Time to Get Creative with Regenerative Urban Designs
The more we can infuse urban living with Nature, the better. But we also need to design with global warming in mind.
Hiya!
Nature has inspired, terrified, dazzled, and frustrated humans for as long as we’ve walked the Earth. Nature mystified ancient humans into imagining intricate origin stories of the Sun and Moon and various other natural entities, some of which we still know today as myths, legends, and religions.
Then, someone(s) learned and replicated Nature’s method of growing plants from seeds. Word spread, and the agricultural revolution was born. From there, our species honed and strengthened our desire to dominate, manipulate, and control the natural world in an insatiable manner. Now, we know such a path is not sustainable. It’s time to change our behavior and grow or perish.
Broadening Our Perspective
Part of growth is acknowledging our mistakes and making actionable changes to prevent repeating the same mistake. It’s not easy, but it’s the quickest way to shift our focus to solutions.
Our list of mistakes is long, especially in the West, and it’s high time we change our attitudes and tame our egos. The director of sustainability and physics at Buro Happold, Smith Mordak, warns:
“It’s imperative we recognise that those of us in the Western design community are not the experts. We have much to learn.”
We don’t need to segregate ourselves so strictly from Nature anymore. We’re long past the industrial revolution and are capable of integrating urban design with Nature in sustainable and restorative ways. In fact, many designers, scientists, architects, and other brilliant minds are already finding ways we can work and live with Nature.
What is Regenerative Design?
You’ve probably seen or heard the word “sustainable” attached to climate change over the last few years, but now, experts say that’s no longer enough. What we need to focus on are regenerative designs.
Sustainable goals hope to ease the impact we’re having on the planet and not deplete its resources… while trying to retain as much normalcy as possible, including maintaining our economic growth. Whereas regenerative means we’re not just taking less but also giving back and helping to restore the environment—and helping repair our mistakes.
Michael Pawlyn’s new book Flourish: Design Paradigms for Our Planetary Emergency, co-written by Sarah Ichioka, discusses this idea in length. (I haven’t personally read it yet, but it’s on my list now.) In an article about regenerative design, Pawlyn explains it simply:
“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.”
Indigenous Designs
A couple of years ago, I was fortunate enough to embark on a four-day pilgrimage in Norway from Oslo to Trondheim called St. Olav’s Way with a group of strangers. It was truly incredible. Along the way, I learned all about ancient Norwegian culture, their various rulers (especially St. Olav), and of course, Vikings.
On the journey, we saw existing examples of historic architectural methods—including a few of Norway’s incredible stave churches, ruins of an ancient cathedral now protected by a glasshouse, and ingenious thatched-roofed houses.
Thatched roofing goes back thousands of years as a method shared, tweaked, and used by humans worldwide. The materials to make one vary from culture, country, and time, but it was popular in many places until as recently as the 18th century. Now, thatched roofs are coming back into style with modern twists as an eco-friendly building solution.
Of course, there are dozens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of different solutions and combinations of them for more natural building methods than we use today. After all, they existed and thrived here long before the invention of concrete and steel.
For a while, societies, especially Western societies, made the mistake of scoffing at or ridiculing ancient building methods instead of acknowledging them for their brilliance and skill. Imagine how different things might be if we actually befriended, learned from, and worked with indigenous people rather than just saying we did in the history books but actually doing the opposite. Sigh.
Anyway, revisiting indigenous designs is only one option for finding regenerative design ideas. Another option, in an entirely different direction, is to create new materials from atmospheric carbon.
Materials
Carbon is a real problem for us, but life itself depends on it — considering all organic compounds, such as proteins, carbohydrates, and fats, contain carbon. You, yourself, are around 18.5 percent carbon. More than that, carbon is versatile. With the right conditions, carbon can transform into practically anything.
Eco-scientists worldwide are wise to this truth and have already designed and grown various materials using carbon from the atmosphere, including straw, willow, wood, and kelp. Hemp deserves its own piece, and I’ve actually already dedicated a Curious Life article to it before, but suffice it to say that hemp is basically a miracle plant.
