Eiffel Over

Tag: HazelHillWood

  • Forest Ark – a lesson in continuous place-based design

    The Forest Ark is our most distinctive building at Hazel Hill Wood. It was designed in 2008 to showcase high-tech, off-grid living. Within its curving, organic form, rainwater was converted into drinking water, a wood-burning stove cooks, heats water for washing and heating; there is a cob wall that transmits heat from the south-facing wall.

    The problem is, fifteen years later, many of these technologies are no longer working – or indeed never worked. It turns out that operating all these technologies together is complicated. Getting these systems to work in sync takes regular testing and tweaking of routines, which is fine if you live there every day, but is not suited to a building that is for more occasional educational use. 

    So is this a failure? The only failure I would say is if we fail to see this building as an experiment. The failure would be if we gave up and stopped learning. 

    The challenges of keeping the building working have caused the Forest Ark to fall into some disrepair with a potentially hefty bill for restoring it to its full glory. The easiest path would be to abandon the building. This is more typically the approach of modern construction. A blank slate is so much easier to work with, so much easier to profit from, than the complexities of existing structures.

    A regenerative approach is to see our work on the Forest Ark as an act of care, to unlock the potential of what we have, and to see the potential of the work itself to create thriving, not just in the ends of improving the building. 

    For that care to start, we need to get to know each other. Our first date is the rainwater harvesting system. We just don’t think we can justify the expense and complication of running a rainwater harvesting and high-tech purification system on such a small scale. But connecting to the mains is itself an experiment that involves digging around the site to rediscover the buried rainwater harvesting system and the wastewater pipes. 

    And in that digging work, I already notice my connection to and affection for this building growing. I appreciate the craftsmanship that went into the original construction and want to honour that in our maintenance. I also encounter, for the first time, the clay that is so abundant on our site. Could clay become a locally abundant material that we work with?

    Buildings are not static objects but living experiments that can evolve over time. Through the process of continuous, place-based design, we create and then we observe and see what needs to change. That ongoing dialogue connects us to place, connects us to the specific emergent needs of the local built environment and the local community. 

    My hope is that through our work with the Forest Ark, we weave more people into the journey, developing our skills as we go to work with local materials, building our capacity to adapt and evolve with the place around us.

    Hazel Hill Build Weeks

    If you are interested in getting involved with caring for our off-grid eco-buildings at Hazel Hill, then you might be interested joining one of our two Build Weeks in July from 14th to 27th July 2025. I’ll share on this blog details when they go live.

  • 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.

  • Re-inventing the wheel(ie bin)

    Yesterday, I wrote about improving how we manage poo at Hazel Hill.

    One particular challenge our staff face is dealing with three of our most “productive” toilets. These are indoor composting toilets, designed so that the waste drops directly into wheelie bins in a bay beneath the building. The idea is that the wheelie bins can then be wheeled out and tipped into composting bays.

    The problem? During the design phase, nobody checked whether it was actually possible to tip out a wheelie bin full of poo.

    Originally, the plan included a fleet of wheelie bins, so some could be left full for a while to allow the waste to break down, making for much pleasanter work. However, during procurement, these extra bins were “value engineered” out of the project. We now have just one set of bins in use, which means they must be emptied fresh.

    As part of our Plan for Poo, we want to improve this wheelie bin system. The easy fix is to buy more bins, allowing for a proper ageing process. But even with well-aged “vintage” contents, tipping the bins remains a challenge.

    So we have a live design brief: to create a method or mechanism for safely and effectively emptying wheelie bins of poo.

    Here are the constraints:

    • We’re an off-grid site. While we have some power on-site, we prefer low-energy, low-tech solutions that align with our ethos.
    • The system should be operable by one member of staff.
    • Ideally, we’d like to use materials we already have on-site to stay in line with our preference for self-sufficiency.
    • The bins need to be tipped into a composting bay for continued breakdown. The design of this bay can be part of the solution.
    • The system should be up and running by the summer holidays.

    We’re inviting suggestions from our community. Designs on a postcard, please! Ideas will be displayed on a board near the outdoor composting area for everyone’s consideration.

    Watch this space for updates.

  • 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.

