Over the last decade the concept of sustainability within design and construction has moved from ... more Over the last decade the concept of sustainability within design and construction has moved from virtual invisibility to an industry-wide dialogue in which the questions are more and more how to achieve it, not whether. This shift has produced a proliferation of terms applied to describe and advocate different sustainability oriented design and development methodologies and philosophies. A scan of the literature yields a range of descriptors: " sustainable " , " green " , " whole systems " , " integrative " , " ecological " and " regenerative ". While this proliferation reflects the breadth of activity, it also makes it harder to see how the whole field is evolving and therefore where to position oneself within it. This article (briefly) introduces a particular definition of one of these terms—Regenerative Design, the design approach that is proposed as best reflecting the thinking that will shape the next phase of development within the field of sustainable design. The full significance of this approach to sustainable design is best grasped however in the context of its relationship to how the field as a whole is evolving. To provide this context, the article first depicts the trajectory of this evolution based on seeing the pattern behind the field's ongoing shifts in thinking and practices. By seeing it as a trajectory, we can better prepare ourselves and our firms for future viability within this growing and essential field. Used as a map, it can assist designers in marking their current position as well as charting a developmental path for themselves that integrates their unique skills and aspirations with the emerging understanding of what successful sustainable design entails. Five design approaches are described in depicting the trajectory. The concluding section on Regenerative Design introduces just the added dimensions that distinguish it from the other design approaches, but should be understood as encompassing all of the other four. Design in the Industrial Age. " Readily manageable uniformity " was how John Lyle described the pattern that shaped design and construction prior to the rise of sustainability concerns. This pattern, fed by the assumption of unlimited material resources, emphasized maximum efficiency in use of human resources and created distinctiveness primarily by surface aesthetic features. Design decisions were increasingly severed from their ecological consequences and designers were seen, in Sym Van der Ryn's words, " as either artists or technicians, each role insulated…from everyday life. " The destructive impacts to the planet and to the human spirit have been widely studied and discussed—setting the stage for the current widespread interest in sustainability. Evolution and Sustainable Design. The overall pattern of biological evolution is almost the exact opposite of the above, moving over millennia toward increasingly complex networks of unique ecosystems, each adapted for reciprocal existence within local conditions. If we view sustainability oriented design as delineating a new design era, the pattern it seeks to express is much more akin to that of nature. It continually expands the levels of wholeness it can effectively encompass—moving from elements to systems to wholes to ecologies or networks of wholes and beyond. This evolution in design thinking arises whenever we encounter the limits of a level of wholeness to deliver sustainability. Encountering these limits sets in motion the development of
I think H. G. Wells had it right when he said that we are in a race between education and catastr... more I think H. G. Wells had it right when he said that we are in a race between education and catastrophe. This race will be decided in all of the places, including classrooms, that foster ecological imagination, critical thinking, awareness of connections, independent thought, and good heart. David Orr, The Learning Curve For anyone following the cascade of increasingly alarming studies of the Earth’s health, it is tempting to conclude that, as we move into the 21 st century, catastrophe is the odds-on winner of Wells ’ race. Newspapers, televisions and mail carry a drumbeat of disaster. Indeed, we have become a society fascinated with great catastrophes. Each year we are alternately thrilled and horrified by the giant tidal wave, the storm of the century, the killer earthquake, all brought to our local theater. As news reports depict increasingly drastic deterioration of the planet’s fundamental life systems, it is easy to believe that the chances to reverse the destruction of Earth a...
Regenerative design and development calls for a paradigm shift from a 'mechanistic' to the 'ecolo... more Regenerative design and development calls for a paradigm shift from a 'mechanistic' to the 'ecological' or living systems worldview that has emerged from living systems sciences over the last century. The challenge for design practitioners educated and now working in a field mainly shaped by a mechanistic worldview is twofold: first, to develop an understanding of how life and living systems work and, second, to translate that understanding into application. The benefit of taking on this challenge is that understanding natural systems offers powerful insights into how to work across different scales of the built environment. This article looks at key and interrelated living systems' principles and discusses how they translate into design and development practices, using examples of how actual projects worked across multiple scales. Principles considered include the nested or holarchic nature of living systems and the fact that a living system is not separable from its environment. Mapping a design project as a socio-ecological system nested within its immediate and larger contexts shifts designers' attention to the unique and distinctive character of the project environment and the reciprocal influence project and environment exercise on each other. A second principle, that ecosystems' self-organizing and self-regenerating capacity depends on its members carrying out their systemic roles, provides the basis for defining and designing a distinctive and generative role for a project within its place. This role enables the project to be both more valuable and valued as a source of greater viability and vitality and, drawing on the first principle, to have a positive influence across different scales of nested wholes. The third principle relates to the webs of dynamic flows and metabolic exchanges that enable life to continuously produce, repair, and perpetuate itself. Using insights gained from the understanding of the essence of a place, design practitioners are able to identify transformative nodal points within those webs where targeted acupuncture interventions, sometimes small, can influence the health and renewal of the whole system. In conclusion, the article first summarizes how working from an understanding of living systems principles provides insights into working regeneratively across and within different scales. Second, it addresses the need for the role of designers to shift and for new capabilities to be developed in order to incorporate those insights into new development and design practices. Third, it highlights some of the challenges design practitioners might face when implementing a living systems approach within the complexity of multidisciplinary design projects.