According to Cambridge University’s researcher Darshil Shah,
“Hemp can sequester carbon twice as effectively as forests and can be grown in many parts of the world, with a positive impact on soil quality. This is prompting designers to experiment with it.”
That’s not nearly all, though. Hemp plants have at least 50,000 uses. Not only are hemp plants super-carbon-catchers, but they can be made into everything from paper to medication.
Once the ideas got rolling, they haven’t stopped. Researchers are finding ways to expand the list of regenerative materials — some are as simple as turning unrecyclable plastic into bricks. While others take the idea and run with it by suggesting future homes could be made of living fungus.
Integrate Nature into Design
In addition to more eco-friendly materials and a restorative design, we can take the concept the extra mile by integrating nature into our housing, building, and city designs. Not just for pleasantry but functionality, a regenerative mesh of Nature and urban life coexisting.
Thankfully, there are already some pretty awesome examples around the world. A fun and more simple example is the Bamboo Theatre in China. In 2015, DnA_Design and Architecture wove the tops of towering bamboo into a circular dome over a stage. According to the founding principal Xu Tiantian, the theatre was designed in a single afternoon and took less than two weeks to construct.
You’ve probably seen images of the Bosco Verticale (vertical forest) in Milan, Italy. If we’re getting technical, it’s more sustainable than regenerative, but it’s still a good case study since construction was completed in 2014 and still inspires architects today. The Mega Foodwalk in Thailand is particularly impressive to me. It’s a gorgeous example of infusing nature and urban life — or a mall in this case.
What about the Edifício Santalaia residential building located in the Colombian capital of Bogotá? It’s the world’s largest vertical garden. The Edificio Santalaia hosts 10 species of plants but holds 115,000 plants altogether, which reduces the cooling loads in the summer and provides insulation in the winter, all while boosting biodiversity and producing more clean air.
There are so many examples already constructed or in the works. Just imagine how different our cities could look with less grime and dark-walled building to skyscrapers and residential buildings bursting with life. A commute into the city could coincide with spending time in nature. Imagine the positive impacts this could have not just on the environment but on our mental health too.
Climate Solutions
Of course, regenerative designs work only for as long as they hold up against global warming. We could design and construct the most eco-friendly building in the world, only for a hurricane to wipe it away in one fell swoop. So we need to find ways to blend the regenerative design aspects with the resilience required to withstand what Nature throws at it.
Concrete — ideally hempcrete or some other more eco-friendly variation rather than the carbon-heavy concrete used today — is recommended by some architects as an ideal building material. Especially because buildings or homes made of concrete can resist just about every natural disaster, including fire, hurricanes, and floods. Though many other materials can also withstand various types of impacts, such as metal frames, fiberglass walls, and more.
Another consideration is the design itself and how it can work with or against changing climates. For instance, it was super dangerous when the Pacific Northwest got hit with that heat dome in 2021 because many people in those areas don’t have air conditioning since it is rarely used to get hot enough to require them.
Additionally, many homes are built to retain heat due to the cooler climate compared to the houses built in the south. So some architects are beginning to rotate housing plans and build southern-styled homes further north.
Perspective Shift
There are pros and cons to city living, but in the end, cities will continue to grow, and new ones will arise as time goes on. We also know the mental health benefits of spending time in Nature. But here’s the thing: it doesn’t have to be an either-or situation. We can design cities that help return us to a state of co-evolving with Nature.
Furthermore, we shouldn’t view this as a choice. As global warming intensifies, we need to do more than develop sustainable solutions or find ways to do less harm. It’s time to restore and replenish our ecosystems while meeting our needs, but what those “needs” are might need to change from what we prioritize today.
It’s possible to achieve fluidity between nature and the needs of ecosystems and biodiversity while also meeting our needs and encouraging innovative growth. We just need to think outside the box and consider new ways to live. Urban living can mean buildings and materials we feel good about producing and buying — and knowing that these projects serve more than just our well-being but also give back to the planet.
