Living Systems Blueprint

A three-part framework for designing with the same principles that enable living systems to thrive.

The Living Systems Blueprint is an anchoring motif in the Pattern Book for Regenerative Design, providing a systems-level explanation of how living systems thrive and how humans can apply these principles in design. It serves as a key bridge between understanding systems and designing interventions. 

The Blueprint describes three characteristics of thriving, living systems:

• Interconnection — which create multiple levels of feedback loops that keep the system in balance.
• Symbiosis — circulating flows of resources within the system that increase richness within ecosystem limits. 
• Capacity to change — the system’s ability to evolve and adapt to changing conditions.

These characteristics provide a blueprint for designing systems that have the capacity to survive, thrive and co-evolve, drawing on the best example we have of how to do this — the living world itself (Broadbent & Norman, 2024).

Each of these characteristics is explored separately in the Pattern Book. Here we look at how to work with the Living Systems Blueprint as a whole.

Role in the Pattern Book

This motif frames conversations about thriving at an operational systems level. It helps:

• Translate theory into action — turning the high-level goal of regenerative design and the mind set shifts it requires into practical applications.
• Design for thriving — see the Brief for Thriving.
• Shift focus — from thinking about projects to systems in business strategy, policy and infrastructure design.
• Establish tests — to assess the regenerative character of our projects and proposals.

Paired with regenerative-ambivalent motifs (such as the Systems Bookcase), this motif clarifies what ‘thriving’ looks like.

User guide

The Living Systems Blueprint is not a good starting point. Most people don’t see the world in systems. It is a motif that works best as an answer to a question, for example:

• How can supply chains contribute to rather than deplete biodiversity?
• How can humans work in harmony with living systems?
• How regenerative is my project?

Here are three ways to apply it.

1 — Work with a case study

Choose a project that you think demonstrates regenerative qualities. Explore how it: 

• Builds interconnection between people and place.
• Turns waste streams into inputs.
• Builds local capacity to maintain and update buildings and infrastructure.

2 — Map a system

Draw the system you are working in and explore:

• Where are the connections in the system strong, weak or missing? 
• How do these enable feedback loops and where do they fail to form? 
• Which waste streams flow out of the system and which ones become useful inputs?
• Is this system rigid or able to adapt? 

3 — Go for a walk

Use the following observational motifs to see the characteristic of the Living System Blueprint in action (or missing) in the real world:

• Wildwork — compares human and living systems.
• Systems Survey — take systems thinking for a walk.
• Psychoderive — seeing urban space from a new perspective.

Conclusion

The Living Systems Blueprint offers a practical way to understand systems that support thriving. By bringing together three characteristics of living systems — interconnection, symbiosis and capacity to change — it offers us a template for designing human systems that align with the rest of the living world.   

This motif is a bridge between concepts, helping to translate the high-level goal of regenerative design into projects, strategies and policies.