Eiffel Over

Category: Regenerative Design

  • The language of patterns

    The language of patterns echoes systems thinking, an important thread in regenerative design. 

    The idea of a repeatable pattern also invokes time, another important thread to tie in.

    A pattern can be improved upon, it is something we can tailor.

    Patterns communicate the idea of something that is repeatable and therefore something that can spread. 

    A pattern is also something that can stick. If it sticks then we can make change. 

    And that is ultimately what this work is about. 

    In this book, we expanded upon this pattern metaphor to include, threads, motifs, pattens and projects.

  • Seeing the pattern in the strands

    In 2022 I founded the Regenerative Design Lab with the intention of helping to figure out what regenerative design might mean for the construction industry, and how we might shift theory into practice. 

    Over the past four years this has been a shared journey, one shaped by more than 70 participants we have had in the Lab programme, by my Lab co-facilitator Ellie Osborne and the hundreds of conversations we have had along the way. 

    At the start, we realised that was lots we didn’t know. Regenerative design felt like a like a tangled web of many different strands, including themes as diverse as: philosophy, technology, systems thinking, Indigenous wisdom, ecosystems, social justice, biomimicry and community organising. 

    Our first aim was to simply hold space for these conversations and create a framework for reflective exploration and application of these strands of thinking.

    At a similar time, James and I started writing a book. Our job was to take this emerging theory of regenerative design and present it to an audience of structural engineers in a way that was both inspirational and also routed in the realities of projects.

    I have to be honest, that at times, across all these initiatives, the weave of these conversations had been very confusing and I regularly tied myself in knots.

    But over time, patterns had begun to emerge. Certain ways of structuring the conversation worked better for some participants in the Lab than others. Some approaches led to more reflection and introspection, others led to people taking action. And there are clear patterns emerging in what helps to bring different audiences on a journey.

    James and I rewrote the Regenerative Structural Engineer three times before we found a way of sequencing our arguments that seemed to work. That the book has now been sold in over 26 countries – a sign that this pattern resonated. 

    In the two years since then, I’ve had many more conversations, both inside the Lab and out, and learnt more about the different ways to hold a conversation about regenerative design.

    One of the questions I get most often is usually a variation of: how do I talk about this with my clients/can you just give me the slides?

    But it’s not as simple as that. You have to take people on a journey. The journey depends on who you are and who they are. But if you can find a formula that works, you can create a pattern that you can repeat, from conversation to conversation, from projects to project, so that over time we can gradually shift our industry.

    This book is my attempt to guide people in finding their own patterns for exploring and talking about regenerative design. It is an attempt to stitch together what we’ve learnt from all this work and create repeatable patterns that can spin out into practice. 

  • Observe | Brief | Ideas | Test | Repeat

    This week I’ve been making the case for a continuous, place-based approach to design. As James Norman and I set out in the Regenerative Structural Engineer, we see this process as a cycle of the following stages.

    1. Observation

    Traditional design often begins with a design brief—a predefined problem to be solved. But Continuous Place-Based Design, with its focus on working with the existing dynamics of a place rather than imposing change from outside, begins with observation.

    Observation means more than a desk study or mapping exercise. It requires time spent in a place—experiencing it from different perspectives, noticing rhythms, interactions, and patterns of change. But observation isn’t just the first step. It is something we return to again and again, each time we make a change.

    2. Brief

    From observation, we begin to sense what is needed. The brief emerges as a way of distilling these needs into a set of design requirements.

    In traditional design, the brief is often seen as something to resolve upfront—reducing uncertainty as quickly as possible. But the Designer’s Paradox reminds us that a brief is never fully known at the start; understanding of the brief unfolds through the act of designing itself.

    Continuous Place-Based Design embraces this reality. The brief evolves over time, but it doesn’t necessarily converge to a single, finalised solution. Each iteration is the best response for now, while recognising that every intervention changes the system—and with it, the design brief itself.

    3. Ideas

    The creative phase of the process is deeply influenced by the place itself. Ideas are not imposed from outside but emerge from the system we are designing within.

    The designer’s role is not just to generate ideas, but to facilitate the emergence of ideas from place—to see what is latent, what is already forming, what might be supported. At the same time, by embedding ourselves in a place, we too become part of its system. Our ideas are shaped by this connection, rather than being external impositions.

    4. Make and Test

    This is where we intervene—where design moves from thought to action. We begin making changes to the system.

    Interventions can range from small-scale tests to large-scale changes—though an important principle stands: start small, learn, then scale out. Through making, we begin to see how the system responds.

    For example, in a housing development, instead of building an entire estate at once, we might start with a few houses, observing how the place changes and adapts before expanding further. The goal is not to eliminate uncertainty, but to work with the unforeseen consequences of our design decisions—using them as feedback to refine and update the brief.

    Back to Observation Again

    Having made our changes to the system, we go back to observation. But we are not back where we started: the system we are designing in has changed and we too are changed by that process. We become a more integrated part of the system we are designing in, better able to facilitate change that will bring forward thriving in that place.

  • Through and through

    Any domain of knowledge is a treasure trove of jargon. When that knowledge relates to a traditional craft, it becomes a vocabulary deeply rooted in working with the land—a language passed down orally, generation to generation, long before it was ever written.

    Learning these word and phrases, even in a small way, reconnects us to a language of observation, design, and craft that originates from the bioregions we inhabit.

    I am lapping up this language in Ben Law’s book on Woodland Craft, and discovering phrases that I take for granted. 

