Regenerative Development + Design
facilitating design processes that integrate all relevant perspectives - human and non-human - in a process of systems-thinking to generate holistic and regenerative design outcomes
Restoring living vitality through human development
Human development tends to come with a basic assumption that through our growth, non-human systems will suffer. As a result, mainstream Western sustainability practices are intended to - at best - minimise the harm caused. Throughout my career, I have witnessed the rise of many approaches to sustainability that have become commonplace amongst sustainability practitioners that - through their design and basic assumptions - fail to challenge the underlying assumptions that cause a project to lose the opportunity to enter into a genuine and life-giving, reciprocal relationship with it’s environment.
On the less innovative end of the spectrum, we have tools that attempt to “manage and control” a project, a project team or an entire community into a specific, desirable outcome. These approaches tend to fail because complex adaptive systems require a “sense-and-respond” approach that enables continual adaptation to an ever-changing context, and traditional systems of project and programme management tend to blind teams to essential information emerging as the project context changes.
On the more innovative end of the spectrum, we have tools that attempt a “sense-and-respond” approach that often prioritise co-design and decentralised decision making. The places we grow and develop are seen as systems that we can improve and enhance through our creative and imaginative power. These approaches often fail because project teams tend to get stuck in opinion-based rather than fact-based decision making, or get bogged down in dysfunction caused by a poor ability to make useful meaning of a complex reality or an inability to make decisions effectively without alienating specific interests and groups. The result is that significant energy, time and resources are wasted entertaining opinions and concepts that are loosely (if at all) related to the vitality and viability of the system in question.
Regenerative development and design offer an alternative
Regenerative development starts with the notion that there is an inherent, in-built intelligence guiding the growth and evolution of the places we build alongside and within. Our job is not to (relatively naively) impose our (incredibly limited) view on what this complex, adaptive system should be, but to enhance the vitality and viability of the system in question by working skilfully with it’s emergent potential. Regenerative design is an approach to design that support regenerative development.
Vitality: This is the degree of health and aliveness of a given environment. While we can measure aspects of the place that give us a hint as to the vitality of a place (things like biodiversity, nutrient cycling and exchange taking place in soil layers, water cycle health, etc), the sum-total of a place’s vitality (much like a human’s) cannot be fully quantified. We rely in part on our capacity as humans to tune into a felt-sense of the health and vibrancy of the system to inform us as to how vital and alive a place is, and how to foster more of that vitality and aliveness.
Viability: This is the degree to which the vitality of the system facilitates it’s viability within it’s broader context. An organism that is not viable within it’s context (i.e. a human that does not contribute to it’s community and society; a tree that is not in reciprocal relationship with the forest) will slowly die out as it becomes increasingly maladapted. It’s survival and growth needs conflict with the survival and growth needs of it’s environment, and because it is ultimately dependent on the health of that environment for it’s own survival and growth, it will ensure it’s own death over time (much like a cancer tumor). By understanding the role of a given place within it’s broader context, we can work with it in a way that allows it to play an increasingly important role in supporting it’s world to thrive.
This is a starting point to discovering health and evolutionary potential in ourselves and our environment as we work. It starts with recognising how living places, humans, communities and organisations really work, adopting tools to support shared responsibility instead of individual risk, thinking and working with complex systems as a team and working towards win-win-win solutions. It continues with an embodied understanding of ourselves as participants within the broader contexts we inhabit, and the discovery of ways to add vitality to the wholes we share.
The design and delivery of complex projects built environment projects is routinely carried out using conventional processes that isolate disciplines from each other, and limit the ability for the needs of social and environmental systems to be represented in design. While conventional processes like the New Zealand Institute of Architects (NZIA) Design Process can be useful guides, they were not designed to deal with the complexity that we face today.
Regenerative design offers an alternative.
By using tools that enable us to build our capacity to work with and within complex, adaptive systems, to understand how environments work and to take shared responsibility for outcomes on projects, research and experience indicate we can consistently deliver outcomes that are far more sustainable for less cost. I draw on a variety of approaches that enable more collaborative, place-aware procurement, service and project delivery, to regenerate ourselves, our communities and our ecosystems.
One such approach is the the Integrative Design Process (approved by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and US Green Building Council (USGBC), and pioneered by 7Group and Bill Reed, and CABAL in Aoteraoa). As an approach to project and programme management, this tends to be much better suited to managing resources, time and energy effectively in complex contexts, and provides opportunities for design synergies that traditional design processes remain blind to.
As a chartered engineering technologist (specialising in sustainable design), I have the technical expertise to respond to many common technical challenges faced by built environment projects. My experience in property development and business in Aotearoa New Zealand equips me with an understanding of the regulatory context and environment, Local Government processes, financing and more to support the delivery of innovative projects that might otherwise struggle to find a clear path through a convoluted regulatory system.
Effective collaboration leading to better outcomes for all.
Because the design team is better equipped to deliver collaborative, creative solutions to the real-life conditions of the project, and the actual needs of the community it serves and environment it is nested within, design synergies can be identified early. This results in solutions that are more cost effective, and more culturally and environmentally appropriate, in turn leading to lower operating costs and inputs, and more effective adoption of infrastructure and other solutions by local community.
Thanks to increased responsibility in the delivery team, and greater alignment within the design team and with external stakeholders, we can achieve significant reductions in approval time, and cost and tiem savings due to significant reductions in Requests for Information (RFIs) and contract variations.
The AIA’s collection of case studies has more information on the benefits of integrative and collaborative project delivery approaches. My approach draws from my experiences working with Bill Reed and Regenesis Group, and integrates thinking and practices from my work with DSIL Global to support productive collaboration.