APPROACH

Although experienced in regenerative development, we don’t position ourselves as experts. The fresh eyes and open-mind of the beginner are essential ingredients for systems innovation and staying sensitive to each client’s unique needs and new contexts. Here are a few strategies that frame how we generally approach things:

Develop the Brief, then question it — great design is the imaginative and thoughtful application of resources toward strategic and meaningful ends. Sometimes a new thing is not the most resourceful way of achieving desired outcomes. A close examination of the facts can reveal the wisest and most cost and time effective pathways to fruition.

Adaptive Reuse — save an existing building from demolition and make it beautiful once more. Not only do you postpone landfill waste, you maintain cultural memory, help build a sense of place, amortize the original embodied impact of the building over a longer time period, and get charm and character that can only be made by the passage of history.

Closed Loop — all products have a lifecycle, starting with the raw material and ending (or hopefully having a new life) when the building gets demolished. We use natural products that are grown and can compost where possible. We love the way antique and vintage mid-century furniture looks in contemporary, clean and well proportioned spaces.

Zero Waste — intelligently designed structures use less resources and are faster to build, saving time and money. If there are offcuts or leftovers, they should be able to be composted, used for something else or recycled.

Short Supply Chains— in general, short supply chains mean lower environmental impact, but they also mean supporting local businesses and economies. Short supply chains can de-risk a project by removing chances for things to go wrong, whether that’s in the production line, due to global geopolitics or hold-ups at the wharf. Ideally, everything comes from within 10km of where it is used.

Procurement— much ink is spilled on this topic, but suffice it to say that finding the most suitable procurement method, contract and assembling the right team for the job is critical to regenerative outcomes. Each project deserves its own criteria for this, as each project and client is unique.

Toxin-free — between sleep, leisure, work and school, we spend around 2/3rds of our time in indoor environments. Why not build them in ways that makes us healthier rather than slowly poisons us? We build spaces that actually filter pollutants and toxins from the air.

Productive, Living Buildings — energy generation, battery storage, rainwater capture and storage and productive green roofs not only benefit the environment, reduce your utility bills and increase your family or organisation’s resilience, but they can produce surplus resources that can contribute to a virtuous cycle of uplift.

Beyond net-zero — building with organic fibres that are grown, like straw, industrial hemp and bamboo, can not only create toxin-free indoor environments that smell great but can also mitigate global warming by capturing and storing carbon dioxide in long term building products. As alternatives to timber, they can also help slow deforestation.

Design Science — this empirical approach to design, focussing more on how things perform than how they conform to an in-house style, allows us to be proactive about addressing the problems inherent in business-as-usual practice. We are constantly seeking new materials, processes and people to achieve the highest quality and regenerative impact.