Should our buildings and cities minimise harm or do ‘good’ by design? In a world already at risk, less harm is no longer enough. We must repair, regenerate and create new life. So where do we start?
In this episode, I am joined by two global thought leaders of regenerative design and development. Chrisna du Plessis is the Head of the Department of Architecture at the University of Pretoria, in South Africa. Bill Reed is principal of Regenesis, a research consulting firm with offices in the US.
Chrisna’s 2015 book, ‘Designing for Hope: Pathways to Regenerative Sustainability’, is a must-read on the subject of regeneration, a term that defines ‘good’ in the built environment. Bill is a practitioner of the regenerative approach; his projects illustrate its application to real-world, complex situations.
| 00:02:42 | What is regenerative design? |
| 00:03:06 | “Regenerative development asks us to consider what does it mean to actually add value to life, to add value and encourage or participate in evolutionary processes.” |
| 00:09:51 | “Living systems incorporate geological systems, like water, soil, earth, air. [They] incorporate biological systems, [and] social systems, the systems that humans bring into place. We’re working with a social-ecological system that sees how humans and nature [are] actually one integrated living system. That’s the basis of a whole systems approach.” |
| 00:21:46 | “In order to get there, we do need things to measure. I’m a pragmatist. One way to look at this is through nested systems.” |
| 00:24:08 | Regenerative design: Doing good |
| 00:33:39 | “Humans have the potential to be good. That’s one of the main narratives of regenerative thinking, that humans shift from being the problem to actually being a positive influence and a positive contributor…” |
| 00:35:02 | Regenerative development: Transforming relationships |
| 00:40:25 | “The secret of [regenerative development] is not forcing people to do it, not creating policies to do it, but to create a pull phenomenon where people say, ‘I want to join that party because people are actually getting something done.’ Being effective and consistent is really important.” |
| 00:43:13 | “I’m deliberately stepping away from the term ‘problem’ because I think the moment we start thinking about a problem we’re trapped in that idea of ‘Oh, this is… these are the parameters of the problem’. We stop seeing the potential. We focus [only] on how we solve this problem.” |
| 00:45:24 | Becoming Chrisna and Bill |
| 00:52:23 | “That’s the relational fabric that ties us together […] My journey has been moving beyond stuff and self to nature of spirit and relationship.” |
| 00:56:10 | “[Regenerative development] is about how do we fall in love with life again… and with each other. It gives me hope is that… that we discover that love is the foundation for all of this work. And then from there, the universe is open.” |
The conversation started with the meaning of words — and why it matters. Chrisna argues that ‘regenerative’ is often confused with ‘sustainable’ and ‘resilient’; and that confusion often leads to dilution. It is therefore necessary to delineate meaning carefully so that it can steer appropriate action.
Bill and Chrisna break down regeneration, along with other terms that are used in parallel, such as whole systems thinking, ‘Story of Place’ and co-evolutionary.
Process and outcome, in particular, are discussed in the context of several projects. One example is the Brattleboro Food Co-op in Vermont, USA, which started with the sole purpose of building a LEED-certified grocery store. Bill’s team persuaded the stakeholders to expand their understanding of what this future store would represent: the end-point of a bigger food system that, seen holistically, can be sustainable as well.
The Brattleboro Food Co-op in Vermont, USA, set out to transform a community’s relationship with its food.The grocery store became the catalyst for a wider rethink, examining how food is grown and distributed. It also gave impetus to new ideas on local farming and the restoration of agricultural practices.
A second project, highlighted by Chrisna, is Singapore’s Khoo Teck Puat Hospital: a large public hospital which is today a social nexus for its neighbourhood, drawing the public with amenities, social space and community farming.
The rooftop community farm at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital in Singapore creates a strong tie between the institution and its neighbourhood.The goal for this facility was always a salutogenic environment for visitors, patients and staff. The solution, a remarkable feat of architecture and landscape design, is a true biophilic solution at its heart. Along the way, what was designed as a better building turned out to be a better socio-ecological system.
Khoo Teck Puat Hospital has a densely vegetated central courtyard that provides a deeply biophilic experience for visitors and staff alike.On hospital grounds, one can regularly encounter hundreds of species of butterflies and fish. This constructed ecosystem benefits from an adjacent stormwater pond that has been naturalised, thereby creating an enlarged footprint of social and natural systems.
A third project, the Las Salinas development in Chile, is brought up by Bill to showcase how developer and community can successfully engage to set up a long-term commitment to care for what has been created.
Stakeholder engagement to forge purpose is central to any regenerative development. Seen here are workshops for Las Salinas project in Chile.In many ways, the Las Salinas project illustrates the difference between regenerative design and regenerative development. The former focuses on a better physical outcome, say a facility; the latter seeks the engagement of the wider community, the many stakeholders and caretakers.
