Porvenir Design was founded in May 2017 by Sam Kenworthy and Scott Gallant. Today we work with a number of agronomists, engineers, graphic designers, developers and farmers around the country of Costa Rica. To learn more about why our business was created please see our blog post on our Holistic Context. To get a peak into our minds, take a look at our ongoing reading list, recorded podcasts, and authored articles.
Scott Gallant
scottgallant@porvenirdesign.com
Scott Gallant is a permaculture designer and educator with nearly a decade of experience working in Central America. He is the co-founder of Porvenir Design, a landscape design firm specializing in productive landscapes. He graduated from Wabash College in 2008 with a degree in Economics. He was the farm manager at Rancho Mastatal for nine years, and has worked with diverse projects such as VersaLand, Open Source Ecology, Project Bonafide and many more as he has developed his skill-set in permaculture design.
Passionate about regenerative agriculture, holistic thinking, ethnobotany, community development, and re-skilling, he still makes time to hike and bike, read exhaustively, and work on his basketball jump shot and frisbee throw. He has traveled extensively in Latin America, leading to a love of the culture, food, and language, which he attempts to speak. Scott writes for the Permaculture Research Institute and has been featured on the Permaculture Voices and Abundant Edge podcasts.
You can find him on Instagram here.
Sam Kenworthy
samkenworthy@porvenirdesign.com
Sam Kenworthy is a water systems enthusiast and landscape manager with over a decade of experience in the tropics. He has experience designing and developing educational curriculum for students of all ages, particularly focused on conservation, practical skill building, and applied research. Originally from the east coast of the United States, Sam currently resides on the southern Pacific coast of the Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica.
Dedicated to continued learning and improving his skill sets, he is passionate about self sufficiency, water management, generating more and better yields, and well executed design for human eco-systems. Experienced in working in a wide variety of environments, he enjoys the challenge and process of designing around problematic landscapes. Sam holds a B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Political Science and Hispanic Studies.
Hugo Soto
hugosoto@porvenirdesign.com
Hugo started down the permaculture path in 2012; Hugo’s study of organic agriculture led him to continue to deepen his ways of relating to people and the place. A native of San Jose, Costa Rica, Hugo began by promoting urban permaculture through projects such as community gardens and creating edible spaces featuring native plants. While developing communal gardening projects Hugo also focuses on leading workshops and courses within communities to shift to better soil management and production strategies.
Hugo compliments his passion for design by tying communal design for living well into his approach to planning; he has been trained in working with several forms of design for invisible social structures. Hugo is a member of the Red Permanezca, which seeks to creatively promote permaculture in Costa Rica with the end goal of inspiring deep societal change. Hugo’s goals include promoting permaculture through education and site visits, having time to swim and hike in the mountains while living in a collaborative eco-community.
Dani Mekler
danimekler@porvenirdesign.com
Dani is an artist and educator with a graduate degree in Art, Education and Community Practice from New York University. She grew up between Colombia, USA and Costa Rica and is currently living in San José. She has experience facilitating workshops and educational programs in museums and cultural institutions, activating these spaces as sites for learning. She has also worked leading communication efforts that center sustainability and regenerative design. She was introduced to permaculture by the Porvenir Design team in 2020 and is deeply invested in continuing to put these guiding principles into practice, both personally and professionally.
Dani is actively committed to exploring the connection, and potential, between nature, art, education and community based work. She is interested in participatory methodologies that democratize bodies of knowledge and prioritize collective care. She enjoys making time for tea, reading, listening to music and hiking.
Alberto Koberg
Alberto, aka Veto, studied Construction Engineering, but being the son of a biologist he has been in contact with nature, intrigued and amazed by it since a very young age. This led him to work for seven years at SPHERA Sostenible as Project Manager for lower impact construction projects which incorporated sustainability elements. While researching more sustainable ways of living he took the Permaculture Design Course with Porvenir Design in 2018 and since then has been incorporating and practicing permaculture principles into his life, finally shifting from engineering to permaculture design in 2023.
Alberto is passionate about ecology, relationships between living organisms and natural processes, and is determined to understand nature and life itself better. Through the lens of permaculture he hopes to improve the way in which humans interact with nature and (re)integrate the human environment with the natural environment. Alberto enjoys spending time in nature, whether in his home garden, hiking in the mountains or surfing. He also enjoys mycology and birdwatching in his free time.
betokoberg@porvenirdesign.com