Tag: resilience

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A flow for thinking about regenerative infrastructure

A 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 insufficiency of system resilience on its own, and how mindsets shape our view of infrastructure.

Taken together they suggest a simple flow for thinking about regenerative infrastructure. 

Mindset>Brief>Ideas>Tests>Iterate

Mindset

We start by using the Changing Mindsets motif to challenge our assumptions about infrastructure

Brief

We create a brief that moves beyond delivering infrastructure efficiently to seeing infrastructure as part of what enables humans and the living world to thrive together.

Ideas

We fill our Kalideacope with two libraries:

  • Resilient systems architecture
  • Ecological participation patterns

And we turn our Kalideascope with an additional library:

  • Regenerative mindset prompts

Different combinations generate new possibilities for infrastructure design

Tests

We test the ideas against three criteria for regenerative infrastructure:

  • Metabolism — does the system operate within ecological limits?
  • Ecological participation — does it strengthen living systems?
  • Resilience — is the system well structured?

Iterate

Keep going until the idea meets the brief.

Or we change the brief to a better brief because the brief we first thought of is almost certainly not the right one.

And that shouldn’t be a surprise because regenerative infrastructure is not the conventional way of thinking about infrastructure. We should expect the thinking process to be hard. 

These tools are here to help.

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Three tests for regenerative infrastructure

Pulling together the threads from this week’s posts so far on infrastructure, discussions about regenerative infrastructure often confuse three distinct factors: 

  • Metabolim
  • Ecological participation
  • Resilience 

Untangling these questions can help us gain clarity in what we are trying to design, so that we can then look for solutions that are win-win-win on all three counts. 

Metabolism.

The first question is about ecological metabolism, which we looked at yesterday.

In other words, what kind of economy does this infrastructure enable?  

Is it an economy of high energy and high material throughput? Or is it one that enables the economy to operate within its ecosystem limits? Or does it enable a metabolism that demands every increasing energy and materials? 

This question is the most contentious as it challenges fundamental assumptions about our economy. 

When we are discussing regenerative design in the context of buildings, this challenge is easier to side step because the scale is smaller. But when we get to talking about infrastructure, we are talking about the plumbing of the economy itself. 

Ecological participation

The second question is about how does the infrastructure engage with the living world itself. 

Some infrastructure depletes ecosystems as it passes through, for example by fragmenting habitats, disrupting water cycles or creating pollution.

Other infrastructure systems seek to minimise damage or contribute to ecosystem enhancement, for example, by creating wildlife bridges, protected nature reserves,or blue-green corridors alongside transport routes. 

Some infrastructure is actually created to support ecological processes for the wider benefit of humans and the rest of the living world — for example wetland restoration integrated into flood management systems.

The question here is: does the infrastructure damage the ecosystem, try to minimise harm or play an active part in enhancing life systems.

Resilience

The third question comes down to system design. Is the proposed system resilient? Is it decentralised, modular and capable of adapting and evolving? 

When conditions are stable, highly centralised systems can work very efficiently. But when conditions are unstable then modular, distributed networks are more effective.

This is where the writing of Donella Meadows and David Fleming is so helpful in understanding how complex systems can be made resilient.

Getting in a knot

When these three factors get tangled together, debates about infrastructure can get into a knot. 

For example, we can be building a wildlife corridor along a piece of infrastructure. That may be good from an ecosystem participation point of view. But if that infrastructure intensifies the metabolic rate of the economy beyond what the ecosystem can support, then the overall effect is still damage. 

Without separating these questions, it becomes difficult to see what we are designing for.

Three tests for regenerative infrastructure

Any proposal for infrastructure should pass three regenerative tests. Does it:

  • Support an economy operating within ecological limits?
  • Enhance the living systems it participates in?
  • Remain structurally resilient?

If we can design infrastructure that performs well across all three, then we are building the backbone of a system that can create thriving rather than exhausting the ecosystems our lives depend on.

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Infrastructure for the sprint or the long run

In 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 than creating thriving. 

To understand why, we need to consider what the infrastructure does. 

We can think of infrastructure as neutral: a set of pipes, wires, roads, channels and rails that move things around. 

But infrastructure is not neutral. 

Rather, it is the arteries and veins that determine the metabolism of the economy — the scale and speed at which energy and materials are pumped around and consumed. 

Some types of infrastructure enable a very high metabolic rate:

  • Motorways enable high-speed movement of energy intensive vehicles.
  • Shipping container infrastructure allows the fast movement of materials and goods around the world.
  • Global finance networks allow the astonishingly fast transfer of wealth from one place to another.

From an engineering perspective, these systems can be design to be very efficient and resilient. 

But if they are contributing to an economy whose metabolic rate exceeds its ecosystem limits, then the systems is going to run into trouble.

Just as for an athlete, a high metabolic rate can sustain a greater power only for so long before the negative side effects take over: fatigue, injury and build up of lactic acid, which is effectively a poison.

The same is true for our economies. 

If the flow of energy and materials through the system exceeds what the ecosystem can sustain, the consequences will catch up: climate breakdown, ecosystem collapse and resource instability. 

So this raises important questions for infrastructure designers: are we building systems that push the metabolic rate beyond what the ecosystem can support? Or are we building systems that enable us to thrive within our ecosystem limits?

