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.
- 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 …
- Comfy clothes, favourite tools and the Three HorizonsYou probably have a favourite piece of clothing to put on and put you at ease. Maybe a hoody, a jumper, … a favourite onesie. When something fits, you wear …
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- Attempts to give up sarcasmA few years ago I made a New Year’s resolution to stop being sarcastic. Some of my favourite comedians use sarcasm. Pointing to what something is by saying the opposite …
- Three Horizons facilitation (90 minutes) — sometimes all people need is the picture
The Three Horizons model is one of our key tools in the Regenerative Design Lab for exploring change. It’s simple enough to grab in a short space of time (see … - Big news — Cohort 6 Applications for the Regenerative Design Lab are now open
Our big news this week is that the application process is now open for Cohort 6 of the Regenerative Design Lab. Here’s some things that make this moment particularly significant …Continue reading “Big news — Cohort 6 Applications for the Regenerative Design Lab are now open”
- I’m so glad the humans have comeJust imagine, you are visiting the site of a new development. And you are suddenly aware that you are surrounded by voices. The voices include the insects, the animals, the …
- Field notes: trying on the Systems Change Lab for size
Last week I had the privilege of facilitating an afternoon session for the Engineers Without Borders UK Systems Change Lab in London. This is such a powerful initiative. It is …Continue reading “Field notes: trying on the Systems Change Lab for size”
- Feedback = understandingI’m grateful to my friend and Regenerative Design Lab colleague Ellie Osborne for this model. On the second day of our Cohort 5 Autumn Residential, we were sitting around the …
- Flops — the aérotrain
I snapped this photo of a photo at the Flops?! exhibition last month at Paris’s Musée des Arts et Metiers. The exhibition explores the importance of failure in design. Which … - Everything had to change for everything to stay the sameThis is the key line in one of my favourite films, Visctonti’s 1963 The Leopard. Based on the novel of the same name by Giuseppe Tomasi de Lampedusa, the film …
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- Facilitation technique: The Fish BowlThe fish bowl is facilitation technique that enables a large group of people to observe a small group. The small group sit around a table and discuss a topic. The …
- Starting to see the systemYesterday we kicked off our new introduction to regenerative design, ‘Seeing the System’. The premise is simple: seeing more clearly the systems we are working with as a precursor to …
- TorporI like the word ‘torpor’ — a state of physical or mental lethargy. I like the word much more than I like feeling it. I feel torpor when I spend …
- The algorithm works for Horizon OneThe algorithm works for Horizon One.* The bit of code, which decides what you see next on your device, is optimised to keep you looking at your screen, and staying …
- …because there is still a climate emergencyThe most compelling factor in considering whether to accelerate decarbonisation of construction: …but that there is still a climate emergency[1], triggered by emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and …
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