Design for Regenerative Cities and Landscapes

In this chapter the foundations for an ecologically responsible future are discussed. The changes and transformations in the current era are so substantial that a fundamental rethink is needed in the way we develop our cities and landscapes. This is no longer possible through reaching political compromises, but requires radical thinking and solutions, which are capable of braking through the current paradigms. Where urban societies are net depleting their resources, we should aim to replete them. From taking form our environment we need to start giving back. This requires a shift from a predominantly mechanistic worldview, in which solutions are engineered and calculated, towards an organic one, which is based on understanding systemic change, complexity and self-organisation. Here, Man is seen as part of nature and his physical demands are as important is his mental ones. The urban society has to transform from generating stuff to regeneration the living conditions that will sustain life on the long run. The move towards ecological responsibility requires implies that man is part of nature, city is part of the landscape and both mind and stocks need to be replenished. Finally, design approaches enables ecological responsibility though grasping the complexities of systems and interactions, can ignite change through spatial interventions, and is able to be adaptive so the landscape remains changeable.

As humans struggle to come to terms with how to move forward in the confusing and frightening world of the Anthropocene, a number of new concepts and terms developed to describe different approaches to find meaning and identify appropriate actions and solutions. These approaches define different paradigms of what can broadly be described as ecologically responsible design. While each of these paradigms provide useful tools and strategies, they also evolve as their shortcomings and limitations become apparent. Unfortunately, as terms fall out of favour and fashion, there is a tendency to replace the old term with the newest buzzword, without critically engaging with the theory underpinning this new terminology. Thus, sustainability becomes resilience, which becomes regenerative, with little acknowledgement that these require different design paradigms with different goals, practices and rules.

This chapter explores the evolution of three different, yet connected paradigms of ecologically responsible design, to achieve a better understanding of what the difference is between the often-conflated concepts of sustainability, resilience, and regeneration. It goes beyond dictionary definitions to unpack the evolution of these interconnected paradigms as they run into their own limitations and become exposed to different worldviews. It then explores what each of these paradigms would mean for the design product, the design process and the designer as person.

Although Indigenous people have maintained and asserted that cultural obligations that include equity to landscapes and species is a custodial response to human place within the environment, it is only recently that research is increasingly demonstrating the practices and approaches used by Indigenous people for natural resource management is more effective than approaches created and used by post-colonisation economic and governance practices. Inherent responsibility is an ideology that has sustained and assisted many Indigenous people throughout the world during environmental changes. The impacts of colonisation, and the social and economic constructs that come with it, have been extremely destructive to Aboriginal people, the cultural landscape and associated cultural knowledge. In the process of colonisation, the disregard to Aboriginal knowledge including the attempted removal and muting of knowledge systems attached to landscapes, have seen the planet endure centuries of bad management, unsustainable practices, increasing species loss and social removal from nature connection.

Applying Indigenous knowledge systems as a foundation for regenerative urbanism presents an opportunity to redirect sustainability to one that prioritises life and the living systems of our planet, not the economy. Cultivating a regenerative mindset through Indigenous ways of knowing is a starting point to usher in a new paradigm and approach to regenerative city making.

Design must challenge prevailing, traditional methods for engaging with place that is often static, linear and didactic. In this chapter, the use of latent and inherently mutable features of low-density landscapes will be endorsed to unlock regenerative futures through design. Elements in landscapes are continually susceptible to change – even the ones long perceived as inert – in large part because of our global, accelerated culture and the effects of human activity on climate. The rate of change is quickening and remoulding how we interact and use our cities, landscapes and resources. While design cannot stall or stop these dynamics, it can deflect them on a desirable trajectory that places climatic and ecological principles at its core. As such, design must view and engage with place through six propositional frameworks: (1) everything is now urban; (2) landscapes are all about processes, the answer is not an aesthetic one; (3) things go round in circles; (4) time is speeding up; (5) the rural condition is not natural; and, (6) the site must be seen as a body, or whole, rather than a collection of parts. Lake District 2.0 tests and visualises how these propositions can bring transformative change to the understanding of mobility, infrastructure, heritage, culture and economy. The approach is predicated on design viewing mutability as a driver for regenerating systems that are light-touch and resilient to the unforeseen factors that places must endure in years, decades and centuries to come.

The plan for a nature-rich Netherland presents a vision how a country could be redesigned in a regenerative way. The plan to transform at least 50% of its area in nature connects and solves a series of problems. It enhances the reestablishment of biodiversity at a national level, it causes the resilience to deal with unexpected climate impacts, it captures carbon to mitigate climate change, it opens the way to transition the food system into a regionally based nature inclusive food supply, and it provides the natural environment for additional housing to solve the housing scarcity in the Netherlands.