The radical changes required for Earth to ‘remain fit for human habitation’ require a change in w... more The radical changes required for Earth to ‘remain fit for human habitation’ require a change in worldviews from ‘mechanistic’ to ‘ecological’. A key question is: how can those working on the built environment – a field with major impact on global resources and systems – best support a smooth and timely transition? It is proposed that design practitioners can facilitate that response in the built environment through the development, application and evolution of comprehensive new methodologies, explicitly shaped by a regenerative sustainability paradigm. It is further proposed that successfully evolving a regenerative practice requires going beyond just adopting new techniques to taking on a new role for humans and designers, and a ‘new mind’, and learning how to work ‘developmentally’. As an example of how a consciously held worldview shapes a practice, an actual regenerative methodology, developed and evolved over 16 years of practice, is explored in detail. A framework, adapted from accepted scientific methodology protocols, is used to structure this exploration, differentiating the different elements and levels, showing how they work as an integrated system and revealing the underlying premises and assumptions behind the choice of aims, strategies, methods and progress indicators.Les changements radicaux nécessaires pour que la Terre « demeure propre à l'habitation humaine » exigent que les visions du monde évoluent du « mécaniste » à « l'écologique ». Une question clé qui se pose est de savoir comment ceux et celles qui travaillent sur le cadre bâti – un domaine qui a un impact important sur les ressources et les systèmes mondiaux – peuvent le mieux contribuer à une transition harmonieuse et rapide. Il est proposé que les praticiens du design puissent faciliter cette réponse dans le cadre bâti par la mise au point, l'application et l'évolution de nouvelles méthodologies globales, explicitement modelées par un paradigme de durabilité régénératrice. Il est en outre proposé que, pour réussir à faire évoluer une pratique régénératrice, il est nécessaire de dépasser la simple adoption de nouvelles techniques, de façon à ce qu'un rôle nouveau soit assumé par les hommes et les concepteurs, ainsi qu'un « nouvel esprit », et qu'ils apprennent comment travailler « développementalement ». Un exemple de la manière dont une vision du monde consciemment partagée façonne une pratique, une méthodologie régénératrice réelle, élaborée et développée sur 16 ans de pratique, est examiné en détail. Un cadre, adapté des protocoles de méthodologie scientifique reconnus, est utilisé pour structurer cette étude, en différenciant les différents éléments et niveaux, en montrant comment ils fonctionnent comme un système intégré et en révélant les prémisses et les postulats sous-jacents qui sous-tendent le choix des objectifs, des stratégies, des méthodes et des indicateurs de progrès. Mots clés: systèmes vivants permaculture lieu développement régénérateur et conception régénératrice histoire
Over the last decade the concept of sustainability within design and construction has moved from ... more Over the last decade the concept of sustainability within design and construction has moved from virtual invisibility to an industry-wide dialogue in which the questions are more and more how to achieve it, not whether. This shift has produced a proliferation of terms applied to describe and advocate different sustainability oriented design and development methodologies and philosophies. A scan of the literature yields a range of descriptors: " sustainable " , " green " , " whole systems " , " integrative " , " ecological " and " regenerative ". While this proliferation reflects the breadth of activity, it also makes it harder to see how the whole field is evolving and therefore where to position oneself within it. This article (briefly) introduces a particular definition of one of these terms—Regenerative Design, the design approach that is proposed as best reflecting the thinking that will shape the next phase of development within the field of sustainable design. The full significance of this approach to sustainable design is best grasped however in the context of its relationship to how the field as a whole is evolving. To provide this context, the article first depicts the trajectory of this evolution based on seeing the pattern behind the field's ongoing shifts in thinking and practices. By seeing it as a trajectory, we can better prepare ourselves and our firms for future viability within this growing and essential field. Used as a map, it can assist designers in marking their current position as well as charting a developmental path for themselves that integrates their unique skills and aspirations with the emerging understanding of what successful sustainable design entails. Five design approaches are described in depicting the trajectory. The concluding section on Regenerative Design introduces just the added dimensions that distinguish it from the other design approaches, but should be understood as encompassing all of the other four. Design in the Industrial Age. " Readily manageable uniformity " was how John Lyle described the pattern that shaped design and construction prior to the rise of sustainability concerns. This pattern, fed by the assumption of unlimited material resources, emphasized maximum efficiency in use of human resources and created distinctiveness