Reinventing practice
Participating practices in the Regenerative Architecture Index discuss the challenges they face.
Portraits by Timothy Soar
Mike Russum
For Mike Russum of Birds Portchmouth Russum, regeneration starts with joy: bringing together climate, water, planting and biomimicry to create adaptable places that work more like healthy ecosystems than isolated buildings.
Gerry Hogan
Gerry Hogan of Collective Architecture asks what it means to be a steward rather than an owner, embedding social and environmental responsibility in the practice’s legal structure, succession and everyday culture.
Neil Thomas
Bamboo: vegetable carbon fibre, climate solution and a British crop. Neil Thomas of Atelier One asks what we can learn from nature’s 400-million-year head start in engineering.
Ian Poole
What can a soap film teach us about concrete construction? Ian Poole of Elliott Wood discusses biomimicry, material reuse in a push to make structural engineering less extractive and more regenerative.
DSDHA
From Broadgate to the studio garden and experimental earth construction, Tom Greenall and Nicole Abernethy of DSDHA explore how testing ideas at different scales can turn landscape, biodiversity and material innovation into everyday practice.
RDA Architects
Richard Dudzicki tells AT how cinema, Passivhaus principles and London’s constraints shape a practice focused on retaining what exists, using fewer resources and finding inventive ways to make lasting homes.
Corinna Dean
Corinna Dean of ARCA considers how architecture can foster care for human and non-human life, drawing on collaborative projects from floating reed beds on the River Lea to bio-receptive bricks that expose the environmental costs of making.
Paul Ruff
Paul Ruff reflects on a career shaped by resourcefulness, reinvention and a growing conviction that architecture must take responsibility for its impact.
Office S&M
From their annual 'Plants and Pints' to a house designed for trees and cats, Office S&M are making regenerative design fun, creative, and an intuitive characteristic of contemporary practise.
Gary Clark, HKS
For Gary Clark of HKS using regenerative principles as a design driver yields long-term benefits, not just for communities and the environment, but for business too.
Mandy Franz, MICA
Mandy Franz's approach to architecture has been shaped by the romantic castles and brutalist architecture of her East German childhood, Santiago Calatrava and a focus on striking a balance between respect for heritage and a hunger for progress.
Pardini Hall
Elisa Pardini and Robert Hall's approach to architecture is shaped by a mix of English and Italian influences including the countryside around Lucca in Pardini's native Italy.