    Like ‘through and through’, which I took to loosely mean homogeneity. But in woodland craft it describes the process of sawing timber down the length of the log rather than across it. What it produces is planks of timber with border of bark on either side. The bark can be taken off, or left on to create waney edge boards, like we have used around Hazel Hill Wood.

    And then I read that sawing ‘through and through’ is necessary for creating ‘bastard shakes’. Now I am intrigued.

  • Imagining the wood from the trees

    This week, I’ve been writing about observation as the starting point for regenerative design.

    Today, I’ve been working with colleagues at Hazel Hill Wood to envision a year-long process of investigating what timber is currently—or could be—available for harvesting from the wood to use in our buildings. In a sense, we are learning to tell the wood from the trees.

    Through this process, I foresee the following levels of timber availability:

    • Ready – Timber that has already been felled, sawn, and seasoned—ready to be used immediately.
    • Ready for processing/seasoning – Timber that has been felled but still needs additional preparation, such as seasoning.
    • Ready for felling – Mature trees that are best harvested now to make the most of their timber potential.
    • Needs tending to – Timber that could become valuable in the future but requires care now—such as thinning or pruning lower branches—to ensure a high-quality crop later.
    • Needs time – Young trees that aren’t yet ready for harvesting but can be planned for as part of a long-term strategy.
    • Needs imagining – The trees that don’t yet exist. With thoughtful, long-term planning, we can envision trees growing in the future—trees that may one day be harvested, perhaps not by us, but by future generations.

    It’s this final phase that I find particularly magical: imagining the wood from the trees. It’s about seeing what’s missing and planting the seeds—both literal and metaphorical—that could flourish decades from now.

    All of this thinking reminds me that the role of the regenerative designer is imagine a thriving future and take steps towards creating that future. It begins with observation and imagination.

  • Begin design with observation (Part 2)

    Yesterday, I wrote about how starting design with observation allows us to take a broader, more holistic view of the systems we’re working within. Another reason to start design with observation stems from the final part of the goal of regenerative design: for humans and the living world to survive, thrive, and co-evolve.

    This isn’t a goal that can be achieved within our current extraction-based economy. Instead, it serves as a guiding “north star,” helping us think about how to shift our economy towards a more holistic way of operating.

    From that perspective, we see ourselves as collaborators with the rest of the living world—humans living and working in partnership with ecosystems, and humans collaborating across communities.

    As I’ve written before on this blog, collaboration requires both interest in the other party and assertiveness for our own ideas.

    Starting design by writing a design brief is an act of assertiveness—it focuses on what we want. Starting design by observing and investigating the needs of others—both the needs of other humans and those of the living world—means we begin the process with interest.

    Given humanity’s historic tendency (and that of certain groups within humanity) to over-assert ourselves on the rest of the living world, there’s no question: we need to increase our interest in other parties.

    Starting design with observation ensures we begin by understanding and addressing those needs first.

  • Begin design with observation (part 1)

    We often think of design as starting with a design brief—a set of requirements outlining what we want.

    But when seen through a regenerative lens, design begins differently. The goal of regenerative design is not just to meet human needs but for human and living systems to survive, thrive, and co-evolve.

    This shift in focus changes the design process in significant ways.

    The first difference is that our goal is not simply the creation of a building. Instead, the building itself must contribute to greater thriving within the system it inhabits.

    This leads to a different starting point. Instead of asking, “What building do I need?” we ask, “What is the overall state of the system I’m working within?” Part of that system might include the immediate need for a building. But in this framing, we also consider the broader system needs.

    • What is the health of the ecosystem? Where is it thriving, and where is it depleted?
    • What is the health of the community? In what ways is it flourishing, and where are there unmet needs?

    By starting from these wider perspectives—and including many other factors we might observe—a more holistic design brief emerges. One that has the potential to address far more than our own immediate needs.

    But there’s another important reason to start design with observation. More on that tomorrow.

  • Story of poo

    Some context. When people started visiting Hazel Hill Wood for respite and educational weekends in the early 1990s, there were no buildings. I believe the first structure to be built housed a pair of composting toilets. These were wonderful creations, with hide-like windows that let you gaze out across the wood from your perch high above the long drop—without anyone seeing in.

    By the mid-90s, we began constructing off-grid buildings to accommodate larger and larger groups. With this expansion came more toilets. Today, three of our four accommodation buildings contain indoor composting toilets, each with a different design. Altogether, we now have nine toilets on site. We’ve become a veritable museum of composting toilet design.

    But while our capacity has grown, we haven’t developed a cohesive plan for dealing with all this “output.” Back when only small groups visited occasionally, a pair of long-drop toilets worked perfectly. Between visits, there was plenty of time for the poo to break down.

    As the charity has grown, though, so has the intensity of toilet use. With less time for natural decomposition, we now have a mounting problem—literally.

    Staff must increasingly deal with shifting shift —unpleasant, hidden work that highlights a gap in our design and planning.

    But here’s the thing: our story of poo could be so different. Poo is, after all, one of the clearest examples of a waste stream that can be transformed into input nutrients for new growth. This is a fundamental principle of self-sufficiency, permaculture, and regenerative design.

    What if we could close the loop on poop, turning it into a productive part of our nutrient cycle? And what if the process—given how beautifully it illustrates these principles—were well-designed, pleasant to manage, and something visitors could learn from?

    So, my ambition is to rewrite the story of poo at Hazel Hill. It starts with improving the design of our most unpleasant-to-operate toilets and refining the process of transporting “humanure” to the composting bays.

    As for what we’ll do with the composted material? The leading idea is to use it as manure for a fruit tree orchard—which doesn’t exist…yet. But hopefully, one day, we’ll be able to enjoy the literal fruits of this labour.

