Oliver’s daily(ish) blog on creativity, regenerative design and practical philosophy drawn from across my teaching, writing and collaborations. Sign up for his weekly digest by clicking here and choosing the appropriate button.
- The swifts are backThat searing noise tearing across the sky. The first time I’ve heard it this year. It means only one thing: the swifts are back in Bristol. They tear through the …
- Three conference appearances in MayI’ve never been invited to speak on the construction conference circuit before. And this year I’ve got three appearances. Something is shifting (or maybe everyone else was busy…). First up, …
- Recipe for parasitic extractionBorrow some money. Use it buy an asset — say, a water supply company.Load the debt onto the company.Continue to extract profit. Last week I went to a talk where …
- Next week at the Regenerative Design Lab
Next week at the Regenerative Design Lab, our two cohorts will be working with the Living Systems Blueprint. The Blueprint acts as a bridge between regenerative mindsets and design. It … - Constructivist Timber part 1 – a micro supply chain
As I reached the end of my 1851 Fellowship in Regenerative Design I had the feeling I wanted to do more with my hands – I wanted more practice to …Continue reading “Constructivist Timber part 1 – a micro supply chain”
- Spring at the Regenerative Design Lab
20 people sit in a circle. The chairs are arranged between seven oak trees, right at the edge of Hazel Hill Wood — the home of the Regenerative Design Lab. … - A quiet reset
The rhythm of the Regenerative Design Lab is loosely pinned to the cycles of the moon. Not because we think it has any mystical power over the work. But because … - New moon hackRegular readers will probably know I often think about how we can use the moon cycle as a sprint map for personal and professional creative projects. It’s part of a …
- Still learning about feedbackThis week I was teaching conflict in design teams on the Sustainability Leadership for the Built Environment course in Cambridge. One small realisation in the session has stuck with me. …
- How to resuscitate a brief – stage 3The final stage in our brief resuscitation process is to test it. We test a design brief by developing ideas in response. When we do this we may discover: Ultimately …
- How to resuscitate a brief — stage 2The second way to breathe life into a design brief is to remind ourselves that it was never as complete as it originally sounded. We do this by exploring the …
- How to resuscitate a design brief – stage 1Design briefs become lifeless when we treat them as fixed, and unchanging. We bring life to them when we allow them to evolve. The first stage is to make your …
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- Is your brief dead?You are midway through a project. Ask yourself, has my design brief changed, or has it stayed the same. If it hasn’t changed, then you should check if your design …
- The living briefThis week, I’ve been updating and consolidating my writing on design briefs. The design brief is a fundamental component of the design process, and it is a core topic in …
- A conversation with Hazel Hill WoodAt Hazel Hill Wood, we treat the place not just as a setting but an active participant in the work. A practice I learnt there is, on arrival, to tell …
- Spotting people spotting kingfishersMy workshop today is in an office along the same river catchment as the one I live on, so my commute takes me deep into the Frome valley. I know …
- Repair as an ambition loopIn my previous post I wrote about how United Repair Centre are creating the infrastructure that is renewing repair in the fashion sector. I think their work is a great …
- Building repair infrastructureHere are my working thoughts on United Repair Centre, one of the organisations I met at the Future Observatory event The New London Commons: Circular Hubs for Fashion and Construction. …
- Steel reuse: writing a new blue bookStructural steel reuse is on the rise, as this month’s Structural Engineer articles show. But what might be seen as a material innovation is actually a shift in something more …
- Set design for a training roomIf your brief is to design the set for a theatre piece set in a construction industry training room, then make sure it includes the following: White boards. Spare furniture. …
- Fuelling the Regenerative Design Lab
This March we are holding the Spring Residential workshops for Cohort 6 and Cohort 7 of the Regenerative Design Lab. Appropriately I was down at Hazel Hill Wood this weekend … - A flow for thinking about regenerative infrastructureA final post this week to draw together the long form posts into a simple flow. Across these posts I’ve explored how infrastructure shapes the metabolism of the economy, the …
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- Turning the Kalideascope — generating ideas for regenerative infrastructureIn yesterday’s post we looked at mindsets that might shape a brief for regenerative infrastructure. But once we have the brief established, the next challenge is to have ideas. This …
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- Is infrastructure alive? — Three mindsets shifts for regenerative infrastructure designOne of my favourite books of 2025 was Robert MacFarlane’s Is a River Alive? and it has been at the forefront of my mind as I try to do the …
- Three tests for regenerative infrastructurePulling together the threads from this week’s posts so far on infrastructure, discussions about regenerative infrastructure often confuse three distinct factors: Untangling these questions can help us gain clarity in …
