Regenerative Design: Reframing Sustainability

Those now practicing regenerative design or more accurately, regenerative development, try to incorporate people and community into the process of development, and an understanding of how the end 'product' and its continuance or evolution hinges on the spirit and understanding of the individuals to make it so. Regenerative design is not a new idea per se. It has emerged from a long line of thinkers who have mulled over the proper relationship of Man and nature, and is found in the thoughts and writings of John and Nancy Todd and the New Alchemists, Stewart Brand's Whole Earth Catalog, writings by John Tillman Lyle such as in Design for Human Ecosystems, and works by the great permaculturalist Bill Mollison. Other names that come to mind are Ian McHarg, Sim Van Der Ryn, Anne Spirn, David Orr, James Corner, and as we heard from earlier, Bill McDonough.

Many of those above looked at how, as a society, we are overly prone to abstracting ourselves from natural systems, rather than asking how we can, through a better understanding of how they function, integrate with those systems to make places that are not just more efficient, but healthier, more pleasant and even more fun.

via www.c2cportal.net