I get asked this question all the time. I present an example of a scheme or an initiative in which engineers have developed a glimpse of the future — a way to work with reclaimed construction materials, to work with place, to create a system of working that demonstrates how to build a thriving future.
And then the question — how does it scale up?
This question of scaling makes sense in our parallel human-superimposed world of extraction, refining, manufacturing, distribution and assembly. In which the way to scale up is to build bigger, systems of supply.
But it doesn’t make sense in the living world.
In my garden, slugs are enormously successful. Somehow they have found a way tough out the winter, and wait until the moment when the ground is wet enough, and the tear up the stems of my runner beans and strip them.
Love them or loathe them, slugs are a great design.
But in the living world, there isn’t a venture capitalist saying ‘lets 10x these slugs. I see the potential for 6 foot slugs’.
Instead, over time, living systems tend to grow in number and variety of systems. In other words, more slugs and more of lots of other things too.
It’s not so much a scale up but a diversify up. Each of these elements in relationship to each other.
The question for the regenerative designer shifts from how do we scale up to: how can we allow the number and variety of local elements to grow and evolve?
In other words, from scaling up to creating a widening mosaic.