  • Where we make but also where we take

    When it comes to regenerative design, it’s not just where we make but also where we take that matters.

    For the last two decades, engineers (and other humans) have become more conscious of reducing their impact. Of how energy efficient our buildings are. Of reducing pollution from our sites into the surrounding environment.

    These are ways of reducing our impact where we build buildings and infrastructure. In the places where we make.

    (more…)
  • The Systems Bookcase at the Houses of Parliament

    The Systems Bookcase at the Houses of Parliament

    Yesterday I had the privilege of attending the launch at Parliament of Building Blocks to Transform the Built Environment – a manifesto to turn the climate emergency into a climate opportunity. If you don’t know about it, then you should definitely check it out here.

    On the journey back I was thinking about what conversations it is and isn’t possible to have in a place like the Houses of Parliament. For example, we were there to talk about making our building standards fit for purpose, incentivising retrofit and circularity and ensuing a just and green transition. These may not seem like particularly radical ideas, but standing in those halls of power, I couldn’t help think that these run against the grain of business-as-usual here.

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  • How much does your website weigh?

    It’s a funny question. How much does my website weigh? Is it heavy? It is light? I have no way of knowing. 

    But I like the question, because it is a good proxy for the energy impact of my website. What is its footprint? What is the energy used in keeping the servers whirring in the cloud (which is not in fact fluffy and is in fact a warehouse). 

    And the reason we don’t know the answer to the questions is that there is no feedback loop. When I write a post and add some data-heavy images I don’t feel that extra load. 

    (more…)
  • What if every time we built something the world got better?

    What if every time we built something the world got better?

    It is a simple question. What if every time we built something the world got better? Not just in the places we construct but in all the places affected by our construction activities. If we could meet this apparently simple ask, then we would shift the construction industry from a paradigm of extraction and damage to a paradigm of healing and repair.

    In our groundbreaking new book, James Norman and I explore what it would take for the construction industry to make this shift and what role structural engineers have to play in this transition. In short, what it would mean to be a regenerative structural engineer?

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  • Construction as an act of healing

    Construction as an act of healing

    What if, every time we designed a building, the world got better? This post explores the transformative potential of regenerative design, a paradigm shift from construction that contributes to carbon emissions and ecosystem destruction, to one that leave people and planet in better health.

    Whereas sustainability seeks to limit damage, regenerative design aims to return human and living systems to a state of thriving within the limits of the planet’s boundaries. It’s a process akin to healing, requiring attentive listening, a holistic approach, and mindful consideration of all affected places, including the often-overlooked ‘Second Site’ of material sourcing and manufacturing. The post argues for a need to reevaluate scale and focus, suggesting that like patient care, construction should focus on individual attention and localized interventions, forming a mosaic of healing actions. This vision calls for a systemic transformation, reimagining the construction industry as a nationwide, network of specific, place-based healing processes, tailored to meet the unique needs of each environment.

    (more…)
  • Seeking abundance in the Cambridge Fens

    Seeking abundance in the Cambridge Fens

    An abundance mindset is a key tool for the regenerative engineer. It gives three things.

    The first is the ability to see the richness of the situations we are in. The wealth that we have which may go unnoticed. The unused materials that could be worked with. The richness of the harvest.

    The second is the possibility of seeing the potential of a place. What could this place be. What could happen here if we unlock the latent capacity of community and ecosystem to make something better.

    And the third is the ability to see the missing richness of a place. Where a system may be in a desertified state, what it could like where it returned to its previous flourishing state.

    It is this third kind of abundance that I see in the project to return 9000 acres of the Fens in East Anglia to nature. Where this was once a habitat deep in peat and rich in diverse species, draining of the land and intensive farming have left the fens in a decertified state in which 2cm of peat is eroded ever year. Near my cousin’s house the land is four metres lower than it was before draining started in the Victorian period. Soon there will be none left.

    But purchase of large swathes of land by the Wildlife Trusts is enabling the return of wetter forms of farming in this land. This alternative approach aims to restore the peatland habitat, increase biodiversity and create a shift to alternative crops that can thrive in these wetter environments.

    This abundant vision creates the potential for humans and the rest of the living world to thrive together.

  • The Song of the System

    The Song of the System

    Every system has a song.

    Whether that system is the collection of components in an engine. Or the hum of a collaborative team. The tap-dance of ants in an anthill. Or the sound of life in a wood.

    Every system’s song is unique. Like no two performances of an orchestra are the same. The music depends on the complex interaction of who is playing, the acoustics of the hall, who is listening. And many other things.

    The song of the system is its heartbeat. A readout of its vital signs. The signature of its thriving. A trace that it exists.

    Some system songs you can hear very clearly. For others, you have to be listening very carefully.

    Someone recently told me that fish sing to each other. Why is this news? Maybe because this wasn’t expected: we weren’t listening. But now that we know it’s there, we are changing the input range of our sensors and discovering the sea is full of living sounds. Of song.

    Songs are patterns. When we know how they go, we get to know when they change.

    Every system has a song. The question is, are we listening?

    Further reading

    • Time for new patterns
    • Read two more articles about the sounds of fish – here and here.
  • Time for new patterns

    Time for new patterns

    We see patterns. We think in patterns. We create patterns.

    A pattern is something that repeats. A drum beat. An oscillation.

    Patterns make things regular and therefore intelligible. Patterns help us predict what will happen next. Out of a sea of random events a pattern can feel like a life raft. Or pieces from which we can assemble together to create a boat.