primarily by surface aesthetic features. Design decisions were increasingly severed from their ecological consequences and designers were seen, in Sym Van der Ryn's words, " as either artists or technicians, each role insulated…from everyday life. " The destructive impacts to the planet and to the human spirit have been widely studied and discussed—setting the stage for the current widespread interest in sustainability. Evolution and Sustainable Design. The overall pattern of biological evolution is almost the exact opposite of the above, moving over millennia toward increasingly complex networks of unique ecosystems, each adapted for reciprocal existence within local conditions. If we view sustainability oriented design as delineating a new design era, the pattern it seeks to express is much more akin to that of nature. It continually expands the levels of wholeness it can effectively encompass—moving from elements to systems to wholes to ecologies or networks of wholes and beyond. This evolution in design thinking arises whenever we encounter the limits of a level of wholeness to deliver sustainability. Encountering these limits sets in motion the development of
Abstract
The ‘net-positive’ concept could serve as both a new direction and aspiration for evolv... more Abstract
The ‘net-positive’ concept could serve as both a new direction and aspiration for evolving sustainable design beyond minimizing human damage toward human habitation that is a source of life. This commentary posits that realizing that potential depends on how practitioners define positive. Describing net-positive as “buildings that 'add value' to ecological systems and generate more than they need to fulfill their own needs” moves net-positive beyond simply a technical challenge of creating surpluses to one that requires confronting the widely different interpretations of value and value-adding held within the sustainability movement. ‘Green’ building, like the building industry, generally defines and measures a building’s value in terms of human benefit. Ecological sustainability defines value in terms of benefits to the systemic capability to generate, sustain and evolve the life of a particular place. Reconciling these different definitions could transform how society conceives of and designs the built environment. Building professionals seeking to translate net-positive into practice could play a leading role in that transformation. Practice will need to embrace ecological thinking to create design, construction and ongoing management processes that stimulate dialogue about what it means for humans to play a value-adding role in the ecological systems where they are constituents.
Abstract
Regenerative design and development calls for a paradigm shift from the ‘mechanistic’... more Abstract
Regenerative design and development calls for a paradigm shift from the ‘mechanistic’ to the ‘ecological’ or living systems worldview that has emerged from living systems sciences over the last century. The challenge for design practitioners educated and now working in a field mainly shaped by a mechanistic worldview is two-fold: first, to develop an understanding of how life and living systems work and, second, to translate that understanding into application. The benefit of taking on this challenge is that understanding natural systems offers powerful insights into how to work across different scales of the built environment.
This article looks at key and interrelated living systems’ principles and discusses how they translate into design and development practices, using examples of how actual projects worked across multiple scales. Principles considered include the nested or holarchic nature of living systems and the fact that a living system is not separable from its environment. Mapping a design project as a socio-ecological system nested within its immediate and larger contexts shifts designers’ attention to the unique and distinctive character of the project environment and the reciprocal influence project and environment exercise on each other.
A second principle, that ecosystems’ self-organizing and self-regenerating capacity depends on its members carrying out their systemic roles provides the basis for defining and designing a distinctive and generative role for a project within their place. This role enables the project to be both more valuable and valued as a source of greater viability and vitality and, drawing on the first principle, to have a positive influence across different scales of nested wholes.
The third principle relates to the webs of dynamic flows and metabolic exchanges that enable life to continuously produce, repair and perpetuate itself. Using insights gained from the understanding of the essence of a place, design practitioners are able to identify transformative nodal points within those webs where targeted acupuncture interventions, sometimes small, can influence the health and renewal of the whole system.
In conclusion, the article first summarizes how working from an understanding of living systems principles provides insights into working regeneratively across and within different scales. Second, it addresses the need for the role of designers to shift and for new capabilities to be developed in order to incorporate those insights into new development and design practices. Third, it highlights some of the challenges design practitioners might face when implementing a living systems approach within the complexity of multi-disciplinary design projects.