The transport corridor revisited

Let’s return to the example yesterday of the transport corridor connecting neighbouring cities. 

From a traditional engineering perspective we might aim to increase the speed of connection, the capacity and the reliability. These moves all increase the metabolic rate of the economy — in other words, how intensively it can operate.

But what if we were designing infrastructure for an economy that lived within its ecological ceiling? What kind of systems would we build? What pattens would we adopt? 

Would we still be trying to maximise speed, throughput and reliability? 

Or would be trying to design a different kind of economic metabolism altogether?

Instead of concentrating flows through a few giant nodes, systems might be more distributed. Instead of bypassing places in the pursuit of speed, routes might pass through them, allowing exchange to happen along the way. Instead of friction being treated as a failure of the system, some forms of friction can allow local economies and ecosystems to interact.

These kinds of systems often move materials and people more slowly. But they also tend to operate at a lower metabolic intensity, offering the potential of living well, well within our limits.

The sprint or the long run

Perhaps the difference is something like the metabolism of a sprinter compared to that of a long-distance runner.

A sprinter’s body produces extraordinary bursts of power, but only for short periods before metabolic limits appear.

Endurance athletes operate at a lower intensity but can sustain activity for much longer.

Our infrastructure choices raise a similar question for the economy.

Are we building the metabolism of a sprinter economy — high throughput, high energy and short bursts of performance?

Or the metabolism of an endurance economy — one that can sustain prosperity over the long run?

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Good system design is not enough

Good 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 the feedback loops that keep the show on the road? Which loops reinforce the outcomes we already have, and which might enable the more life-giving outcomes we want?

The living world is our template. Life is our best example of how to create thriving within ecosystem limits. Whether that’s through the systems of forests, wetlands, under-ocean reefs – in all of these contexts, the living system of life manages resources and energy while creating thriving. 

So we can ask, what are the characteristics of living systems that enable them to thrive? Could our economy work in a similar way – we live on the same planet and are subject to the same laws of physics, after all. How would our economy be organised? What would our supply chains look like? How would our infrastructure function?

But watch out! There is a banana skin here. 

It is possible to create systems that function really well — systems that are resilient, adaptable, efficient and well structured — and yet fail to create life-enabling conditions.

The potential slip is that good system design is not enough. Regenerative systems must be engaged with the system of life itself. They must participate in the living systems they are part of.

This is the key shift. 

  • Systems design asks, is the system well designed?
  • Regenerative design adds on the next layer: how is the system working with the living world. 

The transport corridor

Imagine we are designing a transport corridor to link connecting cities. From a systems perspective, we might aim for a system that is:

  • Resilient – able to adapt to shocks
  • Efficient – uses minimum resources to deliver its goal
  • Modular – made of semi-independent parts so failures or changes in one part do not collapse the whole system.
  • Adaptable – able to be configured in different ways. 

From a systems perspective, that could be a great design. 

But then we ask the additional regenerative question: what is this system doing to the living world?

Is the corridor slicing up habitats? Is the corridor severing communities? Is the corridor causing pollution? Is the corridor contributing to a wider system of ecological decline? Because on these counts, human and living world thriving is reduced. 

Interestingly, landscapes themselves are a patchwork of different ecosystem types linked by their own corridors: waterways, hedgerows, continuous tree-cover, that allow exchange of species, nutrients and water.

So the question is, does the addition of an extra corridor, built by humans for transport, enhance these connections or cut them off?

It is not enough for systems to function well. They have to participate in and positively contribute to the living world. 

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Lead indicators for heat stress resilience

Up until now, my discussion about lead and lag indicators has focused on classic building performance factors. But regenerative designers are concerned with creating wider system thriving. So we need lead indicators for things beyond buildings — indicators that can tell us how well a place is likely to adapt to future challenges.

At a workshop earlier this week, I was discussing predictors of how well my street might cope with extreme heat in the future. For example, a short-term lead indicator is the quality and age of the housing stock. Poorly maintained Victorian terraces are far less likely to keep residents cool during heatwaves than newer, well-insulated buildings. This gives us a near-term view — how is the street likely to perform this year, or in the next few years, in response to extremes of temperature?

But what about the long-term capacity of a place to adapt? Here, we need to look at other factors:

Absent landlords — High numbers of absentee landlords who neglect their properties are a lead indicator of declining housing quality. Poor maintenance means homes will become less resilient to heat stress over time.

Street trees — Whether or not there are mature trees in a street is a good short-term lead indicator for local heat resilience. Trees provide shade and urban cooling, helping reduce both air and building temperatures. But for longer-term resilience, we need to ask: Is there a plan for maintaining these trees? Are new trees being planted? Are existing trees diseased or in decline? Tree planting programmes and maintenance plans are long-term lead indicators of a community’s capacity to adapt to rising temperatures.

Residents’ associations — The existence of active local groups can be a lead indicator of a community’s ability to organise for resilience. These groups might campaign for street greening, lobby for insulation grants, or even collectively purchase retrofit services—actions that build systemic capacity to cope with environmental stress.

And that’s the heart of regenerative design: looking beyond immediate outputs to understand how places can build long-term capacity for thriving. With so many conditions changing — from technological to environmental — the question becomes, does the local system have the capacity to change. That’s a key lead indicator for future thriving.