Overheard - Highlights from May's Regenerative Design Event
At the start of May, we hosted an event to talk through some highlights from our Regenerative Design Lab. In this article we're bringing you some anonymised highlights.
The Pattern Book for Regenerative Design - launched at the event. Photo: Carmen Valino
Over the course of the last nine months, the Accelerator has been working in partnership with Constructivist to bring together policy makers, planners and industry specialists to explore regenerative design in the built environment.
During the ‘Regenerative Design Lab’, participants were called to London, then Hazel Hill Wood in Wiltshire, and back to London again to dive into the ins and outs of regenerative design. At the beginning of May, we rounded off the Lab with an interactive event at Chatham House where we held a panel discussion, a fireside chat, conversation corners, and of course, a drinks reception to reflect on lessons learnt and next steps.
Continuing our Overheard series, in which we channel the spirit of the Chatham House Rule to bring you anonymised excerpts from our events and projects, this article brings some highlights from a night of regenerative design exploration…
The panel at the event. Photo: Carmen Valino
Capturing the essence of regenerative design
At the heart of regenerative design is a reconsideration of why, when and how we build things. Regenerative design reimagines the built environment as a means to a range of transformative ends - from maintaining and restoring the natural environment to strengthening local communities. The transformative potential of regenerative design was captured in the optimism of many speakers.
“What if every time we built something, we made the world a better place?”
“The overarching goal of regenerative design if for humans to survive, thrive and co-evolve.”
A conversation corner. Photo: Carmen Valino
“Good regeneration is obvious. You see children playing… people happy in their locale, and a huge sense of place.”
Tilting the system
Whilst regenerative design is gaining momentum, encouraging its uptake at broader scales remains a difficult challenge – speakers at the event grappled with this issue throughout, and suggested mechanisms through which systemic change could be catalysed.
A display at the event. Photo Carmen Valino
"Tilting systems is about education… awareness… conversations, and a bit of luck too."
"We need to start with potential, not problems. It’s so easy to begin thinking around problems. But what happens when we begin from a sense of potential?"
Event attendants at the reception. Photo: Carmen Valino
“Fossil fuels made us carbon stupid. Before fossil fuels we had to be hyper aware of the particular affordances of place.”
“Do we see ourselves as separate from the system we are in. Are we stuck in traffic, or are we the traffic?”
Small acts lead to large leaps
Whilst speakers at the event agreed that systemic reform is important, they also believed that individuals can contribute to the embedding of regenerative design principles within their local communities…
Materials on display. Photo: Carmen Valino
“Once you start to think about systems… incremental activities can make a huge difference.”
“At our firm you wouldn’t believe the volume of material we received because of what one person said should happen to it – that would have been chucked away otherwise.”
A display at the event. Photo: Carmen Valino
"changemakers within individual organisation are so important."
“Institutions play different roles and have different capacities for change within a system. Some can deliver comprehensive systems demonstrators, but others are more limited in what they can do. However, that doesn’t mean that localised innovation isn’t valuable and that it can’t ‘build the muscles’ for further progress in the future.”
Embracing an imperfect process.
A transition to regenerative design principles being embraced across built environments at multiple scales will be the result of long-term work and trial and error, rather than an overnight occurrence.
A discussion at the reception after the event. Photo: Carmen Valino
“This will not be achieved in one project. Or ten years of projects. This is a transition.”
“There isn’t a project in the world that couldn’t do better…. but we’ve got to start from somewhere.”
More materials on display. Photo: Carmen Valino
“There isn’t a project in the world that couldn’t do better…. but we’ve got to start from somewhere.”
The event also saw the launch of a new book launched by Constructivist - The Pattern Book for Regenerative Design, which offers up one of the most comprehensive and imaginative overviews we have seen of the emerging field of regenerative design. We're particular fans of the way in which it engages with how different stakeholders within the ecosystem might encounter the concept of regenerative design - and the tools that can help them do so effectively. So if you haven't done so already, be sure to put in an order.
Going forward, we’ll be publishing additional content looking specifically at the policy implications of the work we’ve done. We’ll also be incorporating many of the premises and practices of regenerative design into our research around renewal, as part of our new research cycle, The Rift.
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