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- Infrastructure for the sprint or the long runIn yesterday’s post I said good system design in infrastructure is not enough. We can have an efficient, well structured and resilient system that still contributes to life destruction rather …
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- Good system design is not enoughGood system design is not enough In regenerative design we spend a lot of time thinking about systems. What is the system of construction? How does it work? What are …
- A new cohort for Lab alumniNext week we begin a new experiment at the Regenerative Design Lab: we are starting our first alumni cohort. Cohort 7 will be for returning practitioners — engineers (and other …
- Regenerative Design Lab reading list updatedAs we prepare to receive Cohorts 6&7 into the Lab next week, I have been revisiting and updating our reading list. This year I’ve added four books: Some of these …
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- The goal of regenerative design is largely irrelevant…In a live project context, the goal of regenerative design is largely irrelevant. Not because it is not important, but because it is too big. The goal of regenerative design …
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- Strategy says noIf your strategy doesn’t tell you what not to do, it is not an effective strategy. Because saying yes to things is the easy part. In fact I believe it …
- Aiming Higher in the SystemWhen we try to apply regenerative design at a project level, it can feel like our hands are tied. The building regs won’t allow it. I’ll never get insurance for …
- Green shoots emerge: it’s time to start writing againRegular followers of the blog will noticed that the daily(ish) blog has been somewhat dormant over the winter. And maybe that is appropriate. Winter is after all the time when …
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- When a group of learners becomes a living systemAll week we’ve been interviewing candidates for Cohort 6 of the Regenerative Design Lab. With such a strong range of applicants, it’s been a real privilege to spend time with …
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- Hope, fullyPart of the role of the regenerative designer is to develop and nourish a view of a more hopeful future. This isn’t passive work — it’s active. Repeatedly returning to …
- Unhelpfully agreeing to crap processesIn the Get It Right Initiative leadership workshops we spend time talking about behaviour, and time talking about process. Today I made an interesting discovery when I accidentally squashed the …
- How do you write a contract based on regenerative values?Today I’ve been thinking about that question as we finalise the participant agreement for the Regenerative Design Lab. People are about to hand over their money, and that deserves clarity. …
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- On transforming time and system immunityMalcolm Gladwell claimed in his book Outliers that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in something. How many days is that? How many years? It’s not quick to …
- 200 new Pattern Books please
So this happened over Christmas – we sold out of the Pattern Book for Regenerative Design. In fact we sold the last one on Christmas Day. That means we have … - Fellowship completeJust sharing some news of a big milestone in this work: the Commissioners have signed off the final report for my Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 Fellowship in …
- The Lasagne Pitch – start with the shape of itI struggle to follow recipes that pile straight in with a long list of instructions without giving me an idea of how the recipe works. Take lasagne. If it just …
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- Signs of local weatherI’m enjoying being absorbed by The Secret World of Weather, by Tristan Gooley. It reveals to the reader secret signs all around us about how the weather is likely to …
- On pattern spottingPattern is a word I use a lot. Recently, a reader wrote to say how much they appreciated this use of pattern language in my writing. And that made me …
- Your processes versus entropyRegular readers of this blog will know all about the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the universe will tend toward disorder over time. Thus any organised system will …
- How do we know if we are moving forwards?Facilitation is an intense business. It requires you to read lots of social cues and to judge what’s the best next step. It’s not surprising therefore that when travelling home …
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- The hidden cost of a quick messageThe easiest thing to do on your design project is to send a quick message. The problem is, it’s also the easiest thing for everyone else to do. And then …
- Why everything falls apart — and what to do about itThe second law of thermodynamics says that the universe is heading towards disorder. Life is the daily channelling of the flow — temporarily creating new structures: life forms, habitats culture. …
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- Incline? Uncline? Recline?I caught myself wondering in a workshop this week, what is the opposite to decline? Incline? Uncline? Recline? A bit of context. I often look at places in need of …
- Easier to talk about what we don’t want than what we doThis riff is a partner to my one this week on humour and sarcasm. If you’ve read that one you’ll spot the connection. I’ve noticed recently that workshop groups tend …
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- How connections slip through our fingersI’ve been doing work this week with teams thinking about interconnection. More precisely, how connected we are to the places impacted by our design decisions. Take the component of a …