  • Desertification versus dessertification

    Desertification = a real word that refers to the process where fertile land becomes desert, typically due to drought, deforestation, or poor land management. It can also be used more broadly to describe when a population of living things becomes so small that it struggles to sustain itself.

    Dessertification = a word I’ve just made up to describe an abundance of cake.

    Yesterday I talked about overfishing leaving fish populations so sparse that they can barely survive. When a population is reduced to such small numbers, it may become almost invisible. The creatures that remain may live in small, isolated pockets that are vulnerable to disease, and don’t benefit from much genetic variation. Such populations are on the brink of local extinction. 

    But populations in a desertified state can slowly come back into a state of thriving. One way to help them do this is by finding ways to connect together isolated pockets. Connecting to smaller populations creates a larger one with the potential for greater genetic variation, and the ability to move further should environmental conditions change. Both of these increase the resilience of the population. 

    Here I am going to leap from talking about fish to butterflies and people.

    When I first visited Hazel Hill Wood in 2008, it was to take part in a butterfly conservation activity. Our task was creating open corridors through the wood that would allow populations of butterflies living on either side of the wood to mix. As we were told, butterflies don’t like flying through dense, dark, cold woodland. So the wood was effectively a barrier between these two populations. But creating wide openings in the wood lets sunlight in and provides a pathway that the butterflies can follow. Connecting the populations builds their resilience, and today the wood is rich with a wide range of species of butterflies fluttering by. 

    Doing the work of conservation also brings people together. During Covid, the wood was a place where people come together, out of isolation, to form community and build resilience. 

    It is pleasing to think that this work of countering desertification, be that of butterflies or sense of community, is fuelled at tea time by an abundance of cake. Dessertification indeed.

  • Some things you might not know about the Regenerative Design Lab

    In the coming weeks I’m going to be talking quite a lot about the Regenerative Design Lab because we have a new cohort starting next week. Some of you will know all about the Lab, some will know nothing, so, this quite long post is to help fill in the gaps.

    Beginnings

    Back in 2022, I was the recipient of the Sir Misha Black bursary and had the opportunity to develop my design teaching in new areas. I wanted to explore regenerative design. From what I already knew I realised that this exploration would be better done as a group, and so we set up the first Lab for that purpose. 

    Working with Alexie Sommer, we put together the original advert, and 20 brave people gave us their trust and signed up. About that time I also met Ellie Osborne, a brilliant facilitator, and the two of us have been co-facilitating the Lab ever since.

    The first cohort ran from March to October 2022. Our first cohort of participants from across the built-environment spectrum started digging into regenerative design. Our aim, to explore its principles and translate these into practice for industry. 

    Right from the start we have delivered the Lab with the support of Engineers Without Borders UK. Being regenerative is one of their four key principles for globally responsible engineering. We will be collaborating with Engineers Without Borders UK to share the findings of the Lab in the educational policy space.

    Growing

    Since then, with funding through my 1851 Fellowship in Regenerative Design, two more cohorts have completed the Lab process. We have over fifty Lab alumni who between them are spreading the ideas of regenerative practice across industry. The conversations from these cohorts heavily informed the book James Norman and I co-authored, The Regenerative Structural Engineer. 

    For each cohort there’s a report (accessible here).

    Regenerative design challenges the way we approach design. It’s not just a new flavour of design, but questions the goals, the motivations and how we show up. And so during the Lab, we consider regenerative design from a wide range of angles – including mindsets, systems thinking and how we collaborate.

    A key part of the Lab is spending time in a thriving, living system, which is why we take our participants on three residential visits to Hazel Hill Wood. We see the wood as one of the facilitators, providing an example to us of thriving, a place for congregation and focal point for considering the wonder of this living world that we want to protect.

    Evolving

    Our fourth cohort begins next week, and for the first time we are delivering this Lab in partnership with another host organisation, the Sustainability Accelerator at Chatham House. The focus for this cohort will be on how to create policy that delivers regenerative design. For the first time, this Lab cohort will have two homes, with one foot in the woods and the other in the centre of a city. 

    We are already beginning planning for our fifth cohort, for which we will be partnering with Watershed in Bristol. This cohort will focus on exploring regenerative design with a project context with particular emphasis on inclusion, diversity and power. Cohort 5 will kick off in September 2025.