My intention with the Pattern Book for Regenerative Design is that users can share with each other how they have used the tools and techniques within. So, kicking off this process, this is how I used two motifs two weeks ago to run a lunch for team at Elliott Wood to support an internal regenerative design competition they are running.
Building a Kalideascope
If a group of people are working with a written design brief, then my starting point for creative thinking is to get them to build a Kalideascope. The groups write three headings on a large piece of paper: information, questions and ideas. I then get them to read the brief out very slowly and everytime something that comes to mind under any of these headings, they must shout stop, and write it down, before the reader can start again.
The exercise is a quick method to generate lots of thinking.
To add a regenerative lens to it, I prefaced the exercise by reading out the motif on Beavers. This motif primes listeners to think about the potential stacked multiple benefits of our interventions.
Systems Survey
To tune the group deeper into regenerative thinking, I then read out the questions in the Systems Survey. These are questions that combine the theory of the Living Systems Blueprint with a civil engineering site survey perspective.
The questions are:
- What is connected and what is separated?
- What is thriving and what is in decline?
- What is in flow and what is static?
- What is changing and is fixed?
- What stories does this place tell?
- What is the placing trying to do — and what helps or hinders it?
I read each question out and gave groups 3-4mins to populate their Kalideascopes with any new information, questions and ideas.
Overall, it felt like a high-energy session and I think people went away with new ideas on how to bring regenerative thinking into their design process.
