Regenerative design: meet the creatives taking a rooting interest in learning from nature

Regenerative design seeks to not merely do less harm when designing, but rather to put design to work as a positive force that restores, renews or revitalises. A concept that’s inherent in nature, regeneration should be the approach for how we interact with the planet.

It is time for designers to set our sights beyond sustainability and consider regeneration. Sustainability is an important concept in a time of widespread environmental destruction. It has made us aware that our planet’s resources are finite, and helped us envisage practices to sustain our current resources. But on its own it does not fix what is b... See more

The regenerative model is based on the idea that humans, as the dominant force on the planet, learn to be more like the non-human nature systems, learning from the wisdom of life and applying these ideas to the practices of cultural change. A critical principle of life is there is no such thing as waste in nature; everything is broken down and cycl... See more

We are approaching the biggest ecological collapse in 65 million years. The urgency of this moment demands a different kind of thinking — one that puts life at the centre of every decision. In conversation with Standard Deviation, we explore visions for a regenerative future, and what it means to give back much more than we take.

Involves six principles to encompass nature and non-human beings; zoom in and out across time, scale and self; and embrace circularity, existing assets and re-use, rather than an emphasis on new.

Regenerative Games: Regenerative games are designed to regrow, renew, or restore systems, especially those that are damaged or lost like the environment, financial systems, and the well being of society. Regenerative initiatives are frequently designed for environmental and biological systems, but can also occur at the individual and organizational... See more

To discover the essence of generous design, she suggests that we take nature as our model, measure and mentor. With nature as model, we can study and mimic life’s cyclical processes of take and give, death and renewal, in which one creature’s waste becomes another’s food. As measure, nature sets the ecological standard by which to judge the sustain

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