Integrating Ecological Knowledge into Regenerative Design: A Rapid Practice Review

Abstract

While sustainable design practice is working to reduce the ecological impacts of development, many of the earth’s already damaged life support systems require repair and regeneration. Regenerative design theory embraces this challenge using an ecological worldview that recognizes all life as intertwined and interdependent to deliver restorative outcomes that heal. Central to regenerative design theory is the mutually beneficial and coevolving ‘stewardship’ relationship between community and place, the success of which requires local ecological knowledge. However, there is a lack of understanding about how—within the design process—practitioners are integrating ‘innate knowledge’ of place held by local people. This rapid practice review sought to collate and evaluate current ‘regenerative design practice’ methods towards ensuring good practice in the integration of place-based ecological knowledge. A comprehensive online search retrieved 345 related articles from the grey literature, academic book chapters, and government reports, from which 83 articles were analyzed. The authors conclude that regenerative design practice is emergent, with the design practice of including community knowledge of ecological systems of place remaining ad hoc, highly variable, and champion-based. The findings have immediate implications for regenerative design practitioners, researchers, and developers, documenting the state of progress in methods that explore innate ecological knowledge and foster co-evolving ecological stewardship.

Towards a Regenerative Design Project Delivery Workflow: A Critical Review

“…Because RD requires understanding the social (historical, cultural, and economic) and ecological systems as one complex and dynamic social-ecological system [13,28], RD requires applying systems thinking. Systems thinking implies understanding that the whole is always different from the sum of the parts because of the relationships within components and how they influence each other [26].…”

“…The entire design team needs to shift to an ecological worldview. Because building stakeholders are usually unfamiliar with ecological principles and strategies, biologists and ecologists are invited to participate in RD teams and integrate ecological research into the design process [13]. Organisations, too, are considered evolving, structured, and interrelated living systems rather than things [7].…”

“…RD certification tools such as Living Building Challenge, Living Community Challenge, SITES, and EcoQuartier have received criticism due to their compartmentalised categorisation and listing of environmental performance metrics. According to [13], a more holistic approach to ecology is required to integrate place-based environmental knowledge into regenerative design projects. Other criticisms include a lack of clarity regarding what is deemed regenerative and how it can be assessed, imposing too ambitious aims to designers unskilled in ecological systems, and the scale of projects usually too small to deliver clear ecological benefits to the larger contexts [25].…”

“…As [12] points out, RD is a practice-based movement. The participatory design processes and the strategies for acquiring place-based ecological knowledge are still emergent [13,14], so step-by-step guidance is suggested for developing an RD project effectively.…”