Sustainability Is Not Enough: Towards AI Supported Regenerative Design

To transform the negative impacts of buildings on the environment into a positive footprint, a radical shift from the current, linear ‘make-use-dispose’ practice to a closed-loop ‘make-use-return’ system, associated with a circular economy, is necessary. This research aims to demonstrate the possible shift to a circular construction industry by developing the first practical framework with tangible benchmarks for a ‘Circular University Campus’ based on an exemplary case study project, which is a real project development in India. As a first step, a thorough literature review was undertaken to demonstrate the social, environmental and economic benefits of a circular construction industry. As next step, the guideline for a ‘Circular University Campus’ was developed, and its applicability tested on the case study. As final step, the evolved principles were used to establish ‘Project Specific Circular Building Indicators’ for a student residential block and enhance the proposed design through bioclimatic and regenerative design strategies. The building’s performance was evaluated through computational simulations, whole-life carbon analysis and a circular building assessment tool. The results demonstrated the benefits and feasibility of bioclimatic, regenerative building and neighbourhood design and provided practical prototypical case study and guidelines which can be adapted by architects, planners and governmental institutions to other projects, thereby enabling the shift to a restorative, circular construction industry.

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Exploring Regenerative Co-benefits of Biophilic Design for People and the Environment

10.1007/978-3-030-75929-2_21 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 391-412

Author(s):

Maria Beatrice Andreucci ◽

Angela Loder ◽

Beth McGee ◽

Jelena Brajković ◽

Martin Brown

Keyword(s):

Human Health ◽

Case Studies ◽

Design Theory ◽

Environmental Psychology ◽

Biophilic Design ◽

Health Goals ◽

Apply Research ◽

New Directions ◽

Regenerative Design ◽

Research And Policy

AbstractThere is an increasing awareness of the role that buildings, districts, and neighborhoods play on health in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic that coincides with pressing climate concerns. This has renewed attention to the benefits of nature for both human and climate health. Buildings, cities, and regions are attempting to align regenerative design principles with human health goals but often lack the tools and knowledge to do so. This is partly rooted in a failure to understand how to apply research and policy for different contexts as well as at different scales. It is also still uncertain exactly what types of nature can lead to which types of benefit, and for whom, despite long-standing research within the environmental psychology, sustainability, and design fields. This chapter outlines key research paradigms that influence the way we understand the benefits of nature, where biophilic design theory sits in this field, and how it can be and has been applied at different scales through two case studies at the building and city scale. This chapter ends with the proposal of new directions for integrating biophilic design into regenerative design and policy.

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Urban Ecosystem-Level Biomimicry and Regenerative Design: Linking Ecosystem Functioning and Urban Built Environments

10.26686/wgtn.14857479 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Eduardo Blanco ◽

Maibritt Pedersen Zari ◽

Kalina Raskin ◽

Philippe Clergeau

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Urban Design ◽

Urban Space ◽

Ecosystem Functioning ◽

Ecosystem Health ◽

Urban Ecosystem ◽

Illustrative Case ◽

Natural Ecosystems ◽

Ecosystem Level ◽

Regenerative Design

By 2050, 68% of the world’s population will likely live in cities. Human settlements depend on resources, benefits, and services from ecosystems, but they also tend to deplete ecosystem health. To address this situation, a new urban design and planning approach is emerging. Based on regenerative design, ecosystem-level biomimicry, and ecosystem services theories, it proposes designing projects that reconnect urban space to natural ecosystems and regenerate whole socio-ecosystems, contributing to ecosystem health and ecosystem services production. In this paper, we review ecosystems as models for urban design and review recent research on ecosystem services production. We also examine two illustrative case studies using this approach: Lavasa Hill in India and Lloyd Crossing in the U.S.A. With increasing conceptualisation and application, we argue that the approach contributes positive impacts to socio-ecosystems and enables scale jumping of regenerative practices at the urban scale. However, ecosystem-level biomimicry practices in urban design to create regenerative impact still lack crucial integrated knowledge on ecosystem functioning and ecosystem services productions, making it less effective than potentially it could be. We identify crucial gaps in knowledge where further research is needed and pose further relevant research questions to make ecosystem-level biomimicry approaches aiming for regenerative impact more effective.

