"Ecosocial design is design for human activity and systems that is based on principles inherent in nature to sustain a vital and permanent human culture." 

Before continuing I want to share some of my thinking about design and designing. The following is a summarized version of a long article that contains several resource references.

Mostly following the SADIE design frameworks as published in a recent article by Andy Langford called design cycles (this is 6MBs!) I attempt to integrate some of the methods and techniques I am familiar with from software development. It was fascinating for me when I discovered that some of the Permaculture related design models were starting to have an influence on software engineering.

Design is usually a cyclical process that repeats itself on different levels of details or abstraction and in that respect is related to the self similarity of fractals. At one point the cycling of design on ever more detailed levels stops and the results are brought to the forefront and in this respect design is similar to recursion. As we evaluate the results of a design, we might decide to go back to the beginning and go through the whole loop once more.

My believe is that our intentions, conscious or not, are critical in creating working designs. What we carry inside, war or peace, hate or love, and so on, will be manifested in some way and finally determine the outcome of design or any activity. How we feel also colors our observation and as some interpretations of quantum physics indicate, actually change the very object being observed. There are energetic qualities inherent of what we design, scientifically maybe not yet on solid ground, nevertheless many tradition and teachings exist that honor these and are invaluable to create something that has a special or sacred feeling about it.

In ecological design, principals are used as observed in nature with the assumption that we will establish systems that have the attributes of natural ones - long lived, resilient, adaptable, use of biological energies and nutrients, purification, closed cycles, etc.
There is a rather philosophical question I have been interested in for a long time: If we humans, as many think, have evolved from and with nature, we are a part of it and therefore how can anything we do be "unnatural" or "not ecological"?
EcoSocial Design brings the environmental and social aspects together applying ecology to both of them. As far as I am concerned this needs to be extended to economy. Maybe we ought to call it "Ecosocionomic Design".

An ecosocial designer will be a key member of any team designing and developing human systems bringing real sustainability to the table. She can work and participate in most any circumstances, with most anyone or any organization within diverse cultural settings, and has developed human qualities of integrity, openness and honesty.

"And of course, if the results are beautiful, appropriate to culture and place, there will be nothing in the way of a sweeping success."