BVN Stories — June 19, 2023
BVN’s REgenerative Week: Regeneration is a State of Mind
In 2023 BVN’s first ever REgenerative Week played out across our studios globally. Dedicated entirely to knowledge sharing and exploration around regenerative design, REgen Week consisted of five days of talks, open forums, focus groups, workshops and strategy planning with our senior leadership group.
The event was hosted by Jason McLennan and Phaedra Svec of Seattle-based McLennan Design, two of the most influential visionaries in the green building movement today.
An initiative of our Regenerative Practice Group, REgen Week provided everyone in our collective with the opportunity to think deeply about their own understanding of regenerative design.
We are constantly reminded that we live in a world with multiple crises – dwindling resources, climate change and biodiversity loss.
REgen Week was a reminder, that even in this age of eco-anxiety, there is a path forward.
Empowered with knowledge and a committed mindset, we can transition towards designing a built environment that heals, regenerates and thrives in harmony with nature.
A powerful lesson for me was to gain the ability to sit with both joy and grief and not be slaves to either… We must look at and acknowledge the problem of climate change, and see the solutions within it rather than become numb to the challenge.
Jason McLennan
To be “Smarter, More Creative and Better for the Planet” we need, as individuals and as an industry, a shift in mindset beyond merely ‘sustainable’, and towards regenerative.
REgen Week was an inclusive journey for the entire BVN team – not all of us are architects, but all of us have a supporting role to play as practitioners, professionals and advocates.
The week kicked off with a global presentation broadcast from the Sydney studio, it was a fantastic introduction and welcome to our special guests Jason and Phaedra. They were able to deliver a global perspective on the current state of regenerative practice in architecture and define a clear vision for its future.
At the same time, they acknowledged the many challenges we currently struggle to overcome. Over the coming days, those challenges were faced and discussed head-on.
During these discussions, what came through most strongly was the profoundly personal nature of many of the challenges brought up.
We’ve been focusing on trying to mitigate our worst fears instead of doing a much simpler thing: focusing on the quality of life we want to bring about. When we’re focusing on life, and how we can participate with living systems to bring about new things, then we are focusing on regeneration.
Phaedra Spec
While external barriers to regenerative practices exist, from market demand and cost, to lagging political and regulatory response, none of these can be truly addressed without first breaking down our internal barriers. Only then can an individual, then collective, then cultural and political shift to a regenerative mindset occur.
A regenerative mindset acknowledges the interconnectedness of all elements in the natural world, understanding that the built environment is not separate from nature, but an integral part of it. It entails designing with a deep respect for ecological systems, aiming to leave a positive and lasting impact on the wellbeing of both people and the planet.
The intensive workshops provided a space to have “uncomfortable conversations” and explore barriers to the regenerative mindset, encouraging people to speak openly about their difficulties and concerns.
The focus then moved towards looking at practical tools for enabling this mindset shift, learning through examples with case studies like Seattle’s Bullit Center and in-depth discussions around some of our own projects. Through these workshops, our design teams were empowered with the knowledge, resources and confidence to ask questions, set targets and educate our colleagues, clients and industry peers that it is always possible to do better.
Each of us is on our own journey towards the regenerative mindset. As much as REgen Week was created to help accelerate these journeys, it was also a reminder that meaningful change can be achieved if we set our targets to what we want to bring about, not just what we currently know how to do.
We now have a better understanding of the implication of our current commitments and what we must do to deliver them.
As a collective, we’ve committed to acting on projects, measuring targets and refining our goals moving forward. Finally, our time with Jason and Phaedra has reinforced the importance of identifying champions who can not only advocate for, but deliver on our ambition for net-positive impacts across the entirety of our work.