    The OED says the word comes from the Middle English ‘patron’ meaning something to be followed.

    This is interesting. What if the patterns we are following are no-longer serving us? What if the drumbeat is no-longer leading us in the right direction. What if the oscillations are going out of control?

    Then we need to learn to see new patterns. We need to learn to think in new patterns. And we need to create new patterns.

    That is why at Constructivist I am starting to build the Pattern Book for Regenerative Design. It is a guide for engineers (and other humans) for thinking in new, regenerative patterns. At the moment it is lots of pieces, but my hope is that these pieces can be assembled to create a useful boat for designers to clamber aboard.

  • Vision for a regenerative programme of forestry and building maintenance at Hazel Hill Wood

    Vision for a regenerative programme of forestry and building maintenance at Hazel Hill Wood

    This afternoon I met with two trustees of Hazel Hill Wood to develop some ideas for a funding bid to support more regenerative use of timber to maintain our off-grid buildings. I said at the end of the call I’d write up some thoughts on a what a five-year plan could look like. Here is what I wrote down – stimulated by a very thought-provoking conversation with my excellent trustee colleagues. I’m putting it here rather than on the Hazel Hill website as this is by no means policy! Just a set of ideas, captured to enable further discussion.

    Five-year vision for developing Hazel Hill as a centre for regenerative forest management and traditional construction skills.

    At Hazel Hill Wood we have a unique combination of sustainably managed forest, off-grid buildings and a charity with a mission is to use timber from the wood as part of a regenerative cycle of building repair. Our ambition is to work with these gifts to increase local biodiversity and woodland thriving, build community resilience and wellbeing of all who come into contact with the wood.

    While we reach all of these ambitions to some extent through our current charitable activities, we see the opportunity to unlock greater benefits for the ecosystem and local community by establishing the wood as a centre for learning about how timber can be used as part of a regenerative local construction material. We describe this process as regenerative because it has the potential to have zero negative externalities: harvesting timber in the right places can actually increase woodland health and biodiversity; the timber we harvest can be used to re-establish a range of historical, rural practices, including coppicing, hurdle-making, horse-drawn timber extraction and traditional green-wood construction. Training local people in using these skills can help to enhance the rural economy while helping to maintain the heritage of local buildings. And the wellbeing of all is enhanced through extended contact with the living world through nature connection. 

    To shift to this mode of operation we envisage taking three phases over five years. 

    Phase one – from seed to seedling

    In this first phase we assess the state of the current system and create some of the infrastructure to enable this new activity to happen at the wood. 

    • Forest survey – establishing the health of the ecosystem, possible timber for harvest now and possible timber for future extraction and opportunities to enhance biodiversity through timber harvest.
    • Building survey – establishing the long-term maintenance needs and priorities of our heritage timber buildings.
    • Skills survey – understanding the local skills landscape and how training at Hazel Hill wood could enhance the local economy.
    • Re-establishing connection with rural construction tradespeople.
    • Creating working area – wood seasoning shed, tools shed and outdoor classroom
    • Initiation of volunteer programme for simple construction skills using timber in the forest.
    • Initial harvest of coppiced timber
    • Initial harvest of roundwood poles for seasoning.

    Phase two – from seedling to sapling

    In this phase we increase the scale of our regenerative work, starting to work with wood harvested and seasoned in Phase one while increasing our harvest of timber from the wood. In this phase we grow our education programme around how we see the wood and the buildings as part of a continuum, a process of which we are the stewards, adapting to the needs of the ecosystem and the people who we bring here to heal and learn through connection with the living world.

    • On-going habitat creation and monitoring in areas where timber has been harvested.
    • Maintenance forestry – In order to grow trees for timber, some tree pruning needs to be done to create timber of good quality. We need to develop local skills in how to plan and carry out tree maintenance.
    • Running courses in green wood construction skills.
    • Using seasoned, sawed timber to carry out major upgrades to the structure of our heritage buildings, including new decking for the Oak House and Forest Ark.
    • Invitation to other local crafts people to run training courses at our site.
    • Growing programme of volunteer activities engaged in a range of conservation and heritage construction projects.
    • Growing education programme, offering training in the thinking behind the regenerative principles on site.

    Phase three – from sapling to tree

    In this third phase the operations are more self-sustaining. The process of continuous cover forestry is well-established in the wood, with timber harvested at a rate of 1% per year providing a steady rate of firewood and construction materials for the charity as well as surplus for sale into the local economy. The programme of rural forestry and heritage construction skills training is self-sustaining and as well as bringing in revenue for the charity, is part of the active continuous maintenance of our unique heritage buildings. The site will be well known as a demonstrator project for regenerative principles that can be replicated more widely.

  • Reading the patterns from the regenerative design lab

    Reading the patterns from the regenerative design lab

    This week I am delving into the data we gathered from cohort one of the regenerative design lab. As I struggle to process reams of text my first job was to convert the text into post it notes of key points on Mural. Next I will start to pull out the key themes, but before I do I thought I would share the pleasing pattern this data makes.

  • Downhill to the weekend – time for writing

    I’m just noticing that I’m entering that perfect groove of Friday afternoon. I’ve stopped travelling for the week and I’m back at my desk. My head is buzzing with ideas from the week’s accumulated activities. I have got Fip.fr on the radio and for a precious few moments, there’s no barrier between me and the page.

    I talk quite often in my creativity training about finding the right moment to do the right kind of work. A few years ago I heard Tim Ferris interview Dan Pink about his book ‘When’. Pink was writing about trends in what kind of work suits what times of day for different people. If memory serves correctly, he was suggesting that for many people, the morning is a more analytical time, the early afternoon is a post-lunch slump (ideal in my mind for doing expenses) and the late afternoon and early evening are ideal for more creative thinking.

