Co-founder of UK Architects Declare, Michael Pawlyn on the paradigm shift required to move from conventional sustainability towards regenerative design. Pawlyn will be unpacking this in conversation with special guest Brian Eno at the Regenerative Architecture Index launch party on September 12th. Get your tickets here!
Architecture Today with UK Architect’s Declare is launching the inaugural Regenerative Architecture Index this month – September 12th – at The Bottle Factory in Peckham! Don’t miss out – join the party here.
The idea for the Index emerged from discussions in the Architects Declare Steering Group. Our strategy for change has always been based on the systems thinker Donella Meadows’ work – particularly the case she put forward that the best way to change a system is to intervene at the level of the paradigm that determines to a large extent how the system behaves. This was the reason for our focus on helping to make the shift from conventional sustainability towards a paradigm of regenerative design (which, in its simplest form could be described as striving to be net positive in everything we do).
In Meadows’ prioritised list, the next most influential place to intervene is by changing the goals of the system, which we interpreted as the various awards and forms of publicity that architects aim for. We concluded that many of the current goals encourage architecture and ways of practising that are inconsistent with addressing the planetary emergency – for instance, promoting size, growth, profitability and, in some cases, profoundly unsustainable buildings.
The aim of the RAI is to encourage ways of practising and design work that are directed towards regenerative goals. We want to celebrate all the companies working in this field and share best practice so that, ideally, the whole industry can move in this direction. We made the criteria size- agnostic and avoided choosing an outright winner because we want the emphasis to be on sharing knowledge across a range of issues.
The celebration event is deliberately the opposite of the formulaic ‘Park Lane ballroom, black tie event’ and, yes, even the hat competition is part of our strategy for change! As futurist and writer Ed Gillespie said, “If you want to subvert the dominant paradigm, you need to have more fun than they are… and let them know while you’re doing it, which roughly translates as ‘throw a better party’!”
You can find out more about the RAI launch party here.