By integrating the solutions all these problems are solved at the same time, one solution brings the benefit to another and vice versa. The design for the Netherlands is based in its historic landscape forming systems, as a condition for future resilient landscape forming. This way the water system forms the basis for the design, guiding the regrowth of peat and giving room to free-flowing rivers and streams, connected to additional typologies of landscape based mixed forests. The existing agricultural land is bought-up on a voluntary basis, with a serious premium of 40% above current market price for farmland, which makes it possible for farmers to stop or transition their farm to nature-driven farming methods. The finds fort his generous offer are made possible by the development of new housing on 4% of the bought farmland. This landscape make-over is to be centrally governed as to organize the planning, the land-use change and the financial arrangements in a fair way for everyone.

In a rapidly urbanizing world climate change and biodiversity loss are amongst the biggest risks for societies across the globe. In its annual global risks report the World Economic Forum defines these topics as the risks with the largest likelihood and impact for the global economy. A call for action is widely acknowledged, but the way forward and action perspectives are not always clear. These major topics are often placed at the same level compared to other emerging issues and transitions. Current planning practice shows a wide palette of actions, action-oriented programming and rethinking urban and rural design from different angles and perspectives: circular, smart, adaptive, nature inclusive or resilient. Unfortunately, this seldom ends up in a coherent planning strategy and integrated design for a circular, smart, adaptive, nature inclusive and resilient city. This is not unique to the urban tissue but is also common practice in rural areas. Additionally, urban and rural strategies are also still heavily disconnected, although clear relationships and interdependencies across social, economic and natural systems are eminent. Above all, the revaluation of green and blue in both urban and rural areas is moderately moving forward. But a radical rethinking, intertwining the natural basis in all our actions and perspectives as a solid fundament for a sustainable, resilient and prosperous future, is often missing. Do we see and understand the complete picture? Do we embrace diversity and complexity? And do we really envision an enabling future which combines a long-term perspective with dedicated short-term actions? How do we create a long-term vision for the future in the context of a short-term decision-making practice? Besides reducing negative impacts, a positive impact and future quality in the broadest sense should be enhanced.

In 2019, Wageningen University & Research published a future perspective entitled ‘A nature-based perspective for the Netherlands in 2120’, which soon got embraced throughout society, from high level policy makers, across sectors and most importantly also at the local level. In contrast to many other (sectoral) perspectives, it brought together all transitions and spatial challenges in one perspective with a clear message: No doom or gloom, but dream and green. In this vision nature-based solutions play a prominent role in dealing with climate and biodiversity challenges. An opportunistic total view as an invitation, puts the importance of the natural basis and its opportunities at the very forefront. This interlinks urban and rural challenges via the natural basis that doesn’t stop at a formalized border and puts system(s) and design thinking upfront, to the next level. In this chapter we will dive more specifically in the perspective, but most of all bring the urge forward to rethink the meaning of the natural basis in urban challenges, beyond green blue veining. Last but not least, it is linked to clear design and system approaches towards common understanding, action perspectives and design practice.

More than ever, humankind is out of balance with nature. The Earth is warming, leading to water and food scarcity, poverty, loss of biodiversity and climate refugees. Nature-based solutions (NBS) can help to reverse these events. Research estimates that NBS can contribute up to 37% of the carbon emission intake required to keep global warming below two degrees Celsius. Besides sequestering CO₂ out of the air, applying NBS also improves the livelihoods of both humans and animals. Globally, more than two billion hectares of land can be regenerated – an area twice the size of Europe. The mission of Justdiggit is to apply NBS to reverse land degradation and empower local communities. The focus is on Sub-Saharan Africa as this region is highly vulnerable to the threats of climate change, natural resource degradation and poverty, and has a high reliance on subsistence agriculture. Justdiggit aims to make dry land green again by inspiring and activating farmers in Africa to start regreening. This has a positive impact on climate change, nature, and people. They restore degraded land by combining traditional farming techniques with technology whilst using media and communication in order to reach the hearts and minds of people. Together with its partners and media network, Justdiggit aims to ignite a “Regreen Revolution”: a grassroots movement that jointly restores land in order to regreen the landscape and cool down the planet.

The events of 2020 have challenged the vitality and viability of our local places, main streets, shopping malls, community meeting places. The Covid-19 virus revealed how fragile these places were, how much we relied on them and how our approach to them needs to enable greater agility, adaptability and resilience. A new approach to local place and economic development is urgently needed.

