UK Architects Declare’s Post

We’re experimenting with a different approach: using tempered glass slates over rubber tubing to heat water, an alternative to traditional solar panels. The concept is similar, and we're excited to see how this experimental method plays out. Anyone with experience in this? I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas on how far we can take it! #ProgressNotPerfection #SustainableArchitecture

We analyzed The Fab Lab project by Roth Architecture in the Yucatán Peninsula, and we figured it employs the following sustainable strategies: 🌿 Nature Integration: Using curving forms and wrapping around trees minimizes site disturbance and preserves existing vegetation. 🌳 Energy Efficiency: Utilization of translucent resins and palm fiber for windows maximizes natural lighting, reducing reliance on artificial lighting. 💡 Material Sustainability: Construction with reinforced concrete and steel ensures durability and longevity of the structure, supporting long-term sustainability. 🌱 Biodiversity Promotion: Incorporating planting beds with native jungle plants promotes local biodiversity and ecosystem health. ♻ Adaptability & Circular Design: Designing for future adaptability and component disassembly supports a circular economy approach to construction. 🌀 Natural VentilationMaterial: Integration of open atriums with trees enhances natural ventilation and reduces dependency on mechanical cooling systems. Can you spot other strategies?

𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟖 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬.... 8 years ago (wow, time flies!), long before Context-Coffee | Design-build, I designed "A contained Urban Forest." Now, thanks to one of our newest clients, this project is finally being revived!👇🏾 https://lnkd.in/dzVQyjab We’re experimenting with a different approach: using tempered glass slates over rubber tubing to heat water, an alternative to traditional solar panels. The concept is similar, and we're excited to see how this experimental method plays out. Anyone with experience in this? I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas on how far we can take it! Follow along as we explore new ways to merge sustainability with design. #ProgressNotPerfection #SustainableArchitecture

"Building in Layers: Embracing Time and Tension in Design" #ZoomRegenerative on 15th October continues our 'soul' theme with Ann Vanner Founder of Healing Buildings. "Everything evolves over time and we must embrace a design approach that layers the past, present and future. By using time as a key design generator we have the opportunity for buildings to adapt and respond to their environment. And at the same time we face the challenge of holding the various conflicts in tension - preservation verse innovation, structure versus fluidity, stability versus change. This talk explores how designers can navigate these ideas of tension and time to allowing the built environment to become more resilient, dynamic and truly centerer on the needs of all" Join us for more inspiring ZR regenerative conversations. https://lnkd.in/eF5M3NS4

📢 Our latest Regenerative Design Lab Report - Models and Frameworks for Regenerative Design - is now live 🌍✨ 📑 This report, which follows Cohort 2's journey through the lab, focuses on particular techniques we are using to facilitate conversations around regenerative design, including:  🔹Goal Definition: Establishing the goal of regenerative design as enabling human and living systems to survive, thrive, and co-evolve. 🔹Three Horizon Model: Structuring the Lab programme around three phases: the present, the future, and the transition. 🔹 Systems Bookcase: A tool for understanding decision-making within systems introduced early in the programme. 🔹 Library of Systems Change: A technique for imagining the shift from our current patterns of working to a more viable, thriving future. 🔹 Living Systems Blueprint: Using thriving living systems as a guide for our work and design as part of a thriving living system. The executive summary provides an overview of these key insights and breakthroughs, with a more detailed exploration in the subsequent sections of the report. The Constructivist Regenerative Design Lab was founded in 2021 by Oliver Broadbent, 1851 Fellow in Regenerative Design, with the support of Engineers Without Borders UK and funding from the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851. Our team includes co-facilitators Oliver Broadbent and Ellie Osborne, and communication designer Alexie Sommer. We believe this report will be a valuable resource for anyone committed to turning construction into a force for thriving. We invite you to download the report, share your thoughts, and join the conversation on how we can collectively create a regenerative future. Download your copy here. https://lnkd.in/eJdEcRWc A huge thank you to all the members of our second cohort of the Regenerative Design Lab: Alex Garman Gavin Knowles Guy Woodhouse Joel De Mowbray Jonathan Fashanu Julian Sheppard Lisa Hey Lucy Rees Marika Gabbianelli Natasha Watson Pablo Newberry Paul Astle Will Rogers-Tizard Tom Whitehead ---------------- Applications for Cohort 4 of the Regenerative Design Lab, in partnership with Chatham House Sustainability Accelerator, are now open. Apply here. https://lnkd.in/ekB9Entw #Sustainability #RegenerativeDesign #ConstructionInnovation #NewReport #SustainableBuilding #GreenConstruction #PolicyInnovation #EnvironmentalImpact #Changemakers Engineers Without Borders UK Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 Chatham House Environment and Society

This week marked the end of a 6 month programme (and the start of new beginnings) for cohort 3 of the Regenerative Design Lab, of which I count myself very fortunate to be a member. This culminated in 2 days in the woods to bring together everything we've collectively learnt in that time. I feel as though I've joined a particularly special community and am now fully indoctrinated into all things regenerative. Here's some of my take aways... 🌍 We can't just minimise impact, we need to reverse it. See a link in the comments to Will Arnold's excellent post on the house party analogy for climate impact, which explains this better than I ever could. 💊 There needs to be a significant mindset shift in construction. One of my favourite quotes of this lab has been "what if every time we built, the planet got better". The change we need is probably not achievable in increments. It needs us to think differently. 🗒️ Design can no longer start with blank sheets of paper. When we build we must consider what we already have before deciding what we need next. You should need a REALLY good reason to demolish and rebuild in any context. 🤔 It's ok not to have all the answers. Regenerative design is a horribly complex subject matter with a simple aim. Not knowing is (for me at least) part of the attraction to it and should not be a reason for not jumping into it (as I've done in the past). 🚴 Others are going to have to come on this journey. Meaningful change isn't completed by early adopters. It happens when a critical mass of those who believe in something are assembled. "The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it." - Robert Swan The lab was expertly facilitated by Oliver Broadbent and Ellie Osborne of Constructivist . Be on the look out for future lab applications opening. I'd highly recommend it. A massive thank you to all those who attended the lab (too many to tag here). You're collective kindness and generosity has been incredible. I'm looking forward to stepping out into what comes next. #regenerativedesign #construction