This episode is brought to you by:
| The Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction The Holcim Foundation helps drive systemic change towards a more sustainable built environment. It was founded in 2003 to define and promote the key principles of sustainability for the construction sector and is committed to accelerating the sector’s transformation so that people and the planet can thrive. The Foundation has investigated various aspects of sustainable construction via a series of roundtables and conferences with international experts. It has also recognised excellent contributions to this field with the Holcim Awards which are considered the world’s most significant competition for sustainable design. Committed to a holistic approach that recognises the equal importance and interdependence of four key goals, the Foundation combines the collective knowledge, ideas, and solutions of our global community of experts with our recognised platform of international competitions to democratise thought leadership for the entire sector. Today, the Holcim Foundation is proud to accompany Ecogradia’s new podcast and its host, Nirmal Kishnani, with whom we share a common goal: contribute to a just, equitable, and sustainable future via sustainable construction and design. |  |
This episode is brought to you by:
The Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction
The Holcim Foundation helps drive systemic change towards a more sustainable built environment. It was founded in 2003 to define and promote the key principles of sustainability for the construction sector and is committed to accelerating the sector’s transformation so that people and the planet can thrive.
The Foundation has investigated various aspects of sustainable construction via a series of roundtables and conferences with international experts. It has also recognised excellent contributions to this field with the Holcim Awards which are considered the world’s most significant competition for sustainable design.
Committed to a holistic approach that recognises the equal importance and interdependence of four key goals, the Foundation combines the collective knowledge, ideas, and solutions of our global community of experts with our recognised platform of international competitions to democratise thought leadership for the entire sector.
Today, the Holcim Foundation is proud to accompany Ecogradia’s new podcast and its host, Nirmal Kishnani, with whom we share a common goal: contribute to a just, equitable, and sustainable future via sustainable construction and design.
Chrisna du Plessis
Thought leader, provocateur, philosopher, lapsed architect and career academic, Chrisna du Plessis is Professor and Head of the Department of Architecture at the University of Pretoria, in South Africa.
Her research has always been driven by two motivations: to make the world a better place — and, as that requires not just changing the current dysfunctional paradigms, but replacing them with something radically different and life-affirming; figuring out what this something radically different would look like in her sphere of interest, namely the built environment.
Her proclivity for shining a light on the holes in accepted theory and the failures of common practice resulted in a career pathway that ultimately led to a larger number of international keynote invitations and several awards, including the University of Salford Alumni Achievers Award and an Honorary Doctorate from the Chalmers University of Technology. She also held a seat on the Board of the International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction (CIB) (2014-2022) after leading the CIB Priority Theme Sustainable Construction for almost two decades.
Designing for Hope: Pathways to Regenerative Sustainability
Dominique Hes and Chrisna du Plessis
Not satisfied with the narratives of doom and gloom that is so prevalent in the sustainability discourse and following the deep conviction that collapse is only the release of potential that can be reorganised to create a better world, Chrisna du Plessis set out to find the scaffolding that would allow current and future generations to evolve a different way of being on the earth. The result of this journey is captured in the book ‘Designing for Hope: Pathways to Regenerative Future’.
Co-authored with fellow explorer Dominique Hes, and greatly influenced by the people of Regenesis, this was the first book to comprehensively look at regenerative design and development from the perspective of a spatial designer working in a social-ecological system with a very specific value system informed by an ecological worldview. It situated a number of design approaches and practices within this framework, illustrating how they all contribute to the creation of a built environment which creates a thriving co-evolutionary relationship with nature, and maps out a pathway for transforming both practice and practitioners.
Boukunde Building
University of Pretoria Hatfield Campus
Private Bag X20
Hatfield, 0028
South Africa
Bill Reed
Bill is an internationally recognised pioneer, practitioner, teacher, and authority in integrative systems design, sustainability, and regenerative community planning and implementation. He is a principal in Regenesis, an organisation working to lift human activities into full integration and evolution with living systems.
His work centres on creating and implementing a whole living-systems engagement and design process, realising exponential value to the qualities of life within projects, communities and their ecosystem.
An author of technical articles and contributor to many books on green design, he is also a co-author of the seminal work, ‘Integrative Design Guide to Green Building’. He is a founding Board of Director of the U.S. Green Building Council, a co-developer of the LEED Green Building Rating System, and is considered one of the leading thinkers and explorers in this field.
Bill has consulted on hundreds of green design commissions and regenerative development engagements and frequently speaks at major planning, building, and design events. He also gives guest lectures at universities throughout Europe and North America including Harvard, Yale, University of British Columbia, Universidad Iberoamericana, MIT, Princeton and UPenn.
Regenerative Development and Design: A Framework for Evolving Sustainability
Bill Reed and Pamela Mang
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 minimising 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-organising 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.