    He doesn’t say this is true of everyone, but says it is a common for many.

    In my thinking about regenerative design, the idea of working with living cycles comes up often. I see this tuning into what work suits what time of day as another manifestation of this idea of a living cycle. Right now as I settle into my Friday afternoon groove I know that I’m working with the cycle, everything aligns and it is little extra effort to carry on moving forwards.

    For me the questions are: where are we working with the direction of a system and when are we working against it. Sometimes we need to against the flow to make change. But working constantly against the flow is hard work and comes with an energy cost that one day we must repay.

    The only problem I have with listening to Fip.fr in the afternoon is that the times are in French and every so often I forget and think it is one hour later than it really is.

  • An experiment in foundational capital

    Last year I read about foundational capital in Lean Logic. It’s the idea of the capital that systems depend upon to live. For us Earthlings it’s clean air and water, a thriving biosphere, sufficient minerals. But it can also be intangible things: trust, knowledge, peace. In an extractive economy, we seek to mine these resources and use them to create a financial surplus. This financial surplus we can then invest to invest in growth. But not growth of the foundational capital, but growth of the business. In this model the foundational capital is repeatedly depleted. This extraction works for a while so long as there remains sufficient foundational capital, but at some point the foundational capital is so reduced that it can no longer support life.

    The idea of investing financial surplus is so ingrained that it is hard to imagine alternative models. As a business owner, I feel it myself: the instinctive thing to do with any profit the business makes is to invest in growth of the business.

    But we can see an alternative approach in more traditional approaches that seek to re-noursish the growing environment with each harvest. For example, I have heard permaculture teachers talk about sharing the harvest three ways: one part for me; one part for the community; one part for the soil. That final third is left to rot on the the plant to return nutrients to the ground. Contrast this to a more extractive approach, which would harvest all the fruit, leaving the ground more depleted. More profit but less foundational capital.

    Last year I thought how could I experiment with this idea at Constructivist Ltd. A traditional business approach would be to charge clients as much as possible to run training. But that sets our aims against the aims of our clients. The more we can extract, the more profit we can make and the more our clients are depleted.

    Another way to look at things is to say that if we’ve made a profit this year it’s by charing our clients more than we needed to. What is the equivalent of returning this harvest to the ground? Well we could return the extra fees. Another approach is to use the funds to support the flourishing in some way of those organisations that are our clients, which we depend on. The latter option is easy to administer, but the bigger reason I prefer it that it isnon-financial exchange. It is specific, rather than interchangeable (non-fungible), building interconnections and therefore the capacity for feedback. It is also greater than zero-sum (a topic for another post).

    Since most of our work with clients involves direct collaboration with individuals, we decided to return the surplus to the system by running a regenerative thinking retreat at Hazel Hill Wood for this group of individuals. Much like the work done in winter by soil-plant systems – quietly, underground – this gathering deepened connections, allowed knowledge to be exchanged, repaired damage from the last season of growth. In other words, fed the foundational capital of the system we are in and set the scene for a new season of growth on a more resilient grounding.

    In regenerative design we are seeking to create thriving socio-ecological systems. By noticing foundational capital we can start to tune in to how the projects and processes we are involved with deplete or nourish foundational capital. And we can start to think about how to design systems that aim to grow this capital.

  • Regenerative Design Tetris Blocks

    There’s lots of regenerative design thoughts bubbling around between my ears. I often get to a point in my creative process where I feel I can’t write something down because I haven’t written down the previous thing. But I can’t wait to write down the foundation stuff because the new ideas keep coming in. Like blocks in Tetris, they are soon gonna bump again the ceiling of my head. Time to clear some of the shapes in my head and store them here in case they are useful. In my out-tray are:

    Stand by for posts on these.

  • Patterns versus words

    Patterns versus words

    In my exploration of regenerative design I’m often struck by how language is a barrier to exploring regenerative thinking. I can see two things at play here. The first that we may not have the words to fully describe what we imply by regenerative design. The second is that defining being regenerative using the terms of the growth-extraction paradigm (ie our current economic pattern) risks keeping the whole philosophy bound by that original pattern.

    In my application to become an 1851 Regenerative Design Fellow I said I wanted to create a ‘pattern book’ for understanding regenerative design. It was an idea that drew on pattern books in manufacture and it was also a nod to the new pattern for construction that Joseph Paxton ushered in with his sketch for Crystal Palace. But it was also an acknowledgment that words alone may not be enough.

    This week I’m reading ‘The Patterning Instinct’ by Jeremy Lent. As he puts it

    The idea that language- and its corresponding cultural framework – affects the way we think is a key premise of this book.

    Jeremy Lent

    In it he described how humans create new words to describe a particular set of ideas. My example might be the word ‘optioneering’ (which I I dislike but hear often). In one word we combine the ideas of there being a set of options, that they are assessed, and that this be done in a systematic way. Once this new word is developed it is far easier to use it than to create a different term to link together these ideas.

    These words are a way to make thinking easier. All the wisdom of these ideas combined into a single word. Our language is built up of multiple layers of words that contain ideas of deep cultural meaning. This can make it hard to change the way we think. Our existing words are already doing lots of conceptual work and new words have to work hard for adoption if they go against the grain.

    Lent situates his work in the domain of neo-Whorfian linguistics, which takes as it’s starting premise that the way we speak affects how we think.

    The weak-Whorfian approach says that some thinking patterns can be changed by changing the language that we use.

