"It seems a radical idea, but as the climate crisis deepens, ‘sustainable design’ and ‘doing less harm’ are not enough to avert catastrophe – we have to find ways to replenish ecosystems while meeting our own needs. ‘Humans need to return to a state where they are co-evolving with nature,’ says architect and biomimicry expert Michael Pawlyn. ‘If we carry on believing that it is something to be plundered for resources, it will be our undoing.’

"Pawlyn is one of the architects leading the charge for a shift towards ‘regenerative design’, which ‘supports the flourishing of all life, for all time,’ as he puts it in his new book Flourish: Design Paradigms for Our Planetary Emergency, co-written by Sarah Ichioka. While sustainable design focuses on mitigating problems, regenerative design is about restoring the damage wreaked by human hands, nurturing biodiversity and taking carbon out of the atmosphere while we produce homes, infrastructure, furniture and food. ‘We’ve got to get to a point where we integrate all our activities into the web of life that surrounds us, overcoming our separation from nature,’ adds Pawlyn.

"The architect sees biomimicry – the design of materials or structures modelled on biological systems – as one way forward. ‘We can learn from nature, looking at how it stewards things in closed-loop cycles,’ he says. His practice, Exploration Architecture, co-initiated the Sahara Forest Project Foundation, an environmental platform that aims to revegetate low-lying desert areas and grow food. The 2012 pilot plant in Qatar incorporated a greenhouse inspired by the Namibian fog-basking beetle’s method of harvesting fresh water in the desert, quickly returning biodiversity to this arid region." - Malaika Byng

Article: Regenerative Design: Meet the Creatives Taking a Rooting Interest in Learning from Nature