20 Woodland Street
Arlington, MA 02476
USA
T | (1) 617 797 6099
314 S. Guadalupe Street
Santa Fe, NM 87501
USA
T | (1) 505 986 8338
E | reed@regenesisgroup.com
W | regenesisgroup.co
If you heard it in this episode, we likely have a link for it right here. Click on any topics, people, buildings, places, products and/or technologies listed below to learn more about each of them.
| 00:02:50 | “…Regenerative design is basically participating in evolutionary processes…” “Regenerative Development and Design” | Regenesis Group |
| 00:02:54 | “…Regenerative design is basically participating in evolutionary processes…” “Regenerative design, socio-ecological systems and co-evolution” | ResearchGate |
| 00:06:02 | “…and we were asked to do a LEED Gold green building rating system…” “LEED rating system” | USGBC (U.S. Green Building Council) |
| 00:06:19 | “…because that’s where the carbon impact comes from…” “Food systems responsible for ‘one third’ of human-caused emissions” | Carbon Brief |
| 00:09:04 | “…Evolutionary process, systems thinking: What do all these terms mean?…” “Thinking in Systems, by Donella H. Meadows” | ShortForm |
| 00:09:08 | “…The ‘Story of Place‘ and so on… What are these things mean?…” “Story of Place®” | Regenesis Group |
| 00:10:29 | “…that’s the basis of a whole systems approach…” “Whole System Approach to Sustainable Design” | LinkedIn |
| 00:11:01 | “…The water we’re swimming in is reductionism…” “reductionism” | Britannica |
| 00:15:01 | “…there are different kinds of capitals and there is capacity which corresponds with this…” “The Five Capitals — a framework for sustainability” | Forum for the Future |
| 00:16:21 | “…when we look at, say, biophilic design…” “14 PATTERNS OF BIOPHILIC DESIGN” | Terrapin Bright Green |
| 00:36:20 | “…and we talked about the law of three, which Chrisna talks about in her book…” “law of three stages” | Britannica |
| 00:43:01 | “…I’m not talking about the simplistic biomimicry of sharkskin swimsuits and things like that…” “WHAT IS BIOMIMICRY?” | The Biomimicry Institute |
| 00:47:19 | “…these ideas around industrial ecology…” “Industrial Ecology” | ScienceDirect |
| 00:03:00 | “…I think Bill McDonough might have said, ‘Sustainability at that level of practice is a slower way to die’…” “William McDonough” | William McDonough + Partners (WM+P) |
| 00:05:58 | “…I think Chrisna you were there and Brattleboro Food Co-op…” “ABOUT US” | Brattleboro Food Co-op |
| 00:09:41 | “…I would add what Donella Meadows added: ‘with a purpose’…” “About Donella “Dana” Meadows” | The Donella Meadows Project (The Academy for Systems Change) |
| 00:18:27 | “…One of my friends, Rob Watson — I love this quote — he says, ‘Green buildings don’t cost less; they cost different’…” “Robert Watson” | LinkedIn |
| 00:30:32 | “…become part of the landscape again to actually ‘tend to the wild’, to use [M.] Kat Anderson‘s term from her book…” “Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natural Resources” | University of California Press (UC Press) |
| 00:47:12 | “…And I met — what’s his name? — Gunter Pauli from the Zero Emissions Research [and] Initiatives…” “Gunter Pauli” | The Blue Economy |
| 00:47:15 | “…And I met — what’s his name? — Gunter Pauli from the Zero Emissions Research [and] Initiatives…” “WHAT IS ZERI” | Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives (ZERI) |
| 00:48:59 | “…I was interested in systems and cities and he turned me on to Lewis Mumford…” “Lewis Mumford” | Britannica |
| 00:49:58 | “…And the U.S. Green Building Council was just being formed…” U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) |
| 00:51:00 | “…And then I met Regenesis…” “Who we are” | Regenesis Group |
| 00:51:26 | “…learned a hell of a lot from Pamela and Ben and Bob Mang and Nicholas Mang…” “Pamela Mang” | Regenesis Group |
| 00:51:26 | “…learned a hell of a lot from Pamela and Ben and Bob Mang and Nicholas Mang…” “Ben Haggard” | Regenesis Group |
| 00:51:26 | “…learned a hell of a lot from Pamela and Ben and Bob Mang and Nicholas Mang…” “Leadership Team/Robert A. Mang” | Alliance for Local Economic Prosperity (AFLEP) |
| 00:51:26 | “…learned a hell of a lot from Pamela and Ben and Bob Mang and Nicholas Mang…” “Nicholas Mang” | Regenesis Group |
| 00:05:33 | “…And we know that New Orleans is different than Singapore…” “New Orleans” (Louisiana, United States) | Britannica |
| 00:05:33 | “…And we know that New Orleans is different than Singapore…” “Singapore” | Britannica |
| 00:05:52 | “…So, with that in mind, this simple example is a grocery store in Vermont…” “Vermont” (United States) | Britannica |
| 00:24:25 | “…its own kind of metrics is the Khoo Teck Puat Hospital in Singapore…” “KHOO TECK PUAT HOSPITAL” | The International Living Future Institute |
| 00:35:41 | “…mixed-use development in a city in Chile that we worked on…” “Chile” | Britannica |
There are no design features mentioned in this episode.
| 00:44:36 | “…how to use Revit…” “Revit: BIM software for designers, builders, and doers/Overview” | Autodesk |
Host
Nirmal Kishnani
Producer
Maxime Flores
Editorial assistant
Abhishek Srivastava
Sound technician and editor
Kelvin Brown | Phlogiston
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