“Regenerative design is a framework…and architecture is just a single part of it.” - AIA Blueprint for Better program
“Often in architecture school, you’re trained to just ‘do’ the building, separate from the broader social context,” says Ann Kosmal, FAIA, an architect who works in regenerative design in Washington, D.C. “By contrast, regenerative design is a framework for thinking about resilience in a community, and architecture is just a single part of that.”
Simply put, regenerative design is a process-oriented whole systems approach that restores, renews, or revitalizes its own sources of energy and materials. Whereas the practice of sustainable design creates buildings and developments that use only what they need and no more, regenerative design takes into account that even using only what we need will eventually deplete our natural resources. The challenge becomes what HMC Architects in Northern California, leading designers in the institutional space, of which church facilities are a part, describes on its website as designing a means of living that allows communities to use the resources they need, and then actually restore those resources.
Image: BKSK Architects
An example of sustainable design in action, Community of the Holy Spirit in New York, New York and its St. Hilda's House won an American Institute of Architects (AIA) IFRAA Religious Architecture Merit Award in 2012.
So while the goal of sustainable design is the maintenance of systems without degrading them, regenerative design seeks to get in front of the process altogether—and to renew the resources that it takes to build and operate a building in the first place.
For architects and designers, regenerative design is a call to action. "We can design buildings that provide resource-efficient and beautiful learning and working spaces," states Eera Babtiwale, LEED AP, BD+C, associate principal and vice president of sustainability for HMC, on the company's website. "The hope is that these spaces will teach and inspire ... users to think beyond sustaining and to reach for a future that is about regenerating."
According to HMC's website, these are four elements of regenerative design that architects can, and are beginning to, put into play as they design institutional spaces:
1-green roofs and skins
While green roofs have been around for quite some time, the idea of green skins joins the concept, making it possible for buildings to actually clean the ambient air and sequester carbon.
2-capturing rainwater
This practice, too, is seen throughout sustainably designed buildings and churches, but regenerative design takes the concept a step further. The storage of storm water becomes a tool to replenish the underground aquifer.
3-energy consumption and production
Buildings can be designed to both use less energy and to produce and store energy on site, so that there is less or no reliance on the utility grid. Energy stored on site through microgrids can then be used by the building during night hours.
4-thermal-efficient construction
The whole building envelope is used to create a structure that's more energy efficient and that reduces its mechanical load. The use of curtain walls as a thermal barrier between interior and exterior walls is one example.
