The term ‘regenerative’ is being tossed around a fair bit these days. It is most commonly linked to agriculture, where the idea of farming in a way that builds soil richness and nutrient density is easy to imagine (if not exactly easy to achieve.) You’ll also hear ‘regenerative’ being used to describe practices in landscaping, forest management, and so on, but when it is used to describe architecture and building practices, it gets trickier. What does it mean? What would be a regenerative form of architecture?
What is Regenerative Architecture?
Regenerative architecture is an approach to design and construction that aims to restore and enhance the ecosystems that surround it. Regenerative design, as a concept, doesn’t focus on minimizing harm, but Instead actively works to leave a positive, restorative impact on natural systems.
Its goal is to create self-sustaining buildings that give back to the environment by improving air and water quality, and increasing biodiversity.
Sound good? Yes, it sounds great!
Of course, leave it better than how you found it, the saying goes, and this is part of the mindset. But a building isn’t meant to be temporary. Like a type of farming that replenishes soil nutrients, can a building give back to it’s surroundings more than it took, and is taking, by being there?
A true regenerative architecture promotes harmony and balance between humans and nature (as our wellness architecture), creating buildings that contribute to a healthier world.
Can we live symbiotically with our environment? That would be ideal. Can we give back more than we take? Let’s explore.
First off, it’s important to note that a building, in most ways, is the opposite of nature. It is removing a plot of natural space and replacing it with a structure. But we need buildings. We need shelter. We’re not going back to the state of nature.
It’s easy to say that if you cut down a tree to make space for a building, you can plant another tree somewhere else. But this math doesn’t work out perfectly. The space the building takes up disrupts all of the plant and animal life in that area. This can’t just be added somewhere else. That area is gone from the ecosystem. But does it have to be?
You can build a green roof, and cover it with native plants and grasses. But is it the same as the living ecosystem it replaced? Not exactly. For one thing, most animals can’t get up there. The soil and micro-organisms are different, and likely less active. It is maybe better than nothing, but not entirely ‘regenerative.’
It is easy to say that you are generating more energy than you are using, and putting it back into the grid. If you are only talking about energy, regenerative architecture is easy. But this isn’t the whole picture. Putting more energy/electricity back into the power grid is nice, but isn’t exactly it. A building for people isn’t meant to be a power station.
A tree takes up space in the natural environment. A tree is regenerative. Can a building be a tree?
It’s a metaphor, of course. But as a designer it’s an intellectual exercise; a challenge: How can we design to be a part of the environment rather than its opposite? How can we design to preserve and restore natural habitat, to contribute to having clean air and clean water?
Regenerative vs Sustainable Architecture?
- Sustainable Architecture: Aims for energy efficiency and waste reduction, and sometimes includes a move toward non-toxic materials that protect air, soil and water. It is trendy term—and has been for the past couple of decades— but also feels like a ‘bare minumum’ term. (Like ‘liveable’ cities.) Yes it can sustain life, but can we set higher goals?
- Regenerative Architecture: Thinks beyond sustainability. It seeks to restore natural systems and create net-positive impacts. These buildings aim to improve biodiversity and replenish natural resources. Realistically attainable? Maybe, maybe not. But a valuable exercise, in our opinion.
A ‘sustainable building’ might incorporate solar panels and an improved building envelope to reduce energy consumption. A regenerative building would do all this but also support and enrich local ecosystems.
Sustainable architecture focuses on doing less harm, whereas regenerative architecture focuses on becoming an active part of its surroundings, working like a tree, integral to the cycle of nature.
Why is Regenerative Architecture Important?
The importance of regenerative architecture lies in its potential to address some of the most pressing environmental challenges:
- Promoting Biodiversity: Regenerative buildings can integrate living materials like green roofs and build and restore native plants and trees that support wildlife.
- Preserving Habitats: Habitat loss is catastrophic for many species. How do we build the shelter we need and yet account for the land we are removing from the ecosystem?
- Conserving Resources: Techniques such as natural water treatment (reed beds, etc.), passive design, and better quality construction result in more efficient use of resources, reducing strain on natural systems as well as municipal infrastructure.
- Improving Human Health: Natural light, clean air, and biophilic elements in regenerative designs contribute to better mental and physical well-being for occupants. What’s good for people is also good for everything else, in most cases. Natural and non-toxic materials make for healthier indoor environments and reduce environmental pollution.
- Avoiding Heat Islands: A landscape covered in roads, concrete buildings, dark asphalt shingles and so on creates hot microclimates that challenge natural species and increase energy demand. Can building, landscape and urban design, along with more careful material selection create nicer, more effective cities and neighborhoods?
- Lowering Environmental Pollution: As mentioned, better material selections means less pollutants and toxins entering the air, soil and water. Think of roofing materials, deck stains, avoiding vinyl siding and plastics, and so on.
By actively improving the environment and supporting human health, regenerative architecture can be a more holistic approach to building design.
Principles of Regenerative Architecture
- Holistic Thinking: It views buildings as part of a larger system, considering their impact on people, ecosystems, communities, and economies.
- Restoration: The primary goal is to restore and regenerate natural systems, so that construction has a net-positive impact. This is easy to think about for the landscaping, but for the area the building sits on, what do you do?
- Integration with Nature: Can a building become part of nature, rather than something that replaces nature?
- Natural Materials: Sounds simple enough, but using natural stone, wood with natural, non-toxic finishes, and so on, won’t leach poisons into your yard, water run-off, and the surrounding ecosystem. Also, re-useable, biodegradable, can be returned to nature, if/when necessary.
The Challenges of Regenerative Design
You’re starting with a paradox, a building, as we conceive it today, is inherently not regenerative: it removes or takes the place of natural environment. Above and beyond this, there are many challenges that make a true regenerative way of building difficult for most realistic projects.
- Cost Barriers: Building better quality buildings costs more, in most conventional situations. That being said, you can argue that a mud hut is closer to being ‘regenerative’ than the fanciest, most high tech house. Is a true regenerative architecture going to be made from old-world or modern processes? Vastly expensive, or DIY? Or a sci-fi technology we haven’t yet created? Will it be complex and costly, or so simple that it basically grows itself?
- Lack of Vision: In the rush of modern life it isn’t easy to make room for new ideas. Look how challenging it has been to develop traditional, walkable neighborhoods (New Urbanism) once suburbia is entrenched as an economic and regulatory model. Novel ideas are not easily adopted.
- Regulatory Restrictions: Zoning and planning regulations often make better design difficult or impossible.
Complexity: The idea that a building is more than a building is complex, requiring outside the box and holistic thinking.
Conclusion
Does regenerative architecture exist? Are the Living Building Challenge buildings the closest example we have? Or are we looking at traditional villages and ancient structures?
Certainly better architecture is possible, but at this point, it is more vision than reality: A possibly unattainable goal. But we’re ok with that. Many great things have been accomplished when seeking out the impossible.
Can we design a world that optimizes human health, vitality, community and wellbeing, while also protecting natural habitats and all species of plants and animals? There may never be a perfect solution, but it’s certainly worth giving it a shot.
Considering our current reality, a truly regenerative way of building isn’t likely to be possible today. It is a thing for sci-fi and fantasy imaginations. But will we someday find ourselves surrounded by structures made from technologies so advanced (or so primitive) that they are living materials, growing and supporting and giving back symbiotically to the greater context? There are examples of these technologies throughout science fiction stories. We can dream it. can we design it? It isn’t likely to happen by accident.
Back to our metaphor of the tree: birds and squirrels thrive in trees. What is the future where our structures support us in a similar regenerative paradigm? Let’s push forward and find out!
