Architects need to orchestrate the complex task of designing cities and buildings that reverse ecological damage, and enable ecological evolution and reinforce the state of health of inhabitants. Their design should thus regulate climate, provide habitat, cycle nutrients, purify water-air-soil and produce their energy and water. This moves architects to think of design as part of nature, which means studying, understanding and modelling not only buildings but all the natural systems and their inhabitants.
While this regenerative approach is attracting growing interest among design practitioners, transitioning from a traditional to a regenerative practice presents challenges.
Architecteure is moving from working on buildings in separation from their context to the design of living systems with co- evolutionary capacity, It is now seeing interrelationships across multiple scientific domains and patterns of change rather than static mono-focused design approaches (e.g. a design that is solely concerned with energy). It is increasingly understood that it is necessary to addresses phenomena in terms of wholeness rather than in terms of parts in order to create new and more meaningful relations.
To imagine solutions for adaptation to climate change, practitioners transfer biological and ecological knowledge into a design context. Looking at plants or animals that are highly adaptable or ones that survive in extreme climates or through climatic changes may provide insights into how buildings and cities could or should function. This requires the study of organisms and ecosystem in terms of forms, materials, construction methods, processes or functions.
Examining the qualities of ecosystems that enable them to be adaptable and resilient is a potential avenue to follow. However, scientists need to join the design team orchestra. We should thus think of regenerative design as an integrated blend of scientific disciplines, including but not limited to ecology, environmental engineering, biology, climatology, agriculture, physics, chemistry, material science, and medicine. Thus, it involves integrating a wide range of factors from the ecosystem level to individual molecules.
REGENERATIVE DESIGN IN ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICE The fostering of new, meaningful, nature-based relationships requires planning on the front end of the design process for the orchestration of knowledge and the generation and assembling of data in digital models. Below is a list of concepts that are key to the regenerative practice and that are related to the processes of science-based creation.
Mindset. Success in regeneration means to design to evolve and continually develop new potential through interventions in the built environment. Regeneration is a practice philosophy, a design process and a result. This can be derived by the Merriam Webster definitions or regenerate:
- formed or created again - spiritually reborn or converted
- restored to a better, higher, or more worthy state
A research-based understanding of how a building works and what it strives to contribute to the world. When the global and local dynamics and essence are understood, it becomes possible to design, develop, and plan for the future at a new scientific level. These entail the ability for architectural practice to discern the ecological and the human patterns by accessing big data, scientific data as well as historical records and ancient legends.
Architectural office as an orchestra of scientists and designers. In regenerative design, the design team members include scientists in an orchestra. To enhance the health of the ecological systems climatologists, hydrologists, geologists, ecologists, biologists, material scientists, chemists, physicists, to mention some, need to be involved. It is essential that architects do not act as soloists as often happens in a one-man led company. An orchestra made up of the most excellent soloists will not often perform well together.
Avoid compartmentalised firm structures. The design professions (and indeed, all professional disciplines) have become more specialised and our processes more compartmentalised. This makes them more manageable but tends to lead to solutions where each component in the project is designed to perform at peak effectiveness but sacrifices a systemic approach that, especially for sustainable design, is key to connect in meaningful relations all the layers of ecology, material flows and human health.
Adopt Systemic approaches. Designers optimise the function of the system. Selecting the appropriate components and combining them in the best way for overall performance requires a much more nuanced approach and finer set of tools. It requires an integrated design process involving all relevant scientific disciplines from the beginning. Generally, this multidisciplinary team must work iteratively, circulating the design over and over with scientists and modellers of the various systems until it ‘converges’ on an optimal solution (optimal for multiple criteria, not just one). The parametric digital tools, as seen later, are essential to the success of this process.
Direct and indirect conncetion - with and of flows. Practice should distinguish between the direct and indirect ways through which buildings engage with resource flows, and then connect them to merge them. Direct involvement includes approaches and strategies that occur within the bounds of the project site. The indirect commitment extends beyond the limits of the site and can thus be implemented o n a much larger scale.
Represent relations among ecosystem, the built and human health.