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Fostering communication and collaboration through regenerative design games.

10.5151/ead2021-187 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Niki Wallace

Keyword(s):

Regenerative Design

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REVIEW OF MODERN CONCEPTS OF ENVIRONMENTALIZATION OF THE LIVING ENVIRONMENT

URBAN CONSTRUCTION AND ARCHITECTURE ◽

10.17673/vestnik.2019.03.15 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 9 (3) ◽

pp. 113-125 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Tatiana Ya. VAVILOVA

Keyword(s):

Urban Planning ◽

Living Environment ◽

Appropriate Technology ◽

Town Planning ◽

Green Economy ◽

Laboratory Research ◽

Resource Saving ◽

Stage Of Development ◽

Theoretical Approaches ◽

Regenerative Design

The problem of inconsistency of the life-forming environment and global trends forming algorithms in Russia is considered. Attention focused on taking into account the goals of a "green" economy and the tasks of improving the quality of life while regulating the parameters of urban planning and architectural decisions. The newest foreign concepts of ecologization had been study as an object of research. The subject of the research were theoretical approaches and innovative applied technologies that contribute to adapting the methods of architectural and town planning activities to changing environmental conditions. Identification of new ways to improve the consumer properties of the living environment has become the goal of the study. Materials and methods: an integrated approach, collection of information from literary and online sources, compilation and analysis of thematic materials. The basic information about theoretical developments discovered in domestic and foreign scientific journals. They are present on the Russian portal E-library and on ScienceDirect - the Elsevier's multidisciplinary platform. Some aspects were refined according to the information that posted on the websites of electronic libraries of a number of foreign universities and specialized research institutions. Results. Brief description of such foreign concepts as "environmental design", "appropriate technology", "life cycle assessment", "Cradle to Cradle", "lean manufacturing", "upcycling", "planned obsolescence" and "regenerative design" prepared. Analysis of publications showed that the most popular topic is the need for resource conservation. Active laboratory research, transition to BIM-technologies, economic incentive mechanisms and active popularization contribute to the introduction of innovative resource-saving developments in practice. Conclusions. Currently, various aspects of the "green" economy considered in the natural Sciences, engineering, Humanities and Economics. One of the most important tasks of the modern stage of development of urban planning and architecture in Russia is the introduction into practice of design and construction of modern technologies corresponding to the tasks of the "green" economy. In this regard, the actual direction of science researches, which are associated with the optimization of urban planning, architectural and engineering solutions, is the synchronization of the field of sectoral problems with the key issues of sustainable development.

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Characterizing Regenerative Aspects of Living Root Bridges

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su12083267 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (8) ◽

pp. 3267

Author(s):

Wilfrid Middleton ◽

Amin Habibi ◽

Sanjeev Shankar ◽

Ferdinand Ludwig

Keyword(s):

Focal Point ◽

Economic Systems ◽

Design Tools ◽

Focal Points ◽

User Perspective ◽

Global Tourism ◽

Living Root ◽

Living Environments ◽

Regenerative Design ◽

Whole Systems

Living root bridges (LRBs) are functional load-bearing structures grown from Ficus elastica by rural Khasi and Jaintia communities in Meghalaya (India). Formed without contemporary engineering design tools, they are a unique example of vernacular living architecture. The main objective of this study is to investigate to what extent LRBs can be seen as an example of regenerative design. The term "regenerative" describes processes that renew the resources necessary for their function. Whole systems thinking underpins regenerative design, in which the integration of human and non-human systems improves resilience. We adapted the living environments in natural, social, and economic systems (LENSES) framework (living environments in natural, social, and economic systems) to reflect the holistic, integrated systems present in LRBs. The regenerative / sustainable / degenerative scale provided by LENSES Rubrics is applied to 27 focal points in nine flow groups. Twenty-two of these points come from LENSES directly, while five were created by the authors, as advised by the LENSES framework. Our results show 10 focal points in which LRBs are unambiguously regenerative. One focal point is unambiguously sustainable, while 16 are ambiguous, showing regenerative, sustainable, and degenerative aspects. User perspective determines how some focal points are evaluated. The contrast between a local, indigenous perspective and a global, tourism-focused perspective is demonstrated by the results.

