Tag: RegenerativeDesignLab

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A new cohort for Lab alumni

Next 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 humans) who have been through the Lab before. Some applied as long ago as 2022. 

That wasn’t so long ago in terms of building design ago, but in the field of regenerative design, which is emerging quite quickly, it feels like an age away. 

In those first discussions, we had a strong pedagogy of enquiry, but the language was still forming and the frameworks emerging. 

Since then the field has moved on and so have we. We have much better models and clearer patterns to work with. The connection between regenerative practice and day-to-day business can be more clearly articulated.

But more importantly the participants have moved on.

They’ve been in practice. They’ve tested ideas. They’ve discovered where the limits really sit and where they have been able to push.

And the operating conditions have changed too. The urgency has deepened. The need for thinking that is life-enabling rather than life-depleting is more acute. 

So while Cohort 7 is a second journey, it is not a repeat because we return with more experience, new questions and opportunities. 

This year we are also running Cohort 6 – our latest open cohort – in parallel. There’s something powerful I n this too: two groups moving through similar terrain but at different stages in their path. We’re curious to see what synergies develop between them, especially as we bring the two cohorts together for our final even in November.

Regenerative design is rooted in loops and cycles. I’m looking forward to seeing what this second cycle yields for our Cohort 7 participants. 

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Green shoots emerge: it’s time to start writing again

Regular 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 living systems reset, process, regroup and do the quiet work that gets them ready for growth in the spring. 

The thing about this winter work is it doesn’t look like much while it is happening. In the wood it is quiet; on the allotment the winter days were very still… and very wet. But underground the stage is being set, slowly, gradually, for all the growth of spring. And when that growth comes, it comes suddenly. 

For us at the Regenerative Design Lab, the invisible winter work has been to recruit two cohorts for Labs in 2026. This has involved lots of interviews during short days and dark afternoons with the many people who applied. We have also been thinking carefully about how we evolve our pedagogy based on everything we have learnt so far. 

For me personally it has been a time during which I formally ended and wrote up my 1851 Fellowship in Regenerative Design. The Fellowship helped us grow the Lab from a seedling (the pilot phase), through the sapling stage (where it needed the support) to the young tree that it is this year, fully self supporting.

And quietly, almost every day, someone has bought a copy of the Pattern Book for Regenerative Design, which means that the seeds of this work are travelling further than I can see.

And so, the stage is set for spring, and springing into more visible action. 

Next week is the kick-off for Cohort 6 and 7. For Cohort 6 we have a fascinating group of engineers (and other humans) from different disciplines, including a new interest from the infrastructure sector. Cohort 7 welcomes back alumni returning to deepen their regenerative practice.

We are also running regenerative design workshops directly for organisations, looking at business strategy, culture change and skills for facilitation and persuasion. 

So plenty to be writing about. 

Standby for spring.