The design needs to happen with an extended type of interactive and multiscale maps. These are global, regional and local beyond the immediate building and site boundaries. Several layers of information need to be represented and modified by design. These can be a representation of natural, materials and human flows.
Such maps and diagrams facilitate the broader integration of allied design professionals - urban planners, landscape architects and engineers, together with other disciplines and ecologists, botanists, hydrologists, material producer, doctors, who are typically not in direct dialogue.
Ecological Impact Assessment, Material Flow Analysis and Health Accounting. Compare impacts of design options with numerical evidence and modelling of the ecosystems and humans by using Ecological Impact Assessment, Material Flow Analysis and Health Accounting. This means tracing the environmental impacts of existing and proposed designs. This information determines the most ecological and sound design possibility.
The right design converges several patterns. A right solution is good because it is in harmony with those larger patterns, solves more than one problem, doesn’t create new ones, and creates ecosystem capacity while enhancing human health. By combining multiple paths to each end, designers increase the quality of the overall system.
A NEW VOCABULARY WITHIN THE PRACTICE
The move to regenerative approaches has led to the challenges of incorporating new science-based vocabulary in practice.
Recurring in regenerative design definitions are themes related to nature, ecosystem, wildlife, living organisms, organic and inorganic matters, physiology and health.
The holistic and profoundly integrated nature of regenerative design is different from the common vocabulary proposed by the checklist of sustainable design rating systems. These lead to achieving credits without a real understanding of ecology and location patterns. Browsing trough the key terminology used in regenerative design related publications helps to track the scientific domains and disciplines that are intgergrated. The paper
‘Regenerative Development and Design’ by Pamela Mang and Bill Reed [1] collect the following definitions:
Ecology: the interdisciplinary scientific study of the living situations of organisms in interaction with each other and with the surroundings, organic as well as inorganic [1].
Biomimicry: an emerging design discipline that looks to nature for sustainable design solutions. [2]
Ecological sustainability: based on ecology and living systems principles, focuses on the capacity of ecosystems to maintain their essential functions and processes, and retain their biodiversity in full measure over the long-term [3]
Ecosystem concept: a coherent framework for redesigning landscapes, buildings, cities, and systems of energy, water, food, manufacturing and waste through the effective adaptation to and integration with nature’s processes [4].
Locational Patterns: The patterns that depict the distinctive character and potential of a place and provide a dynamic mapping for designing human structures and systems that align with the living systems of a place [1].
Place: the unique, multi-layered network of ecosystems within a geographic region that results from the complex interactions through time of the natural ecology (climate, soil, vegetation, water, wildlife, etc.) and culture (distinctive customs, cultural values, economic activities, traditions, etc.) [5],[6].
The above terms and definitions point to a design process in which the traditional stakeholders - architect, mechanical engineer, contractor, cost estimator, building owner and operator - collaborate closely with scientists to explore how to connect design and operations to the broad ecosystem dynamics, the flow of materials and human health, in a systemic manner.
REFERENCES:
[1] Mang, Pamela, and Bill Reed. ‘Regenerative Development and Design.’ In Encyclopedia of Sustainability Science and Technology, edited by Robert A. Meyers, 8855–79. New York, NY:
Springer New York, 2012.
[2] Benyus J (1997) Biomimicry. Harper Collins, New York
[3] Capra F (1996) The web of life: a new scientific understanding of living systems. Anchor Books, New York
[4] Tansley AG (1935) The use and abuse of vegetational concepts and terms. Ecology 16:284–307.
[5] Mang P, Haggard, B (2016) Regenerative development and design: a framework for evolving sustainability. John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ11.
[6] Hes D, DuPlessis C (2015) Designing for hope: pathways to regenerative sustainability.
Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon
Edited by
Emanuele Naboni
Clarice Bleil de Souza Terri Peters
FOR HOLISTIC MODELLING TOOLS AND DATA
Simulating Regenerative Futures
Chapter Cover Image - Visibility Index, Geneva Visibility index simulation of the Hollande district in Geneva, Switzerland. Contributions from a set of viewpoints are averaged to get a mean visual amplitude index per mesh face. This may be used to quantify visibility on an objective basis and can be matched with solar energy generation potential for planning purposes
Courtesy Pietro Florio