What cleans the air, filters stormwater, recharges groundwater, converts energy from the sun and wind, while providing habitat to animals and sustenance for people? And when its useful life is complete, efficiently returns to the earth or is used in other productive ways?
Answer: A house. A store. An office. An industrial site.
Regenerative Design is a different approach to development. Instead of clearing forests, filling in wetlands, and paving over green spaces to make way for wood frames, concrete pads, and steel beams, the built environment integrates with the existing (or historic) landscape to perform ecosystem services. It includes “green” or “sustainable” design principles, which call for minimizing environmental impacts, but also goes beyond them by designing buildings that operate as part of a larger ecosystem. When done on brownfield or infill sites, Regenerative Design can actually improve the environmental performance of a site. Regenerative Design is rooted in historic development patterns and techniques, but is not a call to shun electricity or give up running water. It is a sophisticated design approach relying on both cutting-edge technologies and indigenous techniques to create thoughtful designs that blur the distinction between the built and natural environments, through high-performance buildings nested in functional landscapes.
Regenerative design is a multi-scale approach to development that gives careful consideration for the built and natural environments in tandem. Regenerative Design promotes:
High-performance buildings that combine passive and active systems to reduce energy and water needs
Renewable energy and gray water systems
Natural landscapes that manage stormwater while providing habitat
Circulation and corridor connections between community resources and natural habitats
Productivity with respect to ecosystems, food, and economy
