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Tag: PatternBook

  • 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. 

  • Pattern Poem

    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 dictionary tells us the word comes from the Middle English ‘patron’ meaning something to be followed.

    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.

  • Announcement: the Pattern Book for Regenerative Design

    I’m pleased to be able to share that I am working on a new book, due to be published later this spring. 

    ‘The Pattern Book for Regenerative Design – a practice guide for engineers and other humans’

    The book is for change-makers in the built who want to transform our industry into a force for good: 

    • one that creates thriving communities and ecosystems through our work; 
    • an industry that is as conscious about where we make and where we take. 
    • an industry that knows that every time we build something, we have the opportunity to shift the system.

    This is a book for people who dream about the future but who have a job in the present. Who see the potential for the systems we design and inhabit to be much better, but see a very different reality in their projects. And for those who feel the gap between the future we need and the systems we have now is too wide to span. 

    In the Regenerative Structural Engineer, James Norman set out the case for Regenerative Design. It was the first book to set out a theory base for regenerative design in the context of structural engineering, and collects together dozens of examples of brilliant examples of this theory in action. 

    If you are new to regenerative design, I’d highly recommend you start there. And even if you are familiar with the theory from other sources, it’s worth taking a look at because it provides the foundations upon which we build in this guide.

    From theory to practice.

    You’ve read about regenerative design. You are excited about its goals; or you are at least curious to find out more about how it could work. This practice guide is to help you take the next step.

    Practice is the application of theory. It is the habitual way we work. It is the patterns we repeat whether we are: 

    • Supporting individual clients
    • Building a new portfolio of work
    • Transforming a business or an institution
    • Teaching regenerative design
    • Shaping policy in the built environment, or
    • Developing our personal regenerative practice.

    Our patterns of work are made up of tools, models, processes, and ways of communicating. We stitch all of these together to create a pattern of practice that best suits the project we are working on.

    This book is to help you stitch together patterns of practice that not only helps you deliver on your projects – but also embeds regenerative thinking in your work, so that each project stacks up to creating a thriving future. 

    As I write I’ll be serialising the early content on this blog. Stay tuned.