What if each construction project left the eco-system richer than before? What if humans could design with nature rather than in spite of it? What if engineering and construction could restore our human and natural systems?
The answer is in regenerative design. But how do we turn its principles into practice? Through experimentation, reflection and communication.
The Constructivist Regenerative Design Lab is a six-month accelerator programme for leading engineering and construction industry professionals to support each other to apply regenerative principles in practice.
Our mission is to find out what works and communicate it to our organisations and the rest of industry.
Supported by Engineers Without Borders UK and with funding from the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851.
Inputs/Oututs
Inputs
You – a leading engineering or construction industry professional – and 10-15 others who see regenerative design as the future and want to make it reality. You will be the peers who support and constructively challenge each other on the journey.
Real problems – be they design-based, organisational or strategic – regenerative design principles need to solve the real problems we face. These become the raw materials for the lab.
Ecosystems – regenerative design solutions are specific to the ecosystems in which we are working. That eco-system and your connection with it becomes an intrinsic part of the journey.
Outputs
Individuals will be supported on a personal development journey, increasing their awareness and skill in regenerative design practice. They will leave with a toolkit of approaches and hopefully a transformed relationship with the ecosystem they are part of.
Organisations will benefit from a key member of their team introducing innovative regenerative design practice into their projects. The Lab also aims to provide organisations with an opportunity to fulfil their regenerative design practice commitments.
Industry will benefit from the shared results of these experiments in regenerative design practice. Together, the outputs from the lab will feed into the creation of the Pattern Book for Regenerative Design in the Built Environment. These are the patterns for thinking about regenerative design that can enable influential designers and construction-industry professionals to shift the system’s rules and interrelationships towards more regenerative outcomes.
Method
Over six online workshops and three one-night residential stays, participants will:
- unpack the principles of regenerative design.
- experiment through application of principles in the workplace
- explore application of regenerative practice in their own lives
- reflect on the impact of this action on their design work
The lab is based on a peer-supported, action-learning approach. We form the lab by helping each other to identify what we want to understand about regenerative design. We each identify a workplace challenge with which we can experiment and support each other in applying principles of regenerative design in practice. Through cycles of action and reflection, we experiment and learn from each other.
Between sessions, groups within the lab meet on an informal basis to check-in on each other’s progress, and you have access to coaching from the facilitators.
I took up engineering in order to practise philosophy
I took up engineering in order to practise philosophy
Ove Arup
Reconnect with natural systems
Our forest lab is located at Hazel Hill Wood, where we will be running three seasonal residential sessions to explore our relationship with natural ecosystems. Hazel Hill is an off-grid education centre situated in 70 acres forest where for 30 years people have come to connect with nature. It combines indoor workshop space and accommodation with access to a thriving forest with a range of ecosystems to explore.
We will take an experimental approach and observe, experiment, measure and learn from these complex natural systems.
Participants will engage in a transformative process to shift perspectives away from believing we are separate from the natural world.
‘When we can think as part of a system, we can better self-regulate to thrive within the limits of that system’.
Looby Macnamara
Application, facilitators, programme and pricing
Application process
Applications are now closed for the Regenerative Design Lab that starts in April 2022. If you are interested in joining the next lab, due to start in early 2023, please drop us a message and we will keep you posted.
The 15 places on the lab are open to leaders and future leaders in engineering and construction. You should be passionate about shifting engineering and construction away from a paradigm of growth and destruction and towards a paradigm of repair and renewal. We welcome applications from industry, academia and supporting organisations. You need to have some body of experience to draw upon and the opportunity to explore and apply regenerative principles in practice.
To assemble a balanced group of participants in the lab, we are asking people interested in joining to go through a simple application process. The closing dates for applications is the 4th March 2022. We will invite the short-listed candidates for a phone interview by mid-March and places will be confirmed by end-March.
Meet the facilitators
Oliver Broadbent
Course Director – Oliver is founder of Constructivist, writer, international speaker on creativity in engineering and an award-winning design teacher.
Ellie Osborne
Co-facilitator – Ellie is a researcher, designer, coach and collaborator who works at the intersection of innovation, systems thinking, future trends and personal growth.
Programme dates
- April 5th (10am – 12pm) – kick-off online meet
- April 28th (9am – 12pm) – skills development online workshop
- May 11th (11am) – 12th (3pm) – Spring Residential at Hazel Hill Wood
- June 8th – (9am – 12pm) – skills development online workshop
- July 5th (11am) – 6th (3pm) – Summer Residential at Hazel Hill Wood
- August – summer break
- September 14th (9am – 12pm) – skills development online workshop
- October 4th (9am – 12pm) – skills development online workshop
- November 1st (11am) – 2nd (3pm) – Autumn Residential at Hazel Hill Wood
We have varied the days of the week on which programme activities are scheduled in order that the schedule does not consistently clash with part-time workers’ days off.
As well as committing to attending the sessions, participants are expected to spend time during their working week to find ways to apply regenerative principles in practice and to reflect on the impact of their actions.
Pricing
We are offering places on the course at two different prices to enable participants from different kinds of organisations to pay what they can afford.
£1,200 – Corporate rate. Intended for small, medium and large organisations who have a commercial interest in developing and contributing to regenerative design practice.
£700 – Self-funding/micro/NGO – Intended for individuals, people from micro organisations and NGOs who may be able to afford less but have just as valuable a contribution to make.
We commit to making at least five places available at the self-funding/micro/NGO rate.
“Oliver Broadbent is a brilliant and provocative trainer. This is time and money well spent, especially for those in senior management of professional services firms.”
Ben Hickman
