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Tag: Regenerative Design Lab

  • I’m back (with a book)

    I’m back (with a book)

    It’s been 47 days since my last entry on For Engineers and Other Humans, and since then I’ve been working on something that feels pretty big. 

    So here’s the announcement: I’ve written a book. It’s called The Pattern Book for Regenerative Design—a practice guide for engineers (and other humans).

    This book weaves together thinking from the Regenerative Design Lab, facilitation notes, posts from this blog and reflections from across my 1851 Fellowship in Regenerative Design. And now it is all in one place. 

    The first release of the book will be for readers of this blog, so stay tuned — you are in the right place. The book will then be on sale directly through the Constructivist website. 

    Why are we doing it this way? Because our aim is to build momentum. The work that started in the Regenerative Design Lab now needs to go further, and the Pattern Book is the manual for doing that. Our intention is to grow this book iteratively. This is iteration one. 

    Iteration two will be informed by how people get on with using the tools, exercises and sequences within. 

    More soon.

  • 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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  • Exploring regenerative practice for engineers

    As James and I start to delve into the writing for our book on regenerative design for structural engineers, I am gathering my thoughts on what regenerative practice might look for an engineer. This is a working-out-loud post to help develop and share my thoughts.

    The challenge with regenerative design is that we are reaching for something that doesn’t yet exist. But if we wait for the answer to be fully formed, the natural systems that we seek to regenerate – ourselves included – may be destroyed beyond repair.

    And so we have to work with what we’ve got:

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  • Making the Regenerative Design Lab a Regenerative System

    In today’s planning session for the Regenerative Design Lab with my co-facilitator Ellie Osborne, we asked what if we made the lab itself a regenerative system?

    Based on my working definition (see my previous post on the four characteristics of regenerative systems), a regenerative regenerative design lab would:

    • Be able to renew its sources of material and energy;
    • Thrive within wider ecosystem boundaries; and,  
    • Adapt to a changing operating environment. 
  • Four characteristics of regenerative systems

    Four characteristics of regenerative systems

    Work on regenerative thinking progresses on all fronts. Book writing with my friend James on Monday (read his excellent blog on this process), developing regenerative practice at Hazel Hill Wood Tuesday and short-listing candidates for the Regenerative Design Lab Wednesday. I love that all of these initiatives inform each other.

    To aid all three I have synthesised my understanding of how regenerative systems operate. This framing is informed in large-part by Donnella Meadows’s book ‘Thinking in Systems’, which is helping to understand the conversations are having across all these fronts.

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