Regenerative Development and Design

Regenerative Development and Design takes sustainability to the next level, and provides a framework for incorporating regenerative design principles into your current process. The Regenesis Group is a coalition of experienced design, land-use, planning, business, and development professionals who represent the forefront of the movement; in this book, they explain what regenerative development is, how and why it works, and how you can incorporate the fundamental principles into your practice. A clear, focused framework shows you how to merge regenerative concepts with your existing work, backed by numerous examples that guide practical application while illustrating regenerative design and development in action. As the most comprehensive and systemic approach to regenerative development, this book is a must-have resource for architects, planners, and designers seeking the next step in sustainability.

Regenerative design and development positions humans as co-creative and mutually-evolving participants in anecosystemnot just a built environment. This book describes how to bring that focus to your design from the earliest stages.Understand the fundamentals of regenerative design and developmentLearn how regenerative development contributes to sustainabilityIntegrate regenerative development concepts into practiceExamine sample designs that embody the regenerative concept

To create a design with true sustainability, considerations must extend far beyond siting, materials, and efficiency. Designers must look at the place, it's inhabitants, and the purposethewhole living ecosystemand proceed with their work from that more humbling perspective. The finished product should itself be an ecosystem and sustainable economy, which is the root of the regenerative development approach. Sustainability has evolved, and the designer's responsibility has increased in kind.Regenerative Developmentand Design provides an authoritative resource for those ready to take the next step forward.

PAMELA MANG andBEN HAGGARD are founding members of Regenesis Group, a coalition of experienced design, land-use, planning, business, and development professionals who focus on regenerative design and development. Regenesis was founded on the belief that environmental problems are more cultural and psychologicalthan technological, and works to forward Living Systems Thinking as a framework for breaking the stagnation and developing a symbiotic relationship between people and the places they design and inhabit.

Foreword v

Acknowledgments xi

Changing Our Minds xiii

The Future of Sustainability xix

PART ONE: Creating Regenerative Projects 1

Chapter 1: EVOLUTION 9Premise:Every living system has inherent within it the possibility to move to new levelsof order, differentiation, and organization.Principle: Design for evolution.

Chapter 2: UNDERSTANDING PLACE 33Premise:Co-evolution among humans and natural systems can only be undertaken inspecific places, using approaches that are precisely fitted to them.Principle:Partner with place.

Chapter 3: DISCOVERING COLLECTIVE VOCATION 61Premise:The sustainability of a living system is tied directly to its beneficial integration into a larger system.Principle:Call forth a collective vocation

Chapter 4: THE GUILDED AGE 81Premise:Projects should be vehicles for catalyzing the cooperative enterprises required to enable evolutionPrinciple:Actualize stakeholder systems toward co-evolving mutualism.

PART TWO: Creating Regenerative Processes 103

Chapter 5: START FROM POTENTIAL 11Premise:Potential comes from evolving the value-generating capacity of a system to make unique contributions to the evolution of larger systems.Principle:Work from potential, not problems.

Chapter 6: VALUE-ADDING ROLES 135Premise:The continuing health of living systems depends on each member living out its distinctive role.Principle:Find your distinctive, value-adding roles.

Chapter 7: TRANSFORMATIONAL LEVERAGE 153Premise:Small conscious and conscientious interventions in the right place can create beneficial, system-wide effects.Principle:Leverage systemic regeneration by making nodal interventions.

Chapter 8: DEVELOPMENTAL WORK 177Premise:A project can only create systemic benefit within a field of caring, co-creativity, and co-responsibility.Principle: Design the design process to be developmental.

PART THREE: Becoming a Regenerative Change Agent 197

Chapter 9: SYSTEMS ACTUALIZING 20Premise: The actualization of a self requires the simultaneous development of the systems of which it is a part.Principle: Become a systems actualizer.

Epilogue 215

Further Reading 219

Index 223