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Clash of system goals

I took this photo at Étampes station. It shows a nineteenth-century roof that spans four platforms with no internal columns. And then, right in the middle of that column-free space, stand the massive posts that support the electric cables — added in the 1920s.

It’s a clear clash of system goals.

The roof was built to create a grand civic space — a place that celebrated the station as a node of travel and encounter.

The cable gantry belongs to a different system altogether: it’s about maintaining a rigid, continuous grid for electrical power.

In the first, place is what matters.

In the second, continuity is what matters.

Retrofitting the roof to carry the cables would have been expensive, yes. But the network engineers could at least have designed special gantries for inside the station — ones that respected the goal of place while still meeting the goal of network.

The station architects began with a blank sheet of paper and could design more or less what they wanted.

The electrification engineers didn’t start with a blank sheet, but arguably designed as if they did.

We rarely start with a blank sheet of paper. Existing and new systems bring different goals. Our task as designers is to reconcile those goals through better design.

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Metaphorical measure expressions

In a recent workshop, I heard someone say, I wouldn’t touch that with a barge pole. 

While I kept my game face on, my pedantic, literal inner voice started wondering, how long is a barge pole? 

I discover that a barge pole is between 2.4 and 5.5 metres long. 

(Incidentally, I also discover that they are traditionally made of ash, which is hardwearing and floats well)

And then I realise, 2.4m to 5.5m is quite a big range, and the expression has different meanings depending on which end of that scale we are on. 

2.4 metres after all is not that far away. It is closer together than the opposing front benches of the UK’s House of Commons, which are two sword-lengths apart, another non-standard unit, but which we can actually measure on the floor at 3.96m. 

So the expression probably implies the lengthier end of the barge pole scale. Which leads to my next thought — never mind wouldn’t, what about couldn’t? I’m not sure I could easily pick up a 5.5 metre long pole at one end and poke someone with it, no matter how much disdain I had for them. 

I am of course ignoring the point of ‘metaphorical measure expressions’ as I discover they are called, in that they ‘lack the quantising function that literal uses of measure expressions have’. 

Silly me. It’s just an expression. A yardstick. A rough ball park. And now I’m wondering how big a ball park is…

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setting_pole
Two Swords and One Inch Apart?
https://repositori-api.upf.edu/api/core/bitstreams/713f367a-e9a9-43b9-912e-5c35f387813e/content
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A full basket of regenerative design learning opportunities

There’s a lot of ideas in this week’s blog posts, which if you are reading this in the weekly digest you can scroll down, but before you do, lets quickly look at what’s in the autumn’s basket of training to sign up to.

At this equinoxy time of year things seem to gather pace. Day length changes fastest, and ideas that have been ripening all summer suddenly fall into place. Like an autumn harvest, they come not as a trickle but in a glut.  

And so here, dear blog readers, are opportunities to harvest regenerative ideas for the autumn, winter and year ahead.

Seeing the System

Our online introduction to regenerative design is filling nicely with practitioners from across the built environment. Over four weekly sessions we’ll introduce key models such as the Systems Bookcase and the Living Systems Blueprint, building confidence and clarity in applying regenerative thinking.

Begins 12th November | Register by Friday 31st October

(It will come round faster than you think!)

>>Register here<<

Regenerative Design Lab — cohort 6

Our first open cohort in 18 months, welcoming applications from leaders and future leaders across design, construction, education, policy, and strategy.

Applications open 3rd November. Interviews in January 2026. Course runs March 2026 to November 2027. 

>>Details and register your interest<<

Regenerative Design Lab – cohort 7

A Lab for alumni to deepen their regenerative practice, taking the work they began in earlier cohorts and supporting each other to create bolder change.

Applications open 3rd November. Interviews in January 2026. Course runs March 2026 to November 2027. 

>>Register your interest here<<

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Visions that abstract us/ visions that ground us

Many vision statements float in the abstract. To be a global leader… To minimise store-to-door time… They sound clear, but they ignore the ecology and community that make the work possible. At best, such visions are inert to these realities. At worst, they succeed only at the cost of them.

A regenerative vision is rooted in place — in ecosystem and community. It sees the thriving of that place as central to success. So that our activity enhances this and the other places it touches. Perhaps, even, that this place would miss us if we were gone.

So rather than a mission statement that puts you anywhere and serves nowhere, see what happens when you serve somewhere.

Related tools > Continuous Place-Based Design

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Get on the ground and start moving around

In the early days of the internet, you had to know a website’s URL in order to visit it. 

Companies like Yahoo! set themselves up as way-finders. Visit their site and you could find links to popular places on the web. All organised under headings like a giant directory. 

And then a little company called Google came along and started building its own map of the web, based on exploration. Its bots would crawl the web, visit each website one at a time, figure out what it was about, and then follow the links from there. Which connections are strong? Which are weak?  Which way does the traffic flow?

This is a very different approach to knowledge gathering. Not based on a top-down hierarchy but on-the-ground mapping based on simple questions. 

What is here, what is happening, which ways are things going? 