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The Use of Big Data in Regenerative Planning

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su10103668 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 10 (10) ◽

pp. 3668 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Dorota Kamrowska-Zaluska ◽

Hanna Obracht-Prondzyńska

Keyword(s):

Big Data ◽

Urban Development ◽

Efficient Solutions ◽

Data Sources ◽

Regenerative Approach ◽

Development Processes ◽

Regenerative Development ◽

Regenerative Design ◽

Development Paradigm

With the increasing significance of Big Data sources and their reliability for studying current urban development processes, new possibilities have appeared for analyzing the urban planning of contemporary cities. At the same time, the new urban development paradigm related to regenerative sustainability requires a new approach and hence a better understanding of the processes changing cities today, which will allow more efficient solutions to be designed and implemented. It results in the need to search for tools which will allow more advanced analyses while assessing the planning projects supporting regenerative development. Therefore, in this paper, the authors study the role of Big Data retrieved from sensor systems, social media, GPS, institutional data, or customer and transaction records. The study includes an enquiry into how Big Data relates to the ecosystem and to human activities, in supporting the development of regenerative human settlements. The aim of the study is to assess the possibilities created by Big Data-based tools in supporting regenerative design and planning and the role they can play in urban projects. In order to do this, frameworks allowing for the assessment of planning projects were analyzed according to their potential to support a regenerative approach. This has been followed by an analysis of the accessibility and reliability of the data sources. Finally, Big Data-based projects were mapped upon aspects of regenerative planning according to the introduced framework.

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A Higher Order of Heroism

The Nature of Design ◽

10.1093/oso/9780195148558.003.0025 ◽

2002 ◽

Author(s):

David W. Orr

Keyword(s):

Biological Diversity ◽

Higher Order ◽

Aldo Leopold ◽

Ice Storm ◽

Rachel Carson ◽

The Road ◽

Frederick Law Olmsted ◽

Regenerative Design ◽

The Right ◽

The University

In the towns and cities across America, it is common to find a town square with a large monument to one military hero or another. Seldom, however, does one find the designers of those towns or town squares similarly memorialized. A smarter and more durable society would first acknowledge those with the foresight and dedication to design our places well, not just those who defended them in times of trouble.We need to recognize a higher order of heroism—those who helped avoid conflict, harmonized human communities with their surroundings, preserved soil and biological diversity, and created the basis for a more permanent peace than that possible to forge by violence. These are quiet heroes and heroines who work mostly out of the light of publicity. The few who do receive public acclaim are mostly reticent about the attention they get. Some like Frederick Law Olmsted, Aldo Leopold, and Rachel Carson develop a wide international following. Most, however, labor in obscurity, content to do their work for the satisfaction of doing things well. John Lyle, professor of landscape architecture at California Polytechnic Institute, was such a man. I met John in the mid-1980s during a visit to Cal Poly. During the two days we spent together, we talked about his concept of regenerative design and his plans for the Center for Regenerative Studies, now named the Lyle Center, and walked over the site—located between a large landfill and the university. In subsequent years, John and I met at conferences and sometimes collaborated on design projects, including one located in a remote, hilly, southern rural community. Our first site visit coincided with an ice storm the previous day that had covered the region with an inch of ice. We got within a mile of the site in a rental car, but had to make our way down a long, steep hill with a sheer drop of several hundred feet on one side. For the final mile on what passed for a dirt road in that part of the country, the rental car was useless, so we began to slip, slide, and tumble our way down the hill. Near the bottom, the road banked steeply to the right, but we had to reach a trail on the left side.

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