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The regenerative design approach, which includes regenerative development, engages communities and practitioners in design teams in a dialogue to develop higher orders of aspirations of sustainability through understanding and problem- solving by storytelling. This shifts the focus of the problem
to the context of the whole system. This process is an open dialogue growing out the emerging understanding of a place that comes from the knowledge of the community. The approach includes three
phases of generation: understanding conceptualising the relationship to place, design for harmony,
and the co-evolution of human and habitat to sustain its survival capacity (Mang & Reed, 2012, p. 31).
These concepts support the fundamental principles of the Regenerative Design aspect of the
Regenerative-Adaptive Pattern Language theory, articulated in the next section.
10.3 Regenerative Design Fundamentals
Regenerative design is embedded in the acceptance of a new ecological worldview, and when actions
and decisions by designers and planners are a result of consciously evaluating and expressing a solution based on their worldview complex, it can provide a pattern for the ongoing evolution of human
beings (Mang & Reed, 2012). The role of humans is thus important in the regenerative process. The
status quo of green or eco-efficient design minimising the impact on the environment is insufficient,
and we as humans need to take our place as ‘part of nature’ and not as ‘above nature’. From this perspective, regenerative design means the reconnection of human activities and aspirations in line with
the evolution of natural systems; essentially, the co-evolution of both. This implies shifting human
development activities back into alignment with nature’s processes. It implies every human settlement
needs to arrange itself around its watershed’s capacity to support life (Mang & Reed, 2012, p. 26).
This then defines the work of regeneration.
10.3.1 Regeneration
The central message from the regenerative paradigm is that not only should human activities that are
degenerative to the environment be minimized, but rather we should move towards a concept of maximising human activities that restore and regenerate ecological systems. The co- evolutionary and partnered relationship between humans and the natural environment is thus embedded in a continually
evolving world, and according to Kauffman (1993) the primary concern for sustainable futures is the
process of evolution (Kauffman, 1993). This requires a process of regeneration where all levels of
work produce a field within which the improvement of living systems can take place. Regeneration
needs then to address all levels of scale that will reveal the essence and potential of the place, and all
levels of scale become part of the integrated whole (Lyle, 1991 [1985]; Reed, 2007).
10.3.2 Place
A specific place is located in a hierarchy of relationships within the ecosystem structure according to
a structural order; each place has a unique character and value, and as part of morphogenetic
sequences, it has a specific combination of the properties of wholeness. Regeneration should return a
place to its core position in the whole, and through regenerative design a place can help humans experience the intimacy and responsibility of the living world and find a meaningful identity in the context
of wholeness. Place value is then based on the living system nested in its place, and to achieve con10 A Regenerative-Adaptive Pattern Language
The regenerative design approach, which includes regenerative development, engages communities and practitioners in design teams in a dialogue to develop higher orders of aspirations of sustainability through understanding and problem- solving by storytelling. This shifts the focus of the problem
to the context of the whole system. This process is an open dialogue growing out the emerging understanding of a place that comes from the knowledge of the community. The approach includes three
phases of generation: understanding conceptualising the relationship to place, design for harmony,
and the co-evolution of human and habitat to sustain its survival capacity (Mang & Reed, 2012, p. 31).
These concepts support the fundamental principles of the Regenerative Design aspect of the
Regenerative-Adaptive Pattern Language theory, articulated in the next section.
10.3 Regenerative Design Fundamentals
Regenerative design is embedded in the acceptance of a new ecological worldview, and when actions
and decisions by designers and planners are a result of consciously evaluating and expressing a solution based on their worldview complex, it can provide a pattern for the ongoing evolution of human
beings (Mang & Reed, 2012). The role of humans is thus important in the regenerative process. The
status quo of green or eco-efficient design minimising the impact on the environment is insufficient,
and we as humans need to take our place as ‘part of nature’ and not as ‘above nature’. From this perspective, regenerative design means the reconnection of human activities and aspirations in line with
the evolution of natural systems; essentially, the co-evolution of both. This implies shifting human
development activities back into alignment with nature’s processes. It implies every human settlement
needs to arrange itself around its watershed’s capacity to support life (Mang & Reed, 2012, p. 26).
This then defines the work of regeneration.
10.3.1 Regeneration
The central message from the regenerative paradigm is that not only should human activities that are
degenerative to the environment be minimized, but rather we should move towards a concept of maximising human activities that restore and regenerate ecological systems. The co- evolutionary and partnered relationship between humans and the natural environment is thus embedded in a continually
evolving world, and according to Kauffman (1993) the primary concern for sustainable futures is the
process of evolution (Kauffman, 1993). This requires a process of regeneration where all levels of
work produce a field within which the improvement of living systems can take place. Regeneration
needs then to address all levels of scale that will reveal the essence and potential of the place, and all
levels of scale become part of the integrated whole (Lyle, 1991 [1985]; Reed, 2007).
10.3.2 Place
A specific place is located in a hierarchy of relationships within the ecosystem structure according to
a structural order; each place has a unique character and value, and as part of morphogenetic
sequences, it has a specific combination of the properties of wholeness. Regeneration should return a
place to its core position in the whole, and through regenerative design a place can help humans experience the intimacy and responsibility of the living world and find a meaningful identity in the context
of wholeness. Place value is then based on the living system nested in its place, and to achieve con10 A Regenerative-Adaptive Pattern Language