The emerging field of regenerative development and design marks a significant evolution in the co... more The emerging field of regenerative development and design marks a significant evolution in the concept and application of sustainability. Practices in sustainable or green design have focused primarily on minimizing damage to the environment and human health, and using resources more efficiently; in effect, slowing down the degradation of earth’s natural systems. Advocates of a regenerative approach to the built environment believe a much more deeply integrated, whole systems approach to the design and construction of buildings and human settlements (and nearly all other human activities) is needed. Regenerative approaches seek not only to reverse the degeneration of the earth's natural systems, but also to design human systems that can co-evolve with natural systems—evolve in a way that generates mutual benefits and greater overall expression of life and resilience. The field of regenerative development and design, which draws inspiration from the self-healing and self-organizing capacities of natural living systems, is increasingly seen as a source for achieving this end. This field is redefining the way that proponents of sustainability are thinking about and designing for the built environment, and even the role of architecture as a field.
ABSTRACT: This chapter discusses how life has evolved from simple to complex, from the homogeneit... more ABSTRACT: This chapter discusses how life has evolved from simple to complex, from the homogeneity of the single-celled organisms that initially colonized the planet to the varied, highly differentiated species, micro-biota to megafauna, which make up a present day Amazonian rainforest. Humans have the potential to make unique contributions to the ongoing evolution of living systems by consciously participating in them. A diversity of elements, such as organisms in an ecosystem or buildings on a site, adds nothing if there is no beneficial exchange of resources, energy, or material among them. A forest does not become healthy because it contains a long list of plant and animal species. It becomes healthy when those species actively nourish and shelter one another in an unbroken web of beneficial relationship. Evolution presents both challenges and opportunities for designers. It invites them to shift from working on things and structures in isolation from their context to the design of living systems with built-in evolutionary capacity. By promoting local farming and food culture through its market, the co-op could simultaneously reduce its energy footprint while making itself non-displaceable in its region.
Over the last decade the concept of sustainability within design and construction has moved from ... more Over the last decade the concept of sustainability within design and construction has moved from virtual invisibility to an industry-wide dialogue in which the questions are more and more how to achieve it, not whether. This shift has produced a proliferation of terms applied to describe and advocate different sustainability oriented design and development methodologies and philosophies. A scan of the literature yields a range of descriptors: " sustainable " , " green " , " whole systems " , " integrative " , " ecological " and " regenerative ". While this proliferation reflects the breadth of activity, it also makes it harder to see how the whole field is evolving and therefore where to position oneself within it. This article (briefly) introduces a particular definition of one of these terms—Regenerative Design, the design approach that is proposed as best reflecting the thinking that will shape the next phase of development within the field of sustainable design. The full significance of this approach to sustainable design is best grasped however in the context of its relationship to how the field as a whole is evolving. To provide this context, the article first depicts the trajectory of this evolution based on seeing the pattern behind the field's ongoing shifts in thinking and practices. By seeing it as a trajectory, we can better prepare ourselves and our firms for future viability within this growing and essential field. Used as a map, it can assist designers in marking their current position as well as charting a developmental path for themselves that integrates their unique skills and aspirations with the emerging understanding of what successful sustainable design entails. Five design approaches are described in depicting the trajectory. The concluding section on Regenerative Design introduces just the added dimensions that distinguish it from the other design approaches, but should be understood as encompassing all of the other four. Design in the Industrial Age. " Readily manageable uniformity " was how John Lyle described the pattern that shaped design and construction prior to the rise of sustainability concerns. This pattern, fed by the assumption of unlimited material resources, emphasized maximum efficiency in use of human resources and created distinctiveness primarily by surface aesthetic features. Design decisions were increasingly severed from their ecological consequences and designers were seen, in Sym Van der Ryn's words, " as either artists or technicians, each role insulated…from everyday life. " The destructive impacts to the planet and to the human spirit have been widely studied and discussed—setting the stage for the current widespread interest in sustainability. Evolution and Sustainable Design. The overall pattern of biological evolution is almost the exact opposite of the above, moving over millennia toward increasingly complex networks of unique ecosystems, each adapted for reciprocal existence within local conditions. If we view sustainability oriented design as delineating a new design era, the pattern it seeks to express is much more akin to that of nature. It continually expands the levels of wholeness it can effectively encompass—moving from elements to systems to wholes to ecologies or networks of wholes and beyond. This evolution in design thinking arises whenever we encounter the limits of a level of wholeness to deliver sustainability. Encountering these limits sets in motion the development of
I think H. G. Wells had it right when he said that we are in a race between education and catastr... more I think H. G. Wells had it right when he said that we are in a race between education and catastrophe. This race will be decided in all of the places, including classrooms, that foster ecological imagination, critical thinking, awareness of connections, independent thought, and good heart. David Orr, The Learning Curve For anyone following the cascade of increasingly alarming studies of the Earth’s health, it is tempting to conclude that, as we move into the 21 st century, catastrophe is the odds-on winner of Wells ’ race. Newspapers, televisions and mail carry a drumbeat of disaster. Indeed, we have become a society fascinated with great catastrophes. Each year we are alternately thrilled and horrified by the giant tidal wave, the storm of the century, the killer earthquake, all brought to our local theater. As news reports depict increasingly drastic deterioration of the planet’s fundamental life systems, it is easy to believe that the chances to reverse the destruction of Earth a...
