Towards a Regenerative Design Project Delivery Workflow: A Critical Review

Abstract

Regenerative design (RD) is an approach to creating positive change in the built environment rather than reducing its negative impacts. RD focuses its design work on improving the relationship between humans, places, and ecosystems. It also proposes fundamental paradigm shifts that promise to address the urgent climatic and biodiversity crises. While it presents a systemic, holistic method of understanding the place and the interrelationships between economic, social, and natural systems with a participatory and collaborative approach to design, its design methodology needs a detailed definition of tools to help new practitioners and students develop RD projects successfully and promote its widespread implementation. In particular, a general project delivery workflow is needed. This paper undertook a comprehensive review to fill this gap, examining 150 references, including articles, books, reports, and theses related to RD. It selected and analysed 19 sources from 1994 to 2024 to analyse and extract their content referencing project delivery steps. This paper proposes a novel six-step project delivery workflow and a workflow diagram that creatively synthesises the proposed RD project delivery workflow. These practical and applicable contributions are helpful for design and building practitioners willing to start a regenerative project. Additionally, this research found links and overlaps between RD and circular building (CB), suggesting opportunities for mutual further development of RD and CB.