground up
- The behavioural and cultural shifts that underpin sustainable downshifting, framing lifestyle change as purposeful rather than sacrificial
- A coherent framework, drawn from permaculture design thinking, for understanding how the Built, Biological, and Behavioural interact across a household and neighbourhood scale
About the Author
David Holmgren is the co-originator of the permaculture concept and one of Australia's most influential voices on ecological design and sustainable living. His work spans decades of writing, teaching, and demonstration, with RetroSuburbia representing his most comprehensive and practical contribution to the question of how suburban Australians might navigate an uncertain future.
Specifications
- Format: Softcover
- Pages: 593
- Dimensions: 210 x 275 mm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9780994392879
- Publisher: Melliodora Press
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Architects and designers working on residential retrofit and sustainable housing, permaculture practitioners, urban planners, and households actively seeking a practical roadmap for more resilient, low-impact living.