Regenerative Design restores nature to reverse the damage from our hydrocarbon based extractive economic and social model. Regenerative does not begin with the building or with architecture, regenerative design considers an entire ecosystem, regenerative architecture is one part of a rich network of natural cycles.
“Regenerative Design is the intersection of Nature, Society, and Technology”
–John T. Lyle, Founder of the John Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies at Cal Poly, Pomona, California
Regenerative design restores, renews and replenishes, and contributes back to the ecosystem.
First step in restoring is consuming less, so that a building can give more back to the ecosystem. Consuming less begins with a building functioning like other elements in nature, absorbing energy directly from the sun for warmth and cooling itself by working with nature instead of resisting nature.
Trees produce 200% of the energy they need and contribute waste into the ecosystem so that all parts of the ecosystem thrive. Trees are efficient because they have evolved to absorb heat energy from the sun and store this energy within the tree. Trees have developed to respond to the daily and seasonal path of the sun. Leaves on the south side of trees are thicker and function differently than the leaves on the north side of trees.
Regenerative design begins with understanding how the sun and water move across the site. Designing a building that responds to how the sun travels through the sky each day and how it changes through the seasons produces buildings that are two times as efficient as conventional sustainable buildings.
John Lyle told us that orienting a building with the sun and working with nature’s cycles is the only way to design a building that consumes 50% less resources (often 80% less) without increasing construction costs.
By working with nature, regenerative architecture can be more resource efficient (embodied and operational), more cost effective, and more resilient than buildings that start with using more expensive and more resource intensive technologies.
More expensive technologies rarely produce results that are better than 30% more efficient and always require more maintenance and increased replacement costs than simple buildings that work with nature.
