Designing from place: A regenerative framework and methodology

The radical changes required for Earth to remain fit for human habitation require a change in worldviews from mechanistic to ecological. A key question is: how can those working on the built environment - a field with major impact on global resources and systems - best support a smooth and timely transition? It is proposed that design practitioners can facilitate that response in the built environment through the development, application and evolution of comprehensive new methodologies, explicitly shaped by a regenerative sustainability paradigm. It is further proposed that successfully evolving a regenerative practice requires going beyond just adopting new techniques to taking on a new role for humans and designers, and a new mind, and learning how to work developmentally. As an example of how a consciously held worldview shapes a practice, an actual regenerative methodology, developed and evolved over 16 years of practice, is explored in detail. A framework, adapted from accepted scientific methodology protocols, is used to structure this exploration, differentiating the different elements and levels, showing how they work as an integrated system and revealing the underlying premises and assumptions behind the choice of aims, strategies, methods and progress indicators.