The role of the regenerative designer is to: • nurture and work to a vision of a flourishing future; • enable the shift from degenerative towards regenerative in projects, organisations and collaborations; • actively manage out destructive patterns. This is challenging. We recognise that designers cannot make the regenerative transition alone. We work within wider teams and partnerships, with clients, supply chains and communities, and in commercial, regulatory and policy contexts that also need to change. We acknowledge that it’s unlikely that any contemporary project could meet all aspirations of regenerative design at this stage. As with any project that calls itself sustainable, we need to be careful with claims of regenerative design, and to look past the visual representations. We need to avoid the same greenwash that’s sometimes been applied to ‘sustainable’ design in the recent past and which has just reinforced the same degenerative trajectory. Have you entered the Regenerative Architecture Index yet? This is not a traditional ‘awards’ submission, but a compendium of best practice, rather than a conventional ranking table. No project or practice can be wholly regenerative within a degenerative system, but each one can contribute something meaningful to the transition. Reducing the barriers, expanding what is possible, securing in place elements of the new, regenerative way of working. You can enter until 17th May so start your entry now via this link https://lnkd.in/gY3vDht8 This post uses extracts from our new, free, Regenerative Design Primer, which is a useful companion when entering the Index. Please do view and download from our website here https://lnkd.in/e22dVStx #regenerativedesign #RAI #regenerativearchitectureindex #enter #callforentries #ukarchitectsdeclare #architecturetoday #regenerativedesignprimer

Thanks to our brilliant #FOOTPRINTPLUS24 panel on Regenerative Thinking: Frankie Demetriades, Matt Webster, Samantha Deacon and Shira de Bourbon Parme for a frank and open conversation about the potential, drivers and barriers for transitioning from a "do less harm" way of thinking in building design and investment towards a regenerative approach. Regenerative thinking is a whole system approach to design that is compatible with repairing and restoring social and environmental resources. It is about making buildings work harder to generate energy, water, materials, wellbeing now AND in the future. The key question to build into briefs, business plans, and strategies is “What can we make MORE of with this building, now AND 40, 60, 100 years from now?” We even dared to ask the question whether this way of thinking might open our eyes to new sources of commercial value that don't exist now, but could in the future. Thanks to the incredibly engaged and insightful audience and a particular shout out to the contributors to the UK Architects Declare Regenerative Design Primer.

🌊 What if a river had rights, like a person? 🌸🐝What if a building could double flora and fauna and provide habitat for hundreds of species?🌿What if we built our infrastructure for and with #nature, as a collaborator? These are just some of the exciting questions already being answered by #RegenerativeDesign. To all the designers reading this, for whom the practice of Regenerative Design seems out of reach, let us explain why it’s not… From partnering with beavers to increase #water storage across a catchment, to mimicking the strategies of termites to keep a building cool, Regenerative Design is the start of a necessary paradigm shift towards co-existing in harmony with nature. Our latest report, Arup Explores: Regenerative Design, sets out three design principles (#nature-led, #systemic, #equitable), a collection of case studies and a theory of change to guide and support the emergence of this necessary practice. With over a third of global waste produced by the built environment sector alone, we know that #engineers, #urbanplanners, #architects and #designers have a more important role than ever in responding to the climate and ecological crisis through their work. This piece of work was a labour of love and it’s only the start of the conversation. I joined Arup to inject some life and soul into the grey, concrete jungle I found around me when I first moved to #London. I hope what we have created here, the space to collaborate with nature and give back, will inspire designers to learn and take action over the decisions they make, no matter how small those decisions might feel. Lola Bushnell Katelyn Nagle Tobias Revell Josef Hargrave Malina Dabrowska Freddie Oxland Claudia Palcova Emily Clements Essi Maikola Julien Clin Arlind Neziri Lucy Henriques Stephanie Schemel Sarah Bushnell #wearearup #arup

INSECTOPIA Webinar: “Architectural Spaces for Insects and People” Explore how architectural design can foster connections between humans and pollinators like bees and butterflies, which play a vital role in ecosystems. This webinar highlights the importance of creating shared spaces that promote biodiversity, sustainability, and ecological balance. 📅 Date: January 16, 2025 🕚 Time: 11:00 AM CET 📍 Where: Online What you’ll learn: • Designing habitats for pollinators that support biodiversity • Integrating human and ecological needs in architectural designs • Practical approaches for creating sustainable spaces Don’t miss this opportunity to gain insights into how architecture can positively impact ecosystems and address climate challenges. 📲 More info and register here: https://lnkd.in/d9rUJF-6 #EUGREEN #INSECTOPIA Université d'Angers Università degli Studi di Parma Atlantic Technological University University of Évora University of Gävle Universitatea din Oradea Universidad de Extremadura Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg