Regenerative design is about designing systems and solutions that work with or mimic the ways that natural ecosystems return energy from less usable forms to more usable forms. Regenerative design uses systems thinking and other approaches to create resilient and equitable systems that integrate the needs of society and the well-being of nature. Regenerative design is an active topic of discussion in engineering, economics, medicine, landscape design, food systems, and urban design & community development generally. In the 1970s, John T. Lyle introduced the term “regenerative design”, arguing that conventional sustainable design approaches would primarily maintain existing conditions rather than repair ecological imbalances created by human development. Lyle later elaborated on these ideas in his book Regenerative Design for Sustainable Development (1994), in which he outlined a series of regenerative strategies, including an emphasis on working with natural systems. The regenerative design paradigm encourages designers to use systems thinking, applied permaculture design principles, and community development processes to design human and ecological systems. The development of regenerative design has been influenced by approaches found in biomimicry, biophilic design, net-positive design, ecological economics, circular economics, as well as social movements such as permaculture, transition and the new economy. Regenerative design can also refer to the process of designing systems such as restorative justice, rewilding and regenerative agriculture.
Regenerative design is increasingly being applied in such sectors as agriculture, architecture, community planning, cities, enterprises, economics and ecosystem regeneration. These designers are using green or sustainable design principles observed in systems ecology and recognize that ecosystems that are resilient typically operate in closed loop systems. Using such models, regenerative design seeks feedback at every stage of the design process. Feedback loops are integral to regenerative systems as understood by processes used in restorative practice and community development. Regenerative design is interconnected with the approaches of systems thinking and with New Economy movement. The 'new economy' considers that the current economic system needs to be restructured. The theory is based on the assumption that people and the planet should come first, and that it is human well-being, not economic growth, which should be prioritized. Whereas the weak definition of sustainable development was to satisfy fundamental human needs today without compromising the possibility of future generations to satisfy theirs, the goal of sustainable design was to develop restorative systems that are beneficial for humans and other species. Sustainable design is participatory, iterative and individual to the community and environment it is applied to. It intends to revitalize communities, human and natural resources, and society as a whole. In recent years regenerative design is made possible on a larger scale using open source socio- technical platforms and technological systems as used in SMART cities. It includes community and city development processes like gathering feedback, participatory governance, sortition and participatory budgeting.
History
Permaculture The term permaculture was developed and coined by David Holmgren, then a graduate student at the Tasmanian College of Advanced Education's Department of Environmental Design, and Bill Mollison, senior lecturer in environmental psychology at University of Tasmania, in 1978. The word permaculture originally referred to "permanent agriculture", but was expanded to stand also for "permanent culture", as it was understood that social aspects were integral to a truly sustainable system as inspired by Masanobu Fukuoka's natural farming philosophy. Regenerative design is integral to permaculture design. In 1974, David Holmgren and Bill Mollison first started working together to develop the theory and practice of permaculture. They met when Mollison spoke at a seminar at the Department of Environmental Design and began to work together. During their first three years together Mollison worked at applying their ideas, and Holmgren wrote the manuscript for what would become Permaculture One: a perennial agricultural system for human settlements as he completed his environmental design studies, and submitted it as the major reference for his thesis. He then handed the manuscript to Mollison for editing and additions, before it was published in 1978.
Regenerative organic agriculture Robert Rodale, son of American organic pioneer and Rodale Institute founder J.I. Rodale, coined the term 'regenerative organic agriculture.' The term distinguished a kind of farming that goes beyond simply 'sustainable yield'. Regenerative organic agriculture "takes advantage of the natural tendencies of ecosystems to regenerate when disturbed. In that primary sense it is distinguished from other types of agriculture that either oppose or ignore the value of those natural tendencies." This type of farming is marked by "tendencies towards closed nutrient loops, greater diversity in the biological community, fewer annuals and more perennials, and greater reliance on internal rather than external resources." John T. Lyle (1934–1998), a landscape architecture professor saw the connection between concepts developed by Bob Rodale for regenerative agriculture and the opportunity to develop regenerative systems for all other aspects of the world. While regenerative agriculture focused solely on agriculture, Lyle expanded its concepts and use to all systems. Lyle understood that when developing for other types of systems, more complicated ideas such as entropy and emergy must be taken into consideration.
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