Regenerative Design
“We have no longer an outside and an inside as two separate things. Now the outside may come inside and the inside may and does go outside. They are of each other. Form and function thus become one in design and execution if the nature of materials and method and purpose are all in unison.”
— Frank Lloyd Wright
Architecture is inherently invested in the future. With this in mind, we should acknowledge that the earth is also borrowed from future generations.
Something like architecture implies that you are not only building for the current generation, but perhaps more importantly, the next generation. It’s important for not only the industry to become more engaged in this discussion, but especially to the public, to our listeners- to people who would actually be using these spaces and living in our cities- to become more aware of how our immediate surroundings (built or natural) affects us and our well-being. And also in turn, how our activities and mentalities impact and shape the places we inhabit daily- mentally, physically, socially.
Regenerative Architecture, or regenerative design, is the notion of creating built environments that provide more than what they consume. In a broad sense, it’s about actually making things good, not just ‘less bad’, as the majority of buildings are constructed today. Regenerative design explores the notion that buildings can be more than just a built environment- regenerative buildings are designed and operated to reverse damage and have a net-positive impact on the environment. For instance- they can generate and store energy on site for surrounding communities, clean stormwater runoff directly on site, and have facades that ‘scrub’ the air. Regeneration is not simply sustainability and using fewer resources, but it’s about replenishing and bettering our environment.
It’s also about introducing a new- or renewed- relationship between humankind and the planet that we inhabit- into the very fabric of the spaces we inhabit daily.
“Professor of Experimental Architecture at the Department of Architecture, Planning and Landscape at Newcastle University, Rachel Armstrong, believes that the biggest concern is that buildings are largely based on Victorian technology. This involves ‘a one-way transfer of energy from our environment into our homes and cities,’ she says. ‘This is not sustainable. I believe that the only way it is possible for us to construct genuinely sustainable homes and cities is by connecting them to nature, not insulating them from it,’ she adds.”
[SOURCE: https://www.veldarchitects.co.za/what-is-regenerative-architecture-why-should-it-matter-to-you/]
This is the concept of regenerative architecture- but I’d actually like to take it a step further by proposing a ‘symbiotic architecture’- a concept in which the built environment and the natural ecosystems not only co-exist, but operate for the benefit of the other. (The definition of symbiosis, in the mutualistic sense, is where individuals of different parties both benefit from their interactions. An example of this is the beneficial relationship between bees and flowers, or clownfish and anemone).
In this context, it’s about introducing a way for the built environment to manifest symbiosis- learning from the intelligence of processes that occur in nature, and use it to help improve building design, human well-being, and biodiversity at large.
It should be acknowledged that all the resources we use to build and create are, in essence, borrowed- that buildings should respect how everything they’re made of originally comes from the land.
Nature always seeks to achieve a state of equilibrium—and now human’s continued dominance and exploitation of the planet’s resources are disrupting the balance of ecological environments around the world.
The concept I was trying to explore in my thesis was to respond to the growing correlation between anthropogenic climate change, its ecological ramifications, and consequences for human health. By attempting to remedy architecture’s contribution to this relationship, I was led to search for the potential of a symbiotic co-existence between nature and humankind.
However, emerging research is showing that human impact on ecological systems is now consequently impacting human health.
Our health depends on the health of the planet. In the words of climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe, “Climate change affects us directly, through heat waves, stronger storms, flooding, and indirectly, through air pollution, disease, and contamination. It affects the quality of our food, the safety of our homes, and even our mental health.”
For instance, with rising temperatures and increased heat waves, we’re seeing more heat-related deaths and illnesses, with air pollution and increased allergens we’re seeing more respiratory diseases, the list goes on.
The irony is that the vulnerable and marginalized societies (such as those in developing nations) or those in low-income communities around us- are those who contributed the least to the crisis, but are suffering the impacts the worst, and are usually the first to experience them. Climate solutions would be health solutions, that aren’t just in the distant future, but are here, today, for us.
So the need to change the way we live and construct our environments is becoming increasingly imperative. Globally, the architectural and construction industries have become rather extractive and destructive in nature, and a way to challenge this was to propose that the built environment and ecological systems should no longer be conceived of as separate entities, but to propose that the border between the natural and the artificial should dissolve- to blur the boundaries between natural ecological systems and our built environments.
If you observe nature closely, you’ll notice that ecologies- everywhere- function in a closed, circular loop- where waste becomes nutrient and decay makes way for life. There’s an intrinsic intelligence of natural ecologies that scientists are only recently uncovering- so can we apply this new understanding of nature to the way we design and fabricate the built environment? How can buildings be an armature between nature and the built?
The challenge is how we can borrow from the these circular, biological systems that nature has operated in for millennia- in order to try to create a built environment that could seek to re-instate a symbiotic co-existence with nature, to remediate both human and planetary health. In this way, could humankind re-establish a state of equilibrium in the natural world?