To address this challenge, a new framework is proposed, one with three overarching principles. It starts with place, understanding what is unique and vital about a community and how to nurture it. This is followed by regeneration, or regenerative development, an approach which explicitly looks at how to actively contribute to the aspects of a place that bring it to life. The last of the foundational principles is the concept of connectivity, which recommends building relationships between elements in a place, its people, its businesses and its ecosystems.

Supporting these three are seven sub-principles. These provide the methods and concepts to support the development of what we call “the New Local,” a plan and a strategy to drive recovery from the impact of the Covid-19 virus while ensuring greater ability to respond to future stresses. These principles are: diversification, ownership, reinvestment, innovation, equity, democracy, and culture. The potency of this model it the interrelated and integrated nature of all the principles, it does not privilege economy, or nature, or place, but shows how they are all needed to create a resilient, adaptive local place.

This chapter outlines each of the principles, applies them in a case study, and shows how they can inform the redesign of a community’s physical space and economy. The principles come from the combined experience of 80 years of practice in local economic development, placemaking and regenerative development.

In light of climate change and multiple ecological crises we are facing, sustainability driven urbanism is needed more than ever. While regenerative design has been around for over a decade, the notion of regenerative cities has seen a recent spike in interest as both governments and industry push to adopt circular economy principles. In this chapter, we examine the case of the city of Brisbane winning the bid to host the 2032 Summer Olympics, which are the world’s first games required to not just be carbon-neutral but climate-positive. After establishing some contextual background around the history of urban regeneration strategies and the more recent focus on circular economies in cities, we juxtapose the bid’s sustainability aspirations of becoming net positive with the realities of urban economic growth and the need to upgrade existing and build new sporting venues. We use punctuated equilibrium theory to ask if the city’s once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to host the Olympics can be the urgently needed catalyst for a radical shift away from ongoing systemic issues underlying urban regeneration and towards embracing genuinely sustainable and regenerative city design.

Sustainable urbanisation requires planning and design strategies and principles that take the (natural) landscape as the basis for working with natural processes for the benefit of socially and ecologically inclusive and thriving urban landscapes. Such an approach takes the landscape first and considers the biosphere the context for social and economic development. In this chapter, the concept of landscape-based urbanism is introduced, taking the physical landscape structure, and associated natural processes as a foundation to generate favourable conditions for future development and to guide and shape spatial transformation. Therefore, this approach offers a multiscale and integrative model for urban development and transformation, the preservation of biodiversity, water resource management, improved leisure facilities, community building, stronger cultural identity and economic development while taking the landscape as the basis. Landscape-based urbanism identifies and guides urban development towards the most advantageous places, functions, scales and inter-relationships through the development of robust landscape structures. Design explorations utilise knowledge of the natural and social context and are used as a systematic search for possible solutions to a spatial problem. At the same time, the design explorations make clear which landscape structures and elements, for example from an ecological or cultural-historical point of view, should be preserved.

Can infrastructural green improve the climate in cities? In a global study and for the very first time, the planning and consulting firm Arup has made it measurable to what extent green building envelopes can reduce the upheating in cities, filter fine dust and increase people’s well-being. The study explains the significant role green buildings can play in reducing “urban stress” and giving people more access to nature.

It is urgent to adjust the way current urgent problems are approached. Instead of reacting to scientific findings, or even worse, only reacting after a disaster happens, we need to adjust our mindset towards anticipation and pro-activity. This implies to develop our minds in parallel: We need to be aware of what happens here and now and AT THE SAME TIME, to be able to grasp the bigger picture. These more abstract patterns that are emerging must be related to the concrete changes occurring and the urgent actions needed.

This between switching abstractions requires a novel way of thinking, and people that can link the two. People are needed that have the capability of simultaneously looking from the balcony and be on the dance floor. To see the unprecedented and uncertain future and then knowing what to do in the form of tangible pattern adjustments that can be implemented directly to move the entire system and the future towards a long-lasting, regenerative equilibrium and stay within our planetary boundaries (Rockström et al., Ecology and Society. 14(2): 2009; Steffen et al., Science 13;347(6223): 2015).

It also means that we can no longer only respond to change in hindsight, but instead we must take a future that looks extreme and may be highly unlikely, as the point of departure for visioning, planning, and construction.

Current change shows that extreme climate events are happening, therefore it is urgent we respond to the climate emergency we see occurring and prepare for what already happens. Current politics, policies, and negotiations, often work the other way around: they often react to what has been experienced after the occurrence. This ignorant responding is unintentional as smart people see the necessity to reverse these policy processes. However, unwillingly, when debate starts, it seems impossible to make the shift of mind.