    These insights lead me to think that there may be more to the idea of a pattern book than I had realised. I foresee patterns as a way to transcend words that may be locking us into a certain way of thinking. If so could we use a set of patterns to communicate regenerative design? That’s what I’m thinking about.

    As Lent writes later (pg213)

    If our cultural inheritance compels us to think in certain ways – strong Whorfianism – then there’s nothing we can do about it. If, however, our cultural framing merely encourages us to think in certain patterns – weak Whorfianism – then, by becoming conscious of those patterns, we may have the power to change them.

    Jeremy Lent

  • A myriad of questions about regenerative design

    In my post earlier last week I made the case for regenerative design as a response to the range of systemic ecological, social and climatic challenges that we are facing. As soon as we start talking about regenerative design, a myriad of questions pop up. 

    After six months of co-facilitating the first Constructivist Regenerative Design Lab, I can see these questions settling into three categories. Sorting these questions into groups hopefully gives us a way through them. They are as follows:

    • What do we mean by regenerative design?
    • How do we do it?
    • How do we create the conditions for it to happen?

    I find this separation brings clarity. The first question sets the terms for the answer to the next two. Regenerative design requires a conceptual leap – a paradigm shift in how we see our role as designers. It requires us to think very differently about how design works. It is likely to feel very inconvenient, not to mention counter-cultural, which is why it is important we separate the question of what we are trying to achieve from the ‘how’. I have seen that when we start the conversation with ‘how’, then the concept gets watered down.

    When we can be clear about our aims – and I think the literature is clear, although the concepts are not widely enough understood for them to be mainstream yet – we can start to think about how we do it.

    The answers to questions two and three are likely to be iterative and related. Gaining the opportunity to do regenerative design will inform practice; practice will enable more chances to make the case for regenerative design.

    More blog posts about regenerative design

    Right here

    My work on regenerative design is generously supported by the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851. Read more about my Fellowship in Regenerative Design.

  • The incredible system that will save us

    Good news. There is an incredible system that can save humanity and will enable us to thrive on planet Earth.

    Here’s how it works. 

    • It is entirely powered by the effect of the sun and the moon.
    • Using simple elements it can establish itself in new locations and in a few iterations it can rapidly scale up, complexifying and adapting to meet its operating conditions. 
    • The system produces no waste at all – all outputs from one process are inputs to others.
    • It creates incomprehensibly complex structures from a small palette of abundant, local materials.
    • The system purifies and circulates water. 
    • It keeps the air in the atmosphere breathable, and maintains levels of greenhouse gases at a level appropriate for system survival.
    • It even screens out harmful rays from the sun.
    • It creates food and nutrients.
    • It even creates abundant construction materials.
    • The system has built-in resilience to enable it to respond to shocks. 
    • It has the capacity to learn and to develop new designs. These designs are optimised to ensure the health of the whole system, not just the individual element within it.

    It is the system of life in the biosphere of planet Earth. If we step back and think about it, there is no system that humans have created that can compete in terms of its resilience, life-giving potential and ability to adapt. 

    This life giving system is out there, it surrounds us, and it is still just about intact. This is good news.

    There is more good news. 

    We, human beings, have been evolved as part of that system, and it is interwoven with us. As I heard fellow Regenerative Design Fellow Michael Pawlyn describe, there are more microbial cells than human cells in our bodies. So there is no meaningful separation between us and this system. 

    And if all parts of the system have evolved to increase the health of the system, then we too have been created by that system to fulfil a role. 

    So, there is this incredible life giving system that we are in extricable part of. So far so good.

    Now some not so good news. Since the Enlightenment, in the Global North we have started to see ourselves as separate from that system. That same school of thought which used reason to take power away from the divine, placed rational ‘man’ at the top of the hierarchy of life. 

    We became separate the system and then we started exploiting it. Initially the system had enough elastic capacity to respond to the damage being rendered by its human population.

    But having become separated from that wider living system ourselves, we no-longer paid attention to the feedback loops that might otherwise have limited our behaviour.

    Enraptured by our our own reason, we lost sight of the incredible power of the capacity of the wider living world to heal us, for it to be important for us, and so we devalue it even more. Dazzled by the spectacle of our own creations, we lose sight of the incredible, overwhelming, delicate, powerful and fragile system that we are part of.

    Now to the really bad news.

    We are like engineers working for a foolish developer who asks us to take bricks out of the foundations to build extra storeys at the top. We have extracted, depleted and destroyed so much of this system that it is about to collapse. Without this life-giving support system, we stand little chance of surviving on this rock in the solar system. 

    And so, what do we do now? Clearly we need to revive the health of our life-support system.

    We can think of our ailing living system on planet Earth as a sick patient displaying multiple symptoms. Without being doctors, we can probably see that if we treat one symptom at a time we may never treat the underlying cause of the disease. Holistic medicine in contrast seeks to consider factors that enable the health of the whole person. Things like diet, sleep, exercise, living environment. Adjusting these factors to increase overall patient health can increase the patient’s ability to respond to illness. Long-term observation of the patient can help work out what factors are having the best effect. 

    This approach recognises the body as a complex system that is not fully knowable and so needs cycles of careful intervention and observation. This approach also recognises that when this system is thriving it is much more resilient and therefore able to respond to shocks and recover. 

    Applying this same logic to the living system on planet earth, if we can enable the conditions within which it can flourish again, then the system can do what it needs to heal. The questions we should be asking are what are the equivalents to diet, sleep, exercise and living environment for our living system on Earth, and what can we do adjust these conditions to bring the system back into a healthy state?