Regenerative design and development calls for a paradigm shift from a 'mechanistic' to the 'ecolo... more Regenerative design and development calls for a paradigm shift from a 'mechanistic' to the 'ecological' or living systems worldview that has emerged from living systems sciences over the last century. The challenge for design practitioners educated and now working in a field mainly shaped by a mechanistic worldview is twofold: first, to develop an understanding of how life and living systems work and, second, to translate that understanding into application. The benefit of taking on this challenge is that understanding natural systems offers powerful insights into how to work across different scales of the built environment. This article looks at key and interrelated living systems' principles and discusses how they translate into design and development practices, using examples of how actual projects worked across multiple scales. Principles considered include the nested or holarchic nature of living systems and the fact that a living system is not separable from its environment. Mapping a design project as a socio-ecological system nested within its immediate and larger contexts shifts designers' attention to the unique and distinctive character of the project environment and the reciprocal influence project and environment exercise on each other. A second principle, that ecosystems' self-organizing and self-regenerating capacity depends on its members carrying out their systemic roles, provides the basis for defining and designing a distinctive and generative role for a project within its place. This role enables the project to be both more valuable and valued as a source of greater viability and vitality and, drawing on the first principle, to have a positive influence across different scales of nested wholes. The third principle relates to the webs of dynamic flows and metabolic exchanges that enable life to continuously produce, repair, and perpetuate itself. Using insights gained from the understanding of the essence of a place, design practitioners are able to identify transformative nodal points within those webs where targeted acupuncture interventions, sometimes small, can influence the health and renewal of the whole system. In conclusion, the article first summarizes how working from an understanding of living systems principles provides insights into working regeneratively across and within different scales. Second, it addresses the need for the role of designers to shift and for new capabilities to be developed in order to incorporate those insights into new development and design practices. Third, it highlights some of the challenges design practitioners might face when implementing a living systems approach within the complexity of multidisciplinary design projects.
The radical changes required for Earth to ‘remain fit for human habitation’ require a change in w... more The radical changes required for Earth to ‘remain fit for human habitation’ require a change in worldviews from ‘mechanistic’ to ‘ecological’. A key question is: how can those working on the built environment – a field with major impact on global resources and systems – best support a smooth and timely transition? It is proposed that design practitioners can facilitate that response in the built environment through the development, application and evolution of comprehensive new methodologies, explicitly shaped by a regenerative sustainability paradigm. It is further proposed that successfully evolving a regenerative practice requires going beyond just adopting new techniques to taking on a new role for humans and designers, and a ‘new mind’, and learning how to work ‘developmentally’. As an example of how a consciously held worldview shapes a practice, an actual regenerative methodology, developed and evolved over 16 years of practice, is explored in detail. A framework, adapted from accepted scientific methodology protocols, is used to structure this exploration, differentiating the different elements and levels, showing how they work as an integrated system and revealing the underlying premises and assumptions behind the choice of aims, strategies, methods and progress indicators.Les changements radicaux nécessaires pour que la Terre « demeure propre à l'habitation humaine » exigent que les visions du monde évoluent du « mécaniste » à « l'écologique ». Une question clé qui se pose est de savoir comment ceux et celles qui travaillent sur le cadre bâti – un domaine qui a un impact important sur les ressources et les systèmes mondiaux – peuvent le mieux contribuer à une transition harmonieuse et rapide. Il est proposé que les praticiens du design puissent faciliter cette réponse dans le cadre bâti par la mise au point, l'application et l'évolution de nouvelles méthodologies globales, explicitement modelées par un paradigme de durabilité régénératrice. Il est en outre proposé que, pour réussir à faire évoluer une pratique régénératrice, il est nécessaire de dépasser la simple adoption de nouvelles techniques, de façon à ce qu'un rôle nouveau soit assumé par les hommes et les concepteurs, ainsi qu'un « nouvel esprit », et qu'ils apprennent comment travailler « développementalement ». Un exemple de la manière dont une vision du monde consciemment partagée façonne une pratique, une méthodologie régénératrice réelle, élaborée et développée sur 16 ans de pratique, est examiné en détail. Un cadre, adapté des protocoles de méthodologie scientifique reconnus, est utilisé pour structurer cette étude, en différenciant les différents éléments et niveaux, en montrant comment ils fonctionnent comme un système intégré et en révélant les prémisses et les postulats sous-jacents qui sous-tendent le choix des objectifs, des stratégies, des méthodes et des indicateurs de progrès. Mots clés: systèmes vivants permaculture lieu développement régénérateur et conception régénératrice histoire