With Google’s tool, all you had to do was search — they had the map, and it was a much better representation than Yahoo’s top-down approach.

Of course, who owns the map, and what they use it to do, are important questions too. 

But the underlying premise remains, if we want to really understand a situation, then get on the ground and start moving around. 

Related tools
>Continuous Place-Based Design
>Systems Survey

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Teaching theory versus the inconveniences of reality

Theory is abstraction. It is an understanding that is distilled of the inconveniences of reality to allow us to make predictions about that reality. 

Most engineering degrees start with the theory. Vast columns of theories stacked one on top of each other in piles called things like

Mechanics 1

Mechanics 2

Mechanics 3

And then at some point in that journey we ask students to apply that theory in a real world context. 

What if we flipped that model?

Start with observation — the opposite of abstraction. Discover the inconveniences of reality to allow us to find out how the world actually works. 

Observation 1

Observation 2

Observation 3

Of course that leads to an equally lopsided model, uninformed by the telesecoped sum of thinking available to theoretician.

Of course, the answer lies some where in the middle, sprinkled with a fair dose of application. 

Observe

Theorise

Apply

Observe 

Theorise

Apply

Etc 

It is surprising how radical this suggestion is.

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Overcoming the status quo

A system rests at equilibrium because that is its most likely position. Any spare energy is used up by processes — feedback loops — that keep returning the part of the system to this state.

This applies in organisations as much as in chemical systems.

We may make what feels like a significant change. A new initiative. A new process. A new product. But if the original feedback loops aren’t altered, then over time, friction will rub away what is distinct and we return to the status quo.

If we want to create a new equilibrium — a new status quo — then we need to:

  1. rewire the feeeback loops to reinforce this change rather than continuously undermine it
  2. Imbue the new initiative with enough energy to resist the friction it causes while the system around it rearranges itself.

If the change is good enough, it will generate enough energy of its own to keep going. That’s how most solutions succeed, be they organisational, or chemical.

Related tool > Ambition Loops

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Ripe learning opportunities from moments of transition 

Transitions are ripe moments for reflection on action.

When we’re in the flow of delivery, we rarely have the chance to pause and ask what we’re really doing or why. But transitions — a change of job, a shift in funding, or simply the end of a project — give us the opportunity.

Creating change means pushing, pulling or nudging outcomes away from their default path toward an intentional one. But while we’re in the thick of delivery, it’s easy for intentions to get blurred, or dropped altogether.

So when we pop out the other side of a period of work, it’s worth asking: what was I really trying to do, and what actually happened?

  • Here are some questions I use to harvest learning at the end of a project:
  • What did I set out to do? Even if you can’t fully recall, try to write it down.
  • What did I actually do? Not just the deliverables — think about the journey: the conversations, obstacles, and detours.
  • What were the consequences — intended and unintended? In complex systems, surprises are inevitable.
  • What advice would I give someone else setting out on the same journey? You can’t repeat the past, but someone else can build on it.

These lessons are easily lost. Once we move on, the window for reflection closes quickly. So take the time to harvest the fruits of transition while they’re still ripe.

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Capitalism/woodalism

Some days I get to work in the big city; others I get to work in the woods – lucky me!

The feeling I get in approaching these two venues couldn’t be more different.

I approach the city excited by the conversations I will have, by the projects we can work on. I grew up in the city. It’s a place I love. But I also increasingly feel the scale of the place and the disconnection from what makes life like this possible.

I approach the wood excited by the calm and the sense of life surrounding me. By the lessons that I know the place can teach me. But I also know how far this place is from where big decisions are made, and far from where many people live.

For me regenerative design is about building a much stronger connection between these two worlds. From where we make and where we take so that both places can thrive.

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Getting on with regenerative design

Earlier this month, the Structural Engineer magazine published a review of the Pattern Book for Regenerative Design by Eva MacNamara, Director at Expedition.

Screen shot of a book review in the Structural Engineer ,with an image of the Pattern Book for Regeernative Design on the bottom left and a by-line of the reviewer Eva MacNamara on the bottom right

What I loved about Eva’s review was the way she captured the Pattern Book in use.

Dog-eared, well travelled and always within reach for those working regeneratively — Whether that’s in your bag, on your desk, or in your lap on the way to a workshop

It is, after all, a practice guide — and practice is those regular repeated actions that make up our days. 

It complements another reflection I’ve had this week. 

As we put in place plans for our three cohorts of the Regenerative Design Lab next year, how much the dialogue has shifted since we began. Back in 2023 a lot the discussions were about what regenerative design is, how to make the case for it, looking for examples. 

Whereas now, the conversations that I hear are much more engaged in practical application. How to embed this thinking in different scenarios. How to seek out new opportunities to make change. How to weave a regenerative approach into early-stage thinking on a project?

This is about getting on and doing. 

It’s about experimenting and learning.

This is about practice. 

Just a reminder — there’s seven weeks to go until we launch our online intro to regenerative design, ‘Seeing the System’. Do let your colleagues know. Previous Lab members have a discount code that gives 20% off for their colleagues.