    Creating the conditions for flourishing is an example of intervening higher in the system. Rather than treating the individual elements in the system we are seeking to change the relationships that dictate how the system behaves. 

    But there is one fundamental relationship that we need to change. And that is the one between humans and the rest of the living world. Its decline has led to our almost total separation from the ecosystem that supports us – physically, culturally, psychologicically and in relation to our concept of power. 

    In the analogy above we treated the Earth’s living systems as a patient that we are treating. To change that fundamental relationship between humans and this wider living system, we have to see ourselves as the patient. We are part of that living system. We are inextricably linked to it. When it is healthy, we are healthy. When it is sick, we are sick. 

    So, how can we conclude this news bulletin?

    • We are part of an incredible system. 
    • If we want to heal it we need to treat it holistically. 
    • We need to rediscover our role – not as controllers, not all-seers, but as a unique part of the system that can help the system bounce back and change course where it needs to. 
    • We are new on the planetary scene. We have evolved incredible brain powers, very recently we have seen that, used unwisely, our powers can be hugely destructive, but re-tuned to the system we have evolved in, humans could add terrific resilience to our living world. 
    • If we can create the conditions for the system to thrive, then the system will take care of the rest.
    • And if we help it thrive we will, by dint of being part of that system, be thriving too.

    More blog posts about regenerative design

    Right here

    My work on regenerative design is generously supported by the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851. Read more about my Fellowship in Regenerative Design.

  • Regenerative design as a response to the systemic challenges we face

    In the construction industry we are focused on tackling anthropogenic carbon emissions. But this focus misses two wider points. 

    Firstly, that the climate crisis is just one of a series of outcomes of wider system collapse. Others include massive species loss, social injustice, health, war. 

    Secondly, that the restoration of our biosphere could tackle all of these crises. A thriving socio-ecological system would sequester carbon at the same time as reducing emissions, would create the conditions for a great return of dwindling species, create the conditions for a more socially just society, in which humans can be healthy and thrive. And in which we are not competing with each other for resources.

    So why don’t we just get on with the mission of restoring habitats ourselves?  

    The problem is that setting ourselves that mission does nothing to change the fundamental relationship between humans and the wider living world. 

    Since the Enlightenment, in the Global North we have come to see the living world as something that we can fully know and control. But what we can now see is that the net outcome of humankind’s intervention in the living world is system degredation. 

    From systems theory, we know that if you want to change the outcome of a system, you need to change the rules and relationships in it. 

    As we witness the collapse of our life-supporting ecosystem as a consequence of our actions, many people are starting to realise that it is our relationship to the living world that is at the heart of the problem. Unless we tackle that, and therefore the actions we take as humans, the system will continue to collapse. 

    Instead of seeing ourselves as controllers of nature – separate to nature, what if we instead saw ourselves as part of a wider living system, and having the unique capacity to unlock the potential of that system. In this framing humans act like a keystone species, one that has a disproportionately positive benefit on its ecosystem – a species that increases the potential of all to thrive around it. 

    It is in this philosophy that regenerative design is framed. Regenerative design seeks to intervene at a socio-ecological system level (in other words, the system that includes people and wider living world) to increase the capacity of that system to survive, thrive and evolve.

    By adopting a regenerative approach, we fundamentally change our relationship to the rest of the system – with the aim of changing overall system behaviour, from one of system collapse to one of system thriving.

    When our socio-ecological system is thriving, carbon is sequestered in soils, plants and oceans, species can recover, our use of resources stays within the renewable limits of the local system, resilience returns to our living system, social injustice by definition disappears and the health of our population improves.

    We don’t have to solve these problems one by one – nor can we. Instead we need to create the conditions within which our socio-ecological system can flourish, and these other benefits will follow.

    Regenerative design provides the lens for seeing how we can intervene in a way that seeks to work with life-giving capacity of living systems, and in doing so, transforming our role from instigators of collapse to a keystone species that unlocks living potential. 

    More blog posts about regenerative design

    Right here

    My work on regenerative design is generously supported by the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851. Read more about my Fellowship in Regenerative Design.

  • Targets for regenerative design

    Rather than look at a design process and ask ‘is that regenerative’, I find it more insightful to look for where a design process is enabling a living system to thrive and adapt. 

    The advantage of this approach is that it enables us to find regenerative qualities to the design work that we are already doing. (This is an example of looking for the future in the present, one of the techniques in the Three Horizons approach). 

    So for instance, we can look at where an abundant local, natural material is being used as a part of a new structure and we can see that it is enabling of many of the qualities of a thriving living system:

    • Use of abundant renewable materials
    • Feedback – connection between people and the resources they depend upon, building local resilience. 
    • Self-organisation – design that uses local materials better lends itself to local adaptation.
    • Appropriate structure – in this case a smaller scale supply chain that can adapt according to material availability. 

    Design that enables these qualities  of a thriving living system to emerge is regenerative. 

    But what if those renewable elements are only a decorative feature on the front of a brand new building made of virgin, non-renewable materials, then is that design process regenerative?

    Instinctively the regenerative design elements feel massively outweighed by the degenerative design of the superstructure. And there is an emergent risk here that regenerative ‘elements’ will be introduced to a project as a cover up for business-as-norma.

    But getting into assessing how regenerative something is feels like an intellectual trap that misses the point. 

    The goals remain to massively increase the health of the biosphere at the same time as reversing the anthropogenic release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

    The point about regenerative design is that it gives us a means to achieve these aims in a holistic way. 

    The real question is not how regenerative the design process is, but how has the overall process contributed to meeting these global goals.