Over the last decade the concept of sustainability within design and construction has moved from ... more Over the last decade the concept of sustainability within design and construction has moved from virtual invisibility to an industry-wide dialogue in which the questions are more and more how to achieve it, not whether. This shift has produced a proliferation of terms applied to describe and advocate different sustainability oriented design and development methodologies and philosophies. A scan of the literature yields a range of descriptors: " sustainable " , " green " , " whole systems " , " integrative " , " ecological " and " regenerative ". While this proliferation reflects the breadth of activity, it also makes it harder to see how the whole field is evolving and therefore where to position oneself within it. This article (briefly) introduces a particular definition of one of these terms—Regenerative Design, the design approach that is proposed as best reflecting the thinking that will shape the next phase of development within the field of sustainable design. The full significance of this approach to sustainable design is best grasped however in the context of its relationship to how the field as a whole is evolving. To provide this context, the article first depicts the trajectory of this evolution based on seeing the pattern behind the field's ongoing shifts in thinking and practices. By seeing it as a trajectory, we can better prepare ourselves and our firms for future viability within this growing and essential field. Used as a map, it can assist designers in marking their current position as well as charting a developmental path for themselves that integrates their unique skills and aspirations with the emerging understanding of what successful sustainable design entails. Five design approaches are described in depicting the trajectory. The concluding section on Regenerative Design introduces just the added dimensions that distinguish it from the other design approaches, but should be understood as encompassing all of the other four. Design in the Industrial Age. " Readily manageable uniformity " was how John Lyle described the pattern that shaped design and construction prior to the rise of sustainability concerns. This pattern, fed by the assumption of unlimited material resources, emphasized maximum efficiency in use of human resources and created distinctiveness primarily by surface aesthetic features. Design decisions were increasingly severed from their ecological consequences and designers were seen, in Sym Van der Ryn's words, " as either artists or technicians, each role insulated…from everyday life. " The destructive impacts to the planet and to the human spirit have been widely studied and discussed—setting the stage for the current widespread interest in sustainability. Evolution and Sustainable Design. The overall pattern of biological evolution is almost the exact opposite of the above, moving over millennia toward increasingly complex networks of unique ecosystems, each adapted for reciprocal existence within local conditions. If we view sustainability oriented design as delineating a new design era, the pattern it seeks to express is much more akin to that of nature. It continually expands the levels of wholeness it can effectively encompass—moving from elements to systems to wholes to ecologies or networks of wholes and beyond. This evolution in design thinking arises whenever we encounter the limits of a level of wholeness to deliver sustainability. Encountering these limits sets in motion the development of
Abstract
The ‘net-positive’ concept could serve as both a new direction and aspiration for evolv... more Abstract
The ‘net-positive’ concept could serve as both a new direction and aspiration for evolving sustainable design beyond minimizing human damage toward human habitation that is a source of life. This commentary posits that realizing that potential depends on how practitioners define positive. Describing net-positive as “buildings that 'add value' to ecological systems and generate more than they need to fulfill their own needs” moves net-positive beyond simply a technical challenge of creating surpluses to one that requires confronting the widely different interpretations of value and value-adding held within the sustainability movement. ‘Green’ building, like the building industry, generally defines and measures a building’s value in terms of human benefit. Ecological sustainability defines value in terms of benefits to the systemic capability to generate, sustain and evolve the life of a particular place. Reconciling these different definitions could transform how society conceives of and designs the built environment. Building professionals seeking to translate net-positive into practice could play a leading role in that transformation. Practice will need to embrace ecological thinking to create design, construction and ongoing management processes that stimulate dialogue about what it means for humans to play a value-adding role in the ecological systems where they are constituents.
Abstract
Regenerative design and development calls for a paradigm shift from the ‘mechanistic’... more Abstract
Regenerative design and development calls for a paradigm shift from the ‘mechanistic’ to the ‘ecological’ or living systems worldview that has emerged from living systems sciences over the last century. The challenge for design practitioners educated and now working in a field mainly shaped by a mechanistic worldview is two-fold: first, to develop an understanding of how life and living systems work and, second, to translate that understanding into application. The benefit of taking on this challenge is that understanding natural systems offers powerful insights into how to work across different scales of the built environment.
