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.
- 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, … - Metaphorical measure expressionsIn 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, …
- A full basket of regenerative design learning opportunitiesThere’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 …
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- Visions that abstract us/ visions that ground usMany 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 …
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- Get on the ground and start moving aroundIn 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 …
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- Teaching theory versus the inconveniences of realityTheory 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 …
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- Overcoming the status quoA 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 …
- 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. …
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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 … - Getting on with regenerative designEarlier this month, the Structural Engineer magazine published a review of the Pattern Book for Regenerative Design by Eva MacNamara, Director at Expedition. What I loved about Eva’s review was …
- Exposed ironwork
Spotted yesterday. Beautiful cast iron brackets for a cantilever roof outside Taunton Station. - Pattern book field notes – action learning and continuous place-based design
This week I took my copy of the Pattern Book to Cambridge. (Its second visit: in July I dropped it — and my laptop — in a puddle. Both recovered, …Continue reading “Pattern book field notes – action learning and continuous place-based design”
- Learning as a design process
In a flip of yesterday’s post — if design can be a learning process, then learning can be a design process too. What would it look like to approach learning … - Design as a learning processMany projects treat design as a problem with a fixed answer. But what if we treated design as learning journey? In a complex world, design needs to be a responsive …
- The dream walk experiment at Hazel Hill WoodLast week at Hazel Hill Wood we ran a ‘dream walk’ with staff and trustees. The aim was to tune into our long-term hopes and aspirations for the site, as …
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- Consult your hopes and dreams — part of what a place is trying to doThe first stage in continuous place-based design is observation. It is a beginning that says before we do anything different here we need to try and understand this place. The …
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- Core tools for regenerative design now online
I am happy to announce that we have now published online our set of free-to-use core tools for regenerative design. These nine tools are central to our teaching in the …Continue reading “Core tools for regenerative design now online”
- A process for processing processesProcesses make life easier, help us involve more people, guarantee quality and conserve our attention for other things. But only if they work. The first time we do something, part …
- Emergent marketing – the RDL Cohorts for 2026I’ve noticed recently how often a controlling mindset can creep in when I think about how we spread the word around the regenerative design lab. That controlling mindset seems to …
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- Fluorescent creativityFluorescent colours look brighter than the colours around them. That’s because fluorescent materials absorb light from the ultraviolet spectrum — which we can’t see — and re-emit it in the …
- Seems unlikely…
A great illustration of the tenuous Brunel connections in Bristol. I quite like them. - Our new online intro to regenerative design launches in November
Here’s my pitch: Interested in regenerative design?Are you — or your colleagues — wondering how to introduce regenerative thinking on a live project?Would a short course help build clarity and …Continue reading “Our new online intro to regenerative design launches in November”
- The annoying things about hammocks — three design principles from the second law of thermodynamicsThe annoying thing about hammocks is that they obey the second law of thermodynamics. However big an initial shove you give them, they always come to a standstill. The swing’s …
- On a new term and the Three Horizons pencil case
It is hard to escape the idea that September is a new year. It’s a time for new stationery and new intentions. But when resolutions for the year ahead crop …Continue reading “On a new term and the Three Horizons pencil case”
- Letting things doneAnyone into productivity books will probably be familiar with the classic Getting Things Done by David Allen. It’s a book title that transcends the book —it becomes a value system. …
- Can I have your attention?The default answer ought to be no. Because your attention is one of your most precious resources. Attention is how we experience life. It’s what we attend to, moment by …
- Use the water on its way downhillUse the water on its way downhill Gather the feedback before everyone leaves. Capture the waste heat before it disappears up the exhaust. Better to hear it from the horse’s …
- On packing cubes and better fitFold everything up and put it straight in the bag? Or fold everything into packing cubes first, then put these in? Not an important dilemma — but useful for thinking …
- The Entropy BusWhen strangers get on a bus, they almost always spread out. Few people sit next to each other unless they really have to. Partly that’s social norms. And partly it’s …
- Boltzmann laughter distributionThis week I’ve been playing around with a way to explain the Boltzmann distribution — a mathematical function that predicts how energy is likely to spread out in a volume …
- Blowing hot air
One of my favourite design features at the Barbican Arts Centre is in the loos: a row of round sinks, set into polished concrete, with taps activated by foot pedals. … - 100 years oldToday my grandfather, Peter Cartwright, would have been 100 years old. He was a research chemist, but I always saw him as a Renaissance man, showing talents for a wide …
- Element designThere are over 250 chemical elements. But at a fooling workshop* today, I was reminded of the creative power of just four: earth, water, fire and air. Each one conjures …
- Serious humourYesterday I went to Grayson Perry’s brilliant Delusions of Grandeur exhibition at the Wallace Collection. If you work in Central London and can get there before it closes in October …
- Too long/too late?“Due to short platforms, the doors in the rear carriage will not open at the next station.” Whenever I hear this train announcement, I wonder if they could just as …
- Branching out (and clash detection)I read this in the Hidden Life of Trees. In a woodland canopy, if two trees of the same species are growing near to each other, their branches won’t overlap. …
- Cabin in the woods (a preview)
Tucked between Douglas Fir and regenerating birch, there’s a small green oak cabin at Hazel Hill Wood. From its windows and door, all you can see is woodland. The cabin … - Don’t scale up — scale rightThere are no factories in the living world. Or at least if there are, they are very well camouflaged. Humans, by contrast, are very attached to factories. By reducing variation …
- On scale, specialisation and life beyond pinsOne of the commonly-cited benefits of scaling-up an operation is to enable individuals to specialise Adam Smith famously argued that a pin factory, where each worker focused on specific step …
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- The maths of too many meetings
Do you ever feel that all you do is sit in coordination meetings? If two people work together, then there is one relationship to manage. By manage, I mean checking … - Ultra-processed informationIt’s super quick to absorb. Cheaply available. It bares little resemblance to its source. Its ingredients can come from anywhere. The growers are anonymous. Put together using processes you don’t …
- Non-fungible Tree
This dying tree is outside London Euston station. It desperately needs water. It sits next to the stump of the enormous London Plain that was recently felled to make way … - Just-in-its-own-time deliveryWe’ve become used to just-in-time delivery. The antithesis of stockpiled inventory. But when the living world delivers its abundance, it happens all at once. Anyone engaged in community fruit growing …
- What do they grow?I recently revisited a childhood film favourite, The Young Einstein. It begins on a cider farm in Tasmania. One evening, our hero tells his parents, “I want to be a …
- Fowl play
Good luck, little ducks. This looks like an uneven playing field. - It’s hard to win at poker by playing chessComplicated systems are like chess: we know the rules, and with some calculation, we can work out the best possible move. Complex systems are like poker: we know the rules …
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- Canvas and Twill — the patterns for two new short courses in regenerative designMore and more design teams are committing to regenerative principles and goals in their projects. This is very promising. But it also raises the question, how do upskill a team …
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- Field notes: the Kalideascope meets the Ambition Loop
This week I was invited to run an afternoon session for the Engineers Without Borders UK Systems Change Lab at their event in Glasgow. This event is part of their …Continue reading “Field notes: the Kalideascope meets the Ambition Loop”
- Absurd fruit saladMy recent food harvesting metaphor keeps on bearing fruit! I arrive at a workshop to see a buffet of fruit. Tasty, but I wager none of it is local and …
- No food on the trolleyA blog-writing gift from the universe. A moment after I submitted my last post, the customer service attendant on the train came past and apologised that they didn’t have any …