    That isn’t to say we should celebrate regenerative processes where we see them – we can learn a great deal from what people are already doing, and by sharing these stories we can start to build a regenerative culture that enables more regenerative design in the future.

    More blog posts about regenerative design

    Right here

    My work on regenerative design is generously supported by the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851. Read more about my Fellowship in Regenerative Design.

    My work on regenerative design is generously supported by the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851. Read more about my Fellowship in Regenerative Design.

  • Salt harvesting in Brittany – engineering and commoning

    Salt harvesting in Brittany – engineering and commoning

    Salt has been harvested in the bay between Le Croisic and Guérance on the edge of Brittany for centuries. The industry had been in decline but in more recent decades has started to grow again with the local attainment of a ‘red label’ quality status for its salt products.

    We had the privilege of getting a tour of the salt beds with my old friend from Paris days, Ronan when we stayed with his family in the house he grew up in in Batz-sur-Mer. It was a welcome two-day stop on our Summer Tour.

    As Ronan explained:

    • At high tide, sea water flows into reservoirs that stock the water for the day of salt harvesting.
    • This salt water is then directed by an intricate network of channels to blocks of salt beds.
    • Each salt bed is about the size of a typical English allotment. In a salt bed the water from the channels flows in and the flow reduced to almost a stand-still.
    • During the heat of the day, the water evaporates and salt crystals form. There are two salt products: the purer ‘fleur de sel’, which accumulates on the surface; and the darker ‘sel gris’ which accumulates on the bottom.
    • Morning and evening salt harvesters walk out to their salt beds and gently scrape the two types of salt out of the beds and pile them up on the side. Single bed can produce a wheelbarrow-full every day in high summer.
    • The salt harvesters transfer their salt to larger communal salt piles, which are then taken to the town cooperative.
    • Individuals and families have harvesting rights over a specific beds.

    I find the salt beds a fascinating example of engineering and commoning. This is a common resource which requires shared infrastructure to harvest. What we take out is bountiful, but requires a shared responsibility for preserving the purity of the resource. Similar to the water irrigation channels that I saw in Mirenna in Spain many years ago.

    The salt beds also create wonderful colours. The colour depends on the salt concentration and the angle of the sun.

    A group of salt beds at Batz-sur-Mer
    The morning’s harvest of fleur de sel is gathered up against the wall
    The individual harvests are collected together
    The colours of a salt bed
    Map of the salt beds of Batz-sur-Met
    The very slow flow of water through the salt beds – watch carefully.

  • If you want to save the planet… have dancing lessons

    Serendipitously, as I was preparing for my first dance teaching workshop this morning at the Idler Festival, I spotted a quote in one of my other open browser tabs a quote from David Flemming.

    Commons are cooperative enterprises; they therefore depend on trust, on reciprocity, and on social capital. The market economy can get by, for a time, with a gravely-weakened culture and social capital, but the commons cannot. If you really want to save the planet and to give human society a decent chance of living on it, the first thing you should do is to join a choir. Or have dancing lessons, or both. That is not quite the hyperbole it seems: in enduring communities, the thing which defines and distinguishes them is their culture of dance, music, story and tradition—so intertwined with trust that it is hard to tell cause from effect. 

    David Flemming, in ‘Lean Logic – A DICTIONARY for the FUTURE and HOW to SURVIVE IT’

    We always said in the Mudflappers that our mission was to make the world slightly better through the medium of dance. Well here is some compelling philosophical underpinning to back that up. I shared this quote with the dance workshop today and it was well received.

  • Notes from RESTORE report Sustainability, Restorative to Regenerative

    Here are my notes from reading the RESTORE report ‘ (REthinking Sustainability TOwards a Regenerative Economy) Sustainability, Restorative to Regenerative – edited by Martin Brown and Edeltraud Haselsteiner – as my part of my regenerative design research. Thanks Emma Crichton for the link.

    On regenerative design

    This is probably the most useful part for me.

    ‘Regenerative design, relates to holistic approaches that support the co-evolution of human and natural systems in a partnered relationship.’

    (more…)

  • Engineering of the commons

    If we want to think really regeneratively about engineering and the creation of buildings, then maybe we should consider building materials as a common resource.

    I realise that I have been approaching the question of regenerative design in engineering from the standpoint of a market-driven economy. Materials are supplied by private suppliers, installed by private companies for a mixture of public and private clients. In most cases the profit (surplus) is reaped far from either the source of the materials or the location of the building.

    But listening to the Frontiers of Commoning podcast I realise that this is only a relatively modern framing of the mechanism by which materials can be sourced, shared and distributed.

    If we want to design buildings regeneratively, then we need to be thinking about how the process of sourcing and manufacturing building materials is regenerative: how the very harvesting of these materials can create more; how these processes can create habitats which enhance other aspects of the ecosystem, building local complexity; how feedback loops are built in so that we know if the system is working within its limits or not.

    If we see our construction materials as a common resource rather than a commodity, we can think much more collectively about how these resources should be manufactured, used, reused, borrowed, repurposed, re-imagined and finally returned to the ecosystem.

    In this framing, no-longer is the engineer is not serving a particular project but the people who share ownership of that common resource. Their role becomes threefold: harvesting of materials from the local bio-mineral region; managing stocks of resources in the most equitable way; and design and re-design of how these materials are used. (Note there is no return of the material to the ground as there is no waste in a regenerative system – just more used for the materials.)

    No-longer would the engineer be working to maximise shareholder value and maximising ecosystem destruction. Instead the engineer would be working to maximise the regenerative harvest of local materials to maximise local flourishing.