This article looks at key and interrelated living systems’ principles and discusses how they translate into design and development practices, using examples of how actual projects worked across multiple scales. Principles considered include the nested or holarchic nature of living systems and the fact that a living system is not separable from its environment. Mapping a design project as a socio-ecological system nested within its immediate and larger contexts shifts designers’ attention to the unique and distinctive character of the project environment and the reciprocal influence project and environment exercise on each other.
A second principle, that ecosystems’ self-organizing and self-regenerating capacity depends on its members carrying out their systemic roles provides the basis for defining and designing a distinctive and generative role for a project within their place. This role enables the project to be both more valuable and valued as a source of greater viability and vitality and, drawing on the first principle, to have a positive influence across different scales of nested wholes.
The third principle relates to the webs of dynamic flows and metabolic exchanges that enable life to continuously produce, repair and perpetuate itself. Using insights gained from the understanding of the essence of a place, design practitioners are able to identify transformative nodal points within those webs where targeted acupuncture interventions, sometimes small, can influence the health and renewal of the whole system.
In conclusion, the article first summarizes how working from an understanding of living systems principles provides insights into working regeneratively across and within different scales. Second, it addresses the need for the role of designers to shift and for new capabilities to be developed in order to incorporate those insights into new development and design practices. Third, it highlights some of the challenges design practitioners might face when implementing a living systems approach within the complexity of multi-disciplinary design projects.
The emerging field of regenerative development and design marks a significant evolution in the co... more The emerging field of regenerative development and design marks a significant evolution in the concept and application of sustainability. Practices in sustainable or green design have focused primarily on minimizing damage to the environment and human health, and using resources more efficiently; in effect, slowing down the degradation of earth’s natural systems. Advocates of a regenerative approach to the built environment believe a much more deeply integrated, whole systems approach to the design and construction of buildings and human settlements (and nearly all other human activities) is needed. Regenerative approaches seek not only to reverse the degeneration of the earth's natural systems, but also to design human systems that can co-evolve with natural systems—evolve in a way that generates mutual benefits and greater overall expression of life and resilience. The field of regenerative development and design, which draws inspiration from the self-healing and self-organizing capacities of natural living systems, is increasingly seen as a source for achieving this end. This field is redefining the way that proponents of sustainability are thinking about and designing for the built environment, and even the role of architecture as a field.
ABSTRACT: This chapter discusses how life has evolved from simple to complex, from the homogeneit... more ABSTRACT: This chapter discusses how life has evolved from simple to complex, from the homogeneity of the single-celled organisms that initially colonized the planet to the varied, highly differentiated species, micro-biota to megafauna, which make up a present day Amazonian rainforest. Humans have the potential to make unique contributions to the ongoing evolution of living systems by consciously participating in them. A diversity of elements, such as organisms in an ecosystem or buildings on a site, adds nothing if there is no beneficial exchange of resources, energy, or material among them. A forest does not become healthy because it contains a long list of plant and animal species. It becomes healthy when those species actively nourish and shelter one another in an unbroken web of beneficial relationship. Evolution presents both challenges and opportunities for designers. It invites them to shift from working on things and structures in isolation from their context to the design of living systems with built-in evolutionary capacity. By promoting local farming and food culture through its market, the co-op could simultaneously reduce its energy footprint while making itself non-displaceable in its region.
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The ‘net-positive’ concept could serve as both a new direction and aspiration for evolving sustainable design beyond minimizing human damage toward human habitation that is a source of life. This commentary posits that realizing that potential depends on how practitioners define positive. Describing net-positive as “buildings that 'add value' to ecological systems and generate more than they need to fulfill their own needs” moves net-positive beyond simply a technical challenge of creating surpluses to one that requires confronting the widely different interpretations of value and value-adding held within the sustainability movement. ‘Green’ building, like the building industry, generally defines and measures a building’s value in terms of human benefit. Ecological sustainability defines value in terms of benefits to the systemic capability to generate, sustain and evolve the life of a particular place. Reconciling these different definitions could transform how society conceives of and designs the built environment. Building professionals seeking to translate net-positive into practice could play a leading role in that transformation. Practice will need to embrace ecological thinking to create design, construction and ongoing management processes that stimulate dialogue about what it means for humans to play a value-adding role in the ecological systems where they are constituents.
Regenerative design and development calls for a paradigm shift from the ‘mechanistic’ to the ‘ecological’ or living systems worldview that has emerged from living systems sciences over the last century. The challenge for design practitioners educated and now working in a field mainly shaped by a mechanistic worldview is two-fold: first, to develop an understanding of how life and living systems work and, second, to translate that understanding into application. The benefit of taking on this challenge is that understanding natural systems offers powerful insights into how to work across different scales of the built environment.
This article looks at key and interrelated living systems’ principles and discusses how they translate into design and development practices, using examples of how actual projects worked across multiple scales. Principles considered include the nested or holarchic nature of living systems and the fact that a living system is not separable from its environment. Mapping a design project as a socio-ecological system nested within its immediate and larger contexts shifts designers’ attention to the unique and distinctive character of the project environment and the reciprocal influence project and environment exercise on each other.
A second principle, that ecosystems’ self-organizing and self-regenerating capacity depends on its members carrying out their systemic roles provides the basis for defining and designing a distinctive and generative role for a project within their place. This role enables the project to be both more valuable and valued as a source of greater viability and vitality and, drawing on the first principle, to have a positive influence across different scales of nested wholes.
The third principle relates to the webs of dynamic flows and metabolic exchanges that enable life to continuously produce, repair and perpetuate itself. Using insights gained from the understanding of the essence of a place, design practitioners are able to identify transformative nodal points within those webs where targeted acupuncture interventions, sometimes small, can influence the health and renewal of the whole system.
In conclusion, the article first summarizes how working from an understanding of living systems principles provides insights into working regeneratively across and within different scales. Second, it addresses the need for the role of designers to shift and for new capabilities to be developed in order to incorporate those insights into new development and design practices. Third, it highlights some of the challenges design practitioners might face when implementing a living systems approach within the complexity of multi-disciplinary design projects.
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The ‘net-positive’ concept could serve as both a new direction and aspiration for evolving sustainable design beyond minimizing human damage toward human habitation that is a source of life. This commentary posits that realizing that potential depends on how practitioners define positive. Describing net-positive as “buildings that 'add value' to ecological systems and generate more than they need to fulfill their own needs” moves net-positive beyond simply a technical challenge of creating surpluses to one that requires confronting the widely different interpretations of value and value-adding held within the sustainability movement. ‘Green’ building, like the building industry, generally defines and measures a building’s value in terms of human benefit. Ecological sustainability defines value in terms of benefits to the systemic capability to generate, sustain and evolve the life of a particular place. Reconciling these different definitions could transform how society conceives of and designs the built environment. Building professionals seeking to translate net-positive into practice could play a leading role in that transformation. Practice will need to embrace ecological thinking to create design, construction and ongoing management processes that stimulate dialogue about what it means for humans to play a value-adding role in the ecological systems where they are constituents.
Regenerative design and development calls for a paradigm shift from the ‘mechanistic’ to the ‘ecological’ or living systems worldview that has emerged from living systems sciences over the last century. The challenge for design practitioners educated and now working in a field mainly shaped by a mechanistic worldview is two-fold: first, to develop an understanding of how life and living systems work and, second, to translate that understanding into application. The benefit of taking on this challenge is that understanding natural systems offers powerful insights into how to work across different scales of the built environment.
This article looks at key and interrelated living systems’ principles and discusses how they translate into design and development practices, using examples of how actual projects worked across multiple scales. Principles considered include the nested or holarchic nature of living systems and the fact that a living system is not separable from its environment. Mapping a design project as a socio-ecological system nested within its immediate and larger contexts shifts designers’ attention to the unique and distinctive character of the project environment and the reciprocal influence project and environment exercise on each other.
A second principle, that ecosystems’ self-organizing and self-regenerating capacity depends on its members carrying out their systemic roles provides the basis for defining and designing a distinctive and generative role for a project within their place. This role enables the project to be both more valuable and valued as a source of greater viability and vitality and, drawing on the first principle, to have a positive influence across different scales of nested wholes.
The third principle relates to the webs of dynamic flows and metabolic exchanges that enable life to continuously produce, repair and perpetuate itself. Using insights gained from the understanding of the essence of a place, design practitioners are able to identify transformative nodal points within those webs where targeted acupuncture interventions, sometimes small, can influence the health and renewal of the whole system.
In conclusion, the article first summarizes how working from an understanding of living systems principles provides insights into working regeneratively across and within different scales. Second, it addresses the need for the role of designers to shift and for new capabilities to be developed in order to incorporate those insights into new development and design practices. Third, it highlights some of the challenges design practitioners might face when implementing a living systems approach within the complexity of